USA: engagement between shareholders and corporations

Institutional Shareholder Services and the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute have published the results of research surveying engagement between shareholders and corporations: see here (pdf). To quote from the executive summary:

The study reveals both consensus and dissonance. There is broad consensus that engagement between issuers and investors is common and increasing both in terms of frequency and subject areas; that engagement is expanding beyond financial and strategic issues and "traditional" governance topics to include more environmental and social issues; that issues related to executive compensation remain atop the agenda; and that engagement is evolving as increasingly sophisticated investors demand more detailed information on all of these topics. Yet engagement also means different things to different people: while some use the term to refer to a campaign to persuade a company to change its behavior, others (particularly issuers themselves) classify routine conversations with investors about financial results as engagement as well. The study also reveals some distinct differences between investors and issuers in terms of the time frame of engagements and the definition of a successful engagement".