Fidelity has urged investment companies to rethink their policies on executive remuneration and changed its own to adopt a more long-term approach.
In a letter to all investee companies, the firm said remuneration had become "too complex and insufficiently long term in perspective."
It believes remuneration policies should be subject to shareholder approval to ensure better alignment between owners and managers.
Dominic Rossi, global chief investment officer at Fidelity, said: "Whilst we believe the remuneration committee of the board has the primary responsibility for determining board pay we have come to the view that these policies should be subject to shareholder approval.
"This will ensure better alignment between the interest of owners and managers and critically will also reduce the temptation for external agencies to impose arbitrary limits on future pay practice."

The firm has changed its own Principles of Ownership scheme to require a guaranteed period of at least five years between the grant of a share award and the sale of these shares. This would apply regardless of whether the shares were subject to any performance hurdle.
A portion of shares should also be awarded in the form of 'career shares' which would have to be retained until the employee left the company.
Mr Rossi said: "We believe that it is in the interest of all parties to allay concerns about corporate pay which has become a major distraction for investors and boards alike.
"We have no objection to outstanding pay for outstanding performance but the interests of managers and owners need to be fully and transparently aligned and we hope that our revised guidelines are a step in this direction."