Shareholders’ engagement and corporate performance

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Abstract

An investor relations function fosters continuous and direct communication between executives and stakeholders (Chapman et al., 2022). However, this function does not attract sufficient attention from the researchers, and not much literature documenting and evidence of the importance of developing strong relationships between firms with both shareholders and other stakeholders, which can lead to long-term partnership, increased loyalty, and hence, better operations carried out by the business entities. In light of this, the objective of this study is to investigate the connection between the level of engagement of shareholders and the profitability of corporations. This study uses content analysis on the financial statements of the 442 largest publicly listed companies in Malaysia by market value to examine the investor relations practices. This study finds that the proactive engagement with shareholders had a significant positive relationship with corporate performance. No significant relationship was found between general meetings with corporate performance. This study provides further evidence on the importance of a good governance process via the inclusivity of shareholders and stakeholders in certain corporate exercises and activities (Lu et al., 2023). Specifically, this study emphasises the advantages of ongoing shareholder engagement for the company’s performance. Consequently, the corporation must enhance its initiatives to foster an active discussion with various groups of shareholders and stakeholders.

Keywords: Transparency, Shareholders, General Meeting, Stakeholders, Corporate Governance, Corporate Disclosure

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — A.S.A.P.S. and Z.I.; Methodology — A.S.A.P.S., Z.I., and M.S.; Formal Analysis — A.S.A.P.S., Z.I., and M.S.; Investigation — A.S.A.P.S.; Data Curation — A.S.A.P.S.; Writing — Original Draft — A.S.A.P.S.; Writing — Review & Editing — Z.I. and M.S.; Visualization — A.S.A.P.S. and Z.I.; Supervision — Z.I. and M.S.; Project Administration — A.S.A.P.S.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: G3, M12, M14, M40, M48

Received: 27.02.2025
Revised: 19.06.2025; 10.07.2025
Accepted: 18.07.2025
Published online: 22.07.2025

How to cite this paper: Salin, A. S. A. P., Ismail, Z., & Smith, M. (2025). Shareholders’ engagement and corporate performance. Business Performance Review, 3(1), 70–79. https://doi.org/10.22495/bprv3i1p7