City Research Online

Abstract

Shareholders are entitled to participate in corporate decision-making and internal governance when it comes to determining corporate leadership and fundamental corporate changes. Accordingly, any discourse on corporate social responsibility (CSR) without a serious discussion of shareholders' role will be incomplete at best and misleading at worst. This article is one of the first articles contributing to the CSR literature by critically examining shareholder voting in CSR activities, a subject that has not received the attention it deserves. This article finds that when shareholders vote against CSR, there will be significant difficulties for companies to engage in CSR activities due to the shareholder control; while on the other hand, when shareholders support CSR, other problems arise in view of the rationale behind shareholder voting in modern corporations, which are reliant on capital markets. The fundamental incompatibility of shareholder control and CSR engagement exhibited in this article can serve as a new premise for future studies aiming for a more workable CSR framework.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Hong Kong Law Journal following peer review. The definitive published version Yan, M. (2020). Shareholder Control in the Context of Corporate Social Responsibility—A Fundamental Challenge to Modern Corporations. Hong Kong Law Journal, 50(3), pp. 1057-1079 is available online on Westlaw UK.
Subjects:	K Law > K Law (General)
Departments:	The City Law School The City Law School > Academic Programmes
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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