'Battling the Board' Book Cover

Battling the Board

Shareholder Activism, Sustainability, and Social Movements in Australia
Ainsley Elbra
Hardcover ISBN: 9781503646162

The boards and management of listed companies are under increasing pressure from investors to address urgent environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. These include concerns over their companies' contributions to climate change, protection of First Nations people's cultural heritage, elimination of modern slavery, and workers' rights more broadly. In the case of Australia, the country's economic reliance on mineral extraction places questions of environmental harm and reckoning with the rights of the country's Indigenous population at the forefront of corporate governance. Yet, unlike in comparable liberal market economies, ESG shareholder activism is a relatively new phenomenon in Australia. It is this puzzle—the drivers of the sudden emergence of ESG shareholder activism in a financial-legal system designed to stymy investor voice—that motivates this book. Ainsley Elbra identifies significant governance gaps between societal expectations and corporate behavior. Integrating social movement theory and corporate governance frameworks, Elbra demonstrates the potential of market-based activism to drive change within corporations and industries. She warns, however, that successful social movements can be undermined by government intervention. Battling the Board makes an important contribution to the understanding of how shareholder activists leverage corporate governance mechanisms to shape political economic outcomes that have direct consequences for sustainability and climate change.

"Battling the Board is a major contribution to understanding shareholder activism. Taking account of the politics of corporate governance, economic interests and pressures, and the complexities of law, Ainsley Elbra provides much-needed insight into how shareholders can motivate corporate executives to take action in the absence of government regulation. A thought-provoking and globally relevant book."
—Benedict Sheehy, University of Canberra

"InBattling the Board, Ainsley Elbra offers a clear-eyed account of how shareholder activism works in practice. Elbra expertly fuses theories on social movements and private authority to provide a timely, incisive investigation of how firms are pressed on climate and First Nations issues, and how corporate politics really unfolds."—Leonard Seabrooke, Copenhagen Business School

"The struggle for a more sustainable and just society takes place in many places. Ainsley Elbra shows how corporate boardrooms are one such critically important space. Based on extensive research and incisive analysis, Battling the Board provides a pathbreaking study of shareholder activism in Australia in defense of the rights of Aboriginal communities and the environment."
—Peter Newell, University of Sussex

Ainsley Elbra is an Associate Professor in International Political Economy, University of Sydney. She is the author of Governing African Gold Mining (2017).