The most common socio-political issues for IROs to receive questions on from investors is environmental attitudes, with more than half of IROs having received such questions in the past five years. The next most common issues to be discussed are employment rights, occupation of territories and women’s rights. General democratic and LGBTQ+ rights are the least common issues to be discussed with investors.
IROs at European companies are the most likely to have received questions on all issues except racial and ethnic discrimination and general democratic rights, with North American IROs more likely to receive questions from investors on racial and ethnic discrimination, and Asian IROs more likely to discuss general democratic rights with investors. Territorial issues and racial or ethnic discrimination appear less of a concern to investors in Asian companies than is the global norm.
Generally, IR teams at larger companies are asked about socio-political issues by their investors more than those at smaller companies. This is most extreme with the issue of racial or ethnic discrimination, with only 4 percent of small-cap IROs having been asked about this in the past five years, compared with just under a third of mega-cap IROs.
