The Operational Landscape for Stewardship: Survey Findings

In March 2026, Glass Lewis published its first Investment Stewardship Survey Report.¹ The report provides a lens into the strategies, priorities, and practical challenges facing institutional investors today. Based on the survey findings, a previous article examined the strategic landscape for investment stewardship.² This article sheds light on the operational aspects of stewardship, including its administration, technology adoption, integrations with proxy voting and engagement, and team size.

Stewardship Administrative Work Grows With Size

The time spent on stewardship administrative tasks is generally modest, with over 70% of respondents reporting under 20 hours per month (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Respondents’ Time Spent on Stewardship Administration

_{Source: The 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report.}

Given the operational demands of managing stewardship across portfolios, it is not surprising to see how larger organizations — in terms of assets under management (AuM), stewardship or investment team sizes — generally report more time spent on this.

In terms of actual tasks, admin time is most heavily concentrated on prioritization and target research, followed by tracking engagement activities and objectives. Analysis and reporting also represent a meaningful share (Table 1).

Table 1. Respondents’ Ranking of Time Spent on Stewardship Administrative Tasks

_{Source: The 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report. *Notes: The mean rank column shows the average position each alternative received across respondents. A lower number means a higher preference. Comma denotes decimal sign.}

Investment approach influences administrative priorities. More concentrated investors focus relatively more effort on research, while diversification requires greater attention to analysis and reporting (Table 2).

Table 2. Respondents’ Ranking of Time Spent Between Research and Reporting by Investment Approach

‍_{Source: The 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report. Note: Comma denotes decimal sign under the Concentrated and Broadly diversified columns.}

Overall, the findings suggest that stewardship admin is driven by central aspects of the engagement process, coordination and compliance.

Barriers to Tech Adoption: Cost Blocks Entry, Integration Blocks Scale

Engagement tracking and management is most commonly handled either through spreadsheets and Office-like tools (49%), platforms such as in-house builds, RMS or CRMs (34%) or through specialized engagement tracking software (24%).

Asset owners are more likely to rely on general-purpose tools, indicating a preference for flexibility and probably also reflective of the less mature use case of external manager engagement and monitoring. Furthermore, team sizes seem to influence the choice as well, where smaller teams (both stewardship and investment teams) are also more likely to use such tools (Figure 2). 

Figure 2. Respondents’ Use of Office-Like Tools for Stewardship Tasks by Team Size

_{Source: The 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report.}

Main Barriers to Adopting Purpose-Built Stewardship Technology

As seen in Figure 3, the primary reasons for not using stewardship-specific solutions center on cost considerations (63%), challenges integrating new tools with existing systems (29%), and the view that current tools are sufficient (27%). A couple of respondents also commented, noting a focus on content, not on tools, and a lack of customization in analytics, reporting and engagement oversight capabilities.

Figure 3. Summary of Respondents’ Main Barriers to Adopting Stewardship-Specific Solutions

_{Source: The 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report.}

Given the primacy of cost considerations and how respondents with larger stewardship and investment teams place greater emphasis on integration issues, it points to:

1. Simpler and more straightforward processes and coordination for smaller investors, where the advantages of purpose-built tools are less apparent.
2. How scale and complexity support the adoption of stewardship infrastructure, which can lead to a different challenge of integrating it within the existing systems architecture.

Overall, the findings suggest that while there is interest in more specialized stewardship technology, practical constraints — particularly around budget and system compatibility — continue to shape adoption decisions among respondents.

Integrating Voting and Engagement for More Effective Stewardship

The vast majority of respondents reported that their voting and engagement are either integrated or somewhat integrated, supporting the trend of thoughtful alignment between the two levers, as part of the broader stewardship toolbox.

Nearly nine out of ten respondents (88%) report either full or partial integration (Figure 4). Respondents from investors with larger investment teams are somewhat more likely to demonstrate stronger alignment between these processes, possibly indicating a focus on data management and coordination practices as organizations scale.

Figure 4. Summary of Respondents’ State of Integration Between Proxy Voting and Engagement

_{Source: The 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report.}

Most respondents viewed the streamlining and integration of voting and engagement as a medium to high priority (76%), reflecting broad recognition of its importance to effective stewardship. Asset managers assign integration as a higher priority in comparison to asset owners, which may be a function of the investment chain perspective (Figure 5). Respondents with smaller investment teams assign it a lower priority, possibly indicating less complex workflows and/or organizational capacity for integration initiatives.

Figure 5. Respondents Views on Integrating Voting and Engagement: Asset Manager vs. Asset Owner and Both

_{Source: The 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report.}

Overall, as shown on Table 3 the findings indicate widespread acknowledgement of the importance of aligning these efforts across segments, with the caveat that given how engagement tracking is still often managed in general-purpose tools, opportunities remain to strengthen operational models.

Table 3. Respondents Views on Integrating Voting and Engagement

_{Source: The 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report.}

Lean Teams, Not Lean Ambitions: Why Stewardship Capacity Isn’t a Headcount Problem

When asked if they are looking to increase stewardship resources in the next 24 months, a clear majority indicated that current resourcing levels are adequate, while others signal openness to further investment (Figure 6).

Of those who are, respondents from smaller investors (based on AuM and team sizes) are more likely to do so if clients pay extra for it, possibly reflecting the margin pressure in asset management felt especially by smaller actors. 

Figure 6. Respondents Views on Securing Stewardship Resources in the Next 24 Months

_{Source: The 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report.}

Organizations where stewardship responsibility is shared with, or led by, investment teams are more likely to view existing resources as sufficient.

Some respondents also commented on the implications of AI. Aside from being listed as a prioritized engagement topic for some, investors are also looking to AI to improve operations and aspects of their own stewardship process.

Overall, the findings indicate that even with lean teams, most do not see more headcount as the answer — pointing back to how operational dynamics shape practices and how improvements can act as important capacity levers.

For more insights on the current state of investment stewardship, download the 2026 Glass Lewis Stewardship Survey Report.