Principals and stewards? An exploration of the role of institutional investors in corporate governance

The role of institutional investors in corporate governance has significantly increased. Many agency theory scholars have even praised the monitoring influence they have or could have on corporations and executive managers. Yet, recently, there have been repeated calls in favour of investor " stewardship ". Drawing on a multidisciplinary review and on legal and regulatory materials, this article proposes an exploration of the concept of institutional investor stewardship. We provide a genealogical analysis of institutional investor stewardship that suggests that shareholder stewardship proceeds from the disparity between usual theoretical representations of shareholders and the rising influence of institutional ownership. We make two contributions. First, we contribute to the debate surrounding the role of institutional investors with an analysis of the emergence of renewed standards for institutional investors. Second, we contribute by clarifying the specific representation of shareholders, which was implied in traditional corporate governance models.