Determinants of Corporate Voting – Evidence from a Large Survey of German Retail Investors

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Although corporate voting is a vital instrument of corporate governance, research on the determinants of voting turnout at an individual level is still scarce. This paper sheds first light on corporate voting from the individual investors’ perspective by analyzing a large and unique data set collected from a survey among almost 425,000 German retail investors of a German blue-chip company. The results of this case study provide unprecedented insights into potential factors influencing private shareholders’ decision to cast their votes in corporate elections. Drawing on the traditional rational choice model and the resource model of political voting, my findings indicate that particularly investors with better resources, i. e., particularly well-educated or rather sophisticated and more experienced retail investors, are more likely to use their corporate voting right. Overall, the results may offer new implications for explaining the voting turnout in German publicly listed companies.