Shareholder advocacy and the development of the corporation: The timeless dilemmas of an age-old solution

Executives lining their own pockets! Corporate directors profiting from insider dealing! Cozy arrangements between business and government being exploited to eliminate competition! Shareholder lawsuits filed in protest-and counteraccusations that the agitators are simply promoting a nefarious short-selling scheme! Sounds like yet another sordid chapter in the financial crisis that gripped the world for two years. In fact, it is a 400-year-old story demonstrating that problems of corporate malfeasance are as old as the corporation itself. And, more specifically, it is a story that highlights the complex issues surrounding the active participation of shareholders in the governance of corporations.