Investigating company focus and investor interest in nine identified stakeholder issues
Many discussions in recent business forums have centered around the notion of stakeholder capitalism, a reinvention of the pre-existing idea that businesses serve a variety of interests and communities and should not be solely driven by the maximization of shareholder value.
Rather than look at stakeholder capitalism in the abstract, this report examines the issues of stakeholder management in a more quantifiable manner. The report investigates the levels and development of both company focus and investor interest in nine identified stakeholder issues:
We examine how common it is to report on these issues and how company focus on them has changed over the past five years. We also look at the level of investor interest in these subjects and how this has also developed over the same period.
This report further investigates the impact these changes in stakeholder focus have had upon IR and how IROs view the relationship between stakeholder concerns and shareholder value. Additionally, we look at how Covid-19 has changed company focus on stakeholder issues.
The findings in this report are taken from IR Magazine’s Global IR Survey, conducted among IR professionals between Q1 and Q3 2021. Data in this report is broken down by geographical region and company size. The three regions reported on are North America, Europe and Asia. Companies referred to as ‘smaller’ companies in this report are small or mid-cap companies with a market capitalization below $5 bn, while those referred to as ‘larger’ companies are large or mega-cap companies with a market cap above $5 bn. Otherwise market caps are as follows:
Lloyd Bevan
Paul Crooke, Ariah Varcianna
Kathleen Hennessy
James Noden
