Science Spotlight | From Collaboration to Impact—Collaborative Engagement and the Next Level of Stewardship

Stewardship is undergoing a significant transformation. While the question of whether investors actively engage in dialogue with companies has long been at the forefront, the focus is increasingly shifting to how effective this engagement actually is.
This development served as the starting point for the latest issue of Blickpunkt Wissenschaft, which discussed current research and practical perspectives on collaborative engagement and stewardship effectiveness. The discussion centered on the conditions for effective investor cooperation, empirical evidence on the impact of engagement, and new approaches to evaluating stewardship.

Collaborative Engagement: Between Openness and Incentive Issues

With the ECJ ruling and the subsequent adjustment of BaFin’s interpretation of “acting in concert,” the regulatory framework for collaborative engagement in Germany has changed significantly. The greater legal clarity could facilitate investor cooperation and thus provide new impetus for stewardship.

At the same time, it has become clear that regulatory relief alone is not enough. The key factor is how collaboration is organized.

In this context, Benjamin Ruppert describes a key area of tension: the “platform dilemma.” While large investors often invest considerable resources in coordinating engagement initiatives, all participating investors benefit from the results—regardless of their own contribution. The question of how leadership responsibilities and incentive structures can be designed sustainably within such platforms thus remains central to the future of collaborative engagement.

Impact in the Context of Complex Systems

Nikolaus Hastreiter’s second perspective addressed the question of the impact of engagement. Research on initiatives such as Climate Action 100+ shows that investor engagement can lead to changes in corporate strategies and practices. At the same time, it is difficult to clearly attribute these changes to individual actors.

Corporate behavior arises from the interplay of investors, management, market conditions, and regulatory and political frameworks. Particularly when it comes to systemic challenges such as climate change, it becomes clear that stewardship can only make a contribution within a broader transformation process.

This brings a more nuanced understanding of impact to the forefront: less as linear causality, and more as a contribution within a system.

Stewardship Effectiveness as a the Next Frontier

Against this backdrop, the question of how to measure and evaluate stewardship—raised by Christoph Biehl, PhD—is gaining importance. Traditional activity metrics are increasingly insufficient for capturing impact.

International initiatives such as the GPIF and the French Sustainable Investment Forum, as well as recent academic research, are therefore developing approaches that focus more strongly on outcomes, contributions, and long-term changes.

Essentially, the perspective is shifting from the question of what investors have done to the question of what difference their actions have made.

Key Findings

First: Regulatory clarity facilitates collaborative engagement, but does not automatically make it more effective.

Second: Stewardship does not operate in isolation, but rather within a system comprising companies, markets, and policymakers.

Third: The key question for the future is how stewardship can be not only documented but also evaluated in a way that makes its impact transparent.

Conclusion

Stewardship is undergoing a transition from an activity-oriented to an impact-oriented approach. In the future, what matters most will not be the extent of investors’ engagement, but rather the actual impact that engagement has in collaboration with other stakeholders.

This brings a fundamental question to the forefront:

How can investor stewardship be meaningfully understood, evaluated, and further developed in complex transformation processes?