Final answer:
Stockholders own corporations but indirectly manage them through a board of directors, with oversight provided by the principles of corporate governance.
Step-by-step explanation:
Stockholders own corporations, but they indirectly manage them through a board of directors. In a public company, the shareholders are a large and diverse group that can consist of thousands to millions of financial investors.
They exercise their ownership by voting for a board of directors, who are responsible for making high-level decisions and appointing the company's top executives to manage daily operations. This system of oversight and control in a public company is known as corporate governance.