Such votes are usually symbolic, but they are a way for shareholders to register discontent.
Ms. Tsai faces the delicate task of registering discontent with Beijing while also sending a message that Taiwan will exercise restraint.
It is estimated that somewhere around a third of independent, non-Murdoch shareholders, will not support his re-election to the board as investors register discontent over the phone-hacking affair.
According to research by Phillip Leslie and Larry Chavis at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, boycotts can register discontent and, when aimed at a particular industry, have a real impact.
In June, many stockholders of this country's largest public corporation, Wal-Mart Stores publicly registered strong discontent with its policies.
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has registered its discontent with that movie, in a creative protest that involves covering up Shakespeare's name on signs and pubs in Warwickshire County, where the so-called Shakespeare was supposedly born.
"While we all applaud the valor and courage of Humayun Khan, and admire his sense of duty in enlisting in the army, I do not believe that those Americans, Muslims and otherwise, who vocally registered their discontent with the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the monumental loss of life that followed, as somehow being any less patriotic than those who enlisted to fight in it," Qadhi said.
The Canadians – fans of something called "the Vancouver Canucks" – registered their discontent at not winning a game of hockey by burning everything they could see and jumping up and down on anything they couldn't successfully set fire to.
They've registered their discontent in tweets, blog posts, talk-radio call-in shows and in some of the more melodramatic instances, by burning their voter cards, making a symbolic break from a political party they say they no longer recognize.
The company's restive shareholders, who have repeatedly registered their discontent with the Murdoch family's running of the company in recent years, would likely rejoice at the chance to funnel all of their money into the relatively scandal-free and financially stable parts of the business.
