What is corporate activism?
If you have been following the media lately, it’s likely that you have come across corporate activism in some form. Maybe you have seen companies take a stand on #BlackLivesMatter, #Pride, or #MeToo — some perhaps more convincingly than others. Maybe you’ve come across campaigns such as Nike’s “Dream Crazy” featuring Colin Kaepernick, the NFL star who became famous for kneeling to protest police violence and racism. Perhaps you’ve heard CEOs of well-known companies publicly state their views on gun control, sexual minority rights, or immigration policy. Or maybe you know some companies or brands that have become well-known for their persistent actions to advocate societal or environmental issues, such as Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia, and Oatly.
All of the examples above are instances of corporate activism, where business actors take a stand on issues that are often debated and controversial. By engaging in activism, business actors are “picking their side” in the public debate — even when the issue can seem far away from the actual business. But what really counts as corporate activism, how do we define the phenomenon, why does it matter — and what should you keep an eye on?
The characteristics of corporate activism
If we look at the phenomenon of corporate activism broadly, it encompasses the activities of both individual actors (mostly CEOs or other top executives) and organizational actors (brands or entire companies). Hence, in addition to corporate activism, you might have heard of CEO activism or brand activism, which are more focused terms under the overall umbrella. While the level of agency and the actor are not irrelevant (see, for example, study by Chatterji & Toffel, 2019), we can find some similar traits that apply to the whole phenomenon regardless of the actor. To summarize, corporate activism is:
* stance taking for or against debated socio-political issues
* deliberately public — meant to be seen and heard
* action that generates (strong) reactions for and against
* connected to broader discussions about the role of business in society
What is worth noticing is that while companies have used their political power also before, corporate activism is not about causes that benefit the company’s own agenda (the usual focus of corporate lobbying), nor is it about the immediate impacts of doing business (the usual focus of corporate social responsibility).
In practice, corporate activism can mean different kinds of acts, such as making public statements; initiating, signing, or filing official petitions (independently or together with others); running campaigns; or dedicating the whole company/brand to an activist cause. As not only the actor but the activities can vary, it’s perhaps no surprise that corporate activism has attracted the attention of different fields, such as strategic management, marketing, corporate communications — as well as the broad interdisciplinary areas of corporate social responsibility and business in society.
Why corporate activism matters (or does it)?
When and how corporate activism ”works” and what are its implications have been some of the immediate interests of researchers. First insight suggest that corporate activism can positively influence purchase intentions (study by Dodd & Supa, 2014), attract talent (study by Voegtlin, Crane & Noval, 2019), and shape the public opinion similarly to statements made by politicians (study by Chatterji & Toffel, 2019). As such, corporate activism can have impacts both inside and outside the companies that are doing it.
But what drives companies to take a stand? One reason is that corporate activism has become regularly mentioned in trend analyses that map what companies are expected to do. For example, when asked if CEOs should publicly speak out about societal challenges, a global total of 86% agree. Trend analyses have also been stressing that especially the younger generations demand more from companies. One of the top expectations of Millennials is that companies should “improve society” — yet only 16% think that business is actually achieving this.
However, the expectation to act or take a stand is not the same for all kinds of companies, as corporate activism can also raise skepticism of “wokewashing” (study by Vredenburg, Kapitan, Spry & Kemper, 2020), especially if the company has no history of taking a values-based approach to business (study by Korschun, Rafieian, Aggarwal & Swain, 2019). As such, there is no guarantee that corporate activism works out as planned. Companies can ruin their chances to be taken seriously by mixing activism with promotion of own products (remember Pepsi?), but the trajectory of events can be surprising also when companies are out with more genuine intentions (see an analysis by Sabadoz & Singer about Starbucks’ “Race Together”). As it is, the answers to corporate activism’s implications and impact are, perhaps at best, still close to “it depends”. Consequently, we are far from any playbook that could provide simple steps to follow.
What does the future hold for corporate activism?
Corporate activism is not showing signs of dimming down, not even amidst a global pandemic when many companies are put under major strain. The COVID crisis, in fact, has become one of topics addressed by companies and their CEOs — not least because issues such as wearing masks and getting vaccinated have become polarized and politicized. As examples of company involvement in COVID-debates, Chiquita removed Miss Chiquita from their famous logo as she was “social distancing at home”, and an iconic Finnish bread brand had its mascot, “the Traveling Man” masked up.
As we move on to study the full spectrum of corporate activism — the actors, the issues, the implications, and the processes — we can expect to generate a more complete picture of the phenomenon. We will gain more nuanced insight not only into when corporate activism works and which companies should or could engage in it, but what it means for companies’ role in society. We will also learn from different cultural contexts, as activism and how it is perceived and assessed can vary greatly across different traditions. For example, in the Nordics corporate activism is a somewhat surprising turn away from traditionally consensus-oriented CSR, as corporate activism rarely aims to please the widest possible audience. The different cultural contexts make it also interesting to see what it takes to maintain corporate activism, as individual instances turn to recurring practices.
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My research project “Activist CSR” (Activist theory of corporate social responsibility: Reframing the political role of business in society), at LUT School of Business and Management is funded by the Academy of Finland, and focuses on studying corporate activism in the Nordics.
As some of its central questions, the project digs into how wide a phenomenon corporate activism is in the Nordics (which companies are doing it and related to what), how companies are “being” activists, and how companies succeed or fail to build support for their stances. Follow the progress on Medium and on Twitter @lauraolkkonen and @goreansky.
Are you looking for more to read on corporate/CEO/brand activism? Here are some suggestions:
CEOs who take a political stand are seen as a bonus by job applicants (Crane, Voegtlin & Noval, The Marketing Journal, 2019)
The New CEO Activists: A playbook for polarized political times (Chatterji & Toffel, Harvard Business Review, 2018)
Companies Can’t Avoid Politics — and Shouldn’t Try To (Korschun & Smith, Harvard Business Review, 2018)
CEO Sociopolitical Activism: A Stakeholder Alignment Model (Hambrick & Wowak, Academy of Management Review, 2021)
Brands Taking a Stand: Authentic Brand Activism or Woke Washing? (Vredenburg, Kapitan, Spry & Kemper, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 2020)
The Morality of “new” CEO Activism (Branicki, Brammer, Pullen & Rhodes, Journal of Business Ethics, 2020)
Assessing the Impact of CEO Activism (Chatterji & Toffel, Organization & Environment, 2019)
