Can stockholders choose NOT to elect a board of directors?
Under Sarbanes–Oxley, no. There are specific responsibilities vested in the board members. Without a CEO and a CFO, the quarterly financial reports cannot be signed off. Many countries have similar responsibilities for board members, and by the same reasoning therefore a need for board members.
They can, at any time, unless it explicitly says otherwise in the bylaws, kick the CEO out for any reason.  In many cases, I believe his salary is dictated by the board of directors (elected by the shareholders iirc), as it couldn't be feasibly done so by anyone else, since they work for him (her). I don't think that you will be able to find a list of every owner for a given stock. There are probably very few people who would know this. One source would be whoever sends out the shareholder meeting mailers.  I suspect that the company itself would know this, the exchange to a lesser extent, and possibly the brokerage houses to a even lesser extent. Consider these resources: Whether or not you want to abstain or throw away the proxy, one reason it's important to at least read the circular is to find out if any of the proposals deal with increasing the company's common stock.  When this happens, it can dilute your shares and have an effect on your ownership percentage in the company and shareholder voting control. Shares often come associated with a set of rights, such as ability to vote in the outcome of the company. Some shares do not have this right, however. With your ability to vote in the outcome of the company, you could help dictate that the company paid dividends at a point in time. Or many other varieties of outcomes. Also, if there were any liquidity events due to demand of the shares, this is typically at a much higher price than the shares are now when the company is private/closely held. You can apply for a position with any company you like, whether or not you are a shareholder. However, owning shares in a company, even lots of shares in a company, does not entitle you to having them even look at your resume for any job, let alone the CEO position. You generally cannot buy your way into a job.  The hiring team, if they are doing their job correctly, will only hire you if you are qualified for the job, not based on what your investments are. Stockholders get a vote at the shareholders' meeting and a portion of the profits (dividend), and that's about it.  They usually don't even get a discount on products, let alone a job. Of course, if you own a significant percentage of the stock, you can influence the selections to the board of directors.  With enough friends on the board, you could theoretically get yourself in the CEO position that way. Alot of these answers have focused on the dilution aspect, but from a purely legal aspect, there are usually corporate bylaws that spell out what kind of vote and percentage of votes is needed to take this type of action.  If all other holders of stock voted to do this, so 90% for, and you didn't, so 10% against, it's still legal if that vote meets the threshold for taking the action. As an example of this, I known of a startup where employees got $0/share for their vested shares when the company was sold because the voting stock holders agreed to it.  Effectively the purchase amount was just enough to cover debts and preferred stock. Shareholders can [often] vote for management to pay dividends Shareholders are sticking around if they feel the company will be more valuable in the future, and if the company is a target for being bought out. Greater fool theory A company CAN hold on to money.  This is called retained earnings.  Not all money is due back to the owners (i.e. stockholders), but only the amount that the board of directors chooses to pay back in the form of dividends.  There is a lot more detail around this, but this is the simple answer to your question. It depends.  If you accept the offer, then your stock will cease existing.  If you reject the offer, then you will become a minority shareholder.  Depending on the circumstances, you could be in the case where it becomes illegal to trade your shares.  That can happen if the firm ceases to be a public company.  In that case, you would discount the cash flows of future dividends to determine worth because there would be no market for it. If the firm remained public and also was listed for trading, then you could sell your shares although the terms and conditions in the market would depend on how the controlling firm managed the original firm. I don't know about the liquidation. The capital doesn't evaporate, its source just becomes the corporation itself. The corporation becomes the sole shareholder and acts at the behest of the board. The board then decides both board matters and shareholder matters.  Once I talked that through, I realized no one would do this. If the board is in complete control, why clump the ownership together. The directors would be better served by clearly delineating their ownership interests by purchasing shares directly. If you don't have any voting rights then you don't have much say in the direction of the company.  Of course, if the majority of voting rights are held by 1 or 2 people/institutions then you probably don't have much say regardless. That said, 0.1% isn't a whole lot of a voice anyway. Converting the comment from @MD-Tech into answer How or where could I find info about publicly traded companies about how stock owner friendly their compensation schemes are for their board and officers? This should be available in the annual report, probably in a directors' remunerations section for most companies Shares are partial ownership of the company. A company can issue (not create) more of the shares it owns at any time, to anyone, at any price -- subject to antitrust and similar regulations. If they wanted to, for example, flat-out give 10% of their retained interest to charity, they could do so. It shouldn't substantially affect the stock's trading for others unless there's a completely irrational demand for shares. Yes and no. This really should be taught at junior school level in a capitalist country but that is a different argument. A company is influenced by its shareholders but not in the way you are hoping. This is the only area where a Company must behave democratically with one share one vote. If you own one share in a company (specifically a voting share), then you are entitled to attend an AGM where you will have a vote on issues presented by the board. You might have an opportunity to make a statement or ask a question at the AGM, but I wouldn't rely on it. You will not be able to influence the companies behavior beyond that unless you control enough shares to influence the board. Notice I said 'control' not 'own'. If you get other shareholders to agree to vote with you, then you effectively control their shares. Shareholders are there to get a return on their investment, so you must convince them that they will get a better return by agreeing with you then by following the board (that they put there!). Convince them that (for example) a trespass lawsuit will rob the company of more value then the profit to be made and they might agree to not trespass. Morals, ethics, justice etc., are human attributes and since most shareholders are other corporations not humans, they have no place in your arguments with one exception; Goodwill is a value that appears on a balance sheet and you might be able to use emotional arguments to show that there is a risk of a loss of goodwill from the proposed actions. You can make your argument stronger by generating media pressure on customers and suppliers of the company to make critical public comments. ...ok, you understand that the board of directors don't collect all of the profit from a company, and that shareholders can sell stock, right?   It his honestly confusing to me that you have a problem with shareholders being given ownership in a company that is spun off from the company that they own.