Page "Board of directors" Paragraph 35

Another feature of boards of directors in large public companies is that the board tends to have more de facto power.

Many shareholders grant proxies to the directors to vote their shares at general meetings and accept all recommendations of the board rather than try to get involved in management, since each shareholder's power, as well as interest and information is so small.

Larger institutional investors also grant the board proxies.

The large number of shareholders also makes it hard for them to organize.

However, there have been moves recently to try to increase shareholder activism among both institutional investors and individuals with small shareholdings.