Major shareholders of listed companies in Japan — often institutional investors such as financial firms — were long considered stable shareholders who rarely spoke out on the management and operations of these businesses. This has been changing in recent years, in particular regarding foreign investors who are taking bigger stakes in Japan's listed firms. For many Japanese firms, perhaps except those mired in scandal and financial trouble, annual shareholders' meetings, most of them held in June, used to be generally quiet and uneventful. But with the greater emphasis on improved governance and transparency in corporate management, top executives are starting to face sharp questions about their operations from shareholders.

Through their input, shareholders can help reform the management and operations of the companies they invest in. While shareholders may as a habit seek higher prices of their shares and greater dividends, it is also important for them to make proposals that will enhance long-term, healthy growth of the companies, instead of maximizing near-term benefits. Shareholders should also keep in mind that businesses only achieve sound growth after making serious efforts to respond to consumers' demands, and that consumers' interests should be as important as those of shareholders.

In March last year, the annual shareholders' meeting of furniture retailer Otsuka Kagu Ltd. drew heightened media coverage due to the culmination of a rare feud within the firm's founding family — between the founder and chairman, Katsuhisa Otsuka, and his daughter and the firm's president, Kumiko Otsuka — over sales policy. Behind the daughter's survival of that meeting was the weight of votes by institutional investors such as insurance companies and pension funds that made clear their support for the president's proposals.