Abstract
Research paper. Shareholder voting has been argued to be of little value since it generally does not compel management to respond to the message sent by voters. We show that large voting support for a proposal is effective even if management refuses to implement demanded changes. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that management’s failure to comply triggers campaigns against unresponsive boards by shareholder organizations, causing notably more votes against incumbent CEOs and directors subsequently. This defiance is valued positively by the market. However, there is also some evidence of collateral damage as those shareholder campaigns lead valuable CEOs to leave more often.