In a democracy, with rights come responsibilities. Let’s pay some mind to what should be required of the dissident shareholder class.
Few would deny that most if not all institutions in a democratic society should reflect the tenets of democracy. Therefore we might conclude that a corporate entity in the public domain should be held to those same standards.
Being a representative democracy, when the question is, “Should shareholders have access to their representatives, the board members?” it is obvious what our position should be: Let there be complete access. A simple construct of the issue, and I deduce a simple answer. But as we know, it is not that simple.
My experience in boardrooms is that shareholder requests are taken seriously but, admittedly, some more seriously than others.
Most boards know there are different motives for shareholder requests, depending upon the source of the proposal. Not all motives are obvious. There may be a request to have the company place on the proxy a resolution to annually inspect offshore factories for labor issues.
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