Research

Abstract: We explain how a firm’s relational strategies impact conflict risk in the broader network of societal relations. To make this contribution, we highlight how managerial decisions are evaluated, and acted on, not only by the firm’s stakeholders, but also by others attentive to their group’s access to, and control over, economic, political, and social assets in comparison to other groups with whom they are in conflict. We show that when firm actions that form or break ties in its stakeholder network inhibit the ability of groups to reach mutually acceptable settlements on the relative distribution of the costs and benefits from firm operations, conflict risk in the broader societal network increases. We thereby emphasize that managerial decisions in the normal course of business can impact conflict risk, even if unintentionally, by changing the structure of relationships between groups in conflict-affected areas. 

Abstract: Many of society’s grand challenges strongly implicate an “us” and a “them”—not only through the differential impact of issues such as violence, inequality, globalization, climate change, and immigration on different social groups, but also through society’s decreasing capacity to build sufficient consensus for practical progress on these issues across racial, ethnic, economic, geographic, and other demographic divides. Managers may treat their engagement on such broader societal issues as a matter of choice, whether motivated by a sense of obligation or by more pragmatic considerations as reputation- or regulation-sensitive businesses. We argue rather that businesses inevitably have an impact on societal challenges in divided societies—whether positively or negatively, intentionally or not—through the dual mechanisms of rents and relationships. Particularly at the local level, firms may have important direct impacts on the unequal distribution of the benefits, costs, and risks of firm activities to different groups, and thus on conflict risk. Firms, through their relational strategies, also shape the willingness and ability of different groups to work together for positive change both locally and at the broader societal level. Thus, firm behaviors emerging from their daily operations have a discernable effect on society’s capacity to address its grand challenges, necessitating corporate activism that encompasses market and non-market strategies, as well as an understanding of the strategy-setting process itself.

Abstract: This study examines how corporate political influence in developed democracies is more likely to occur where visibility is lower, both in terms of the actors involved and of the points of influence in allocation processes. Using novel data on politically exposed persons across 28 European countries (2011-2017), I distinguish between elected and unelected political agents in shaping public procurement outcomes. Unelected agents, particularly aides, advisors, and administrative staff, exert stronger influence than elected politicians, who primarily steer upstream processes that offer political cover in uncompetitive bidding situations. In contrast, unelected agents affect both competitive and uncompetitive cases, underscoring the role of political (in)visibility in public resource allocation. This study deepens our understanding of the heterogeneity of corporate political connections and their impact on public-private exchange.

Abstract: Stakeholders, including consumers, employees, and community members, increasingly expect consistency between a firm’s stated values and its actions. A significant disparity between these values and actions can trigger backlash from stakeholders who perceive this misalignment as greenwashing or wokewashing. Many firms now espouse a commitment to environmental or social sustainability, but there is little empirical evidence as to whether such discourse materially alters their political strategies and advocacy. This study examines the alignment between firms’ discourse on environmental and social sustainability and their political lobbying on sustainability issues. Our research circumvents empirical constraints in observing the directionality of lobbying activities by focusing on five U.S. states that require firms to disclose their lobbying stances. On average, we uncover a lack of significant correlation between firms’ discourse (i.e., talk) and their lobbying (i.e., walk) on sustainability. However, governance policies mandating board oversight and transparency of political activities significantly enhance alignment between talk and walk. In addition, we find that stronger corporate governance of political activities sharpens a lobbying firm’s focus on bills that are material to the business and enhances alignment between stated sustainability values and lobbying positions on those material issues. These results highlight the importance of the coordinated governance and transparency of corporate political activity for stakeholder relations and accountable capitalism.

Abstract: As firms increasingly grapple with grand challenges, their ability to assess the landscape of societal issues and proactively engage with relevant stakeholders is of increasing strategic and social importance. In the presence of interdependent and pressing issues, each championed by diverse stakeholders, firms need to make difficult strategic choices. They must choose not only the issues with which they should engage but also how that engagement might vary across contexts and time. Issues management has long been identified as a critical information and management system guiding both strategic and stakeholder management. However, prior scholarship on issue identification and response has largely relied on ethnography and surveys, limiting our ability to assess the performance impact of issues management across firms and contexts. In this paper, we more precisely define the construct of issues management capability with a focus on empirically observable patterns of variation and outcomes. We apply a new data science tool based on 50 terabytes of media data that allows us to capture how 2,256 multinational corporations manage issues related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals across 137 countries over nine years. We demonstrate that variation in issues management capability is associated with differences in country-specific stakeholder sentiment and examine organizational factors that help explain this variation. By linking an empirically grounded capability to observable stakeholder outcomes at scale, this work contributes to research on dynamic capabilities, stakeholder management, and organizational responsiveness with a scalable and comparative framework for analyzing firm engagement with societal issues.

Abstract: Prior research on social movements has emphasized firm characteristics, such as reputation and social responsibility, that make firms attractive targets for activists. In this paper, we show how activist characteristics and framing strategies shape the attractiveness of a corporate target to others. We posit that an activist’s visibility, post-targeting increases in that visibility, and the framing of claims against a firm with topics trending in public discourse drive further mobilization against the same target. In casting the firm as an antagonist in resonant storylines, a highly visible activist attracts others to follow. Evidence from the anti-ESG movement (2019-2023) supports our arguments. We observe that, rather than a bottom-up, grassroots movement, anti-ESG activism is heavily populated by political elites who may be seeking to enhance their own visibility through their attacks. While firm characteristics predict initial target selection, subsequent targeting against a firm is associated with the prior activist’s visibility, post-targeting visibility gains, and whether the target’s ESG practices are linked to trending societal topics. These dynamics are strongest among government officeholders, whose attacks intensify before elections. Our findings highlight how activist visibility and framing shape the persistence of contentious targeting in the social production of corporate targets.

Abstract: This paper examines counterproductive social activism (CSA) in the context of sociopolitical polarization. Transcending the conventional symbolic-versus-substantive dichotomy of organizational responses, we theorize how activism targeting organizations can generate counterproductive results. We draw from two theoretical perspectives: voice and exit as mechanisms of activism and polarization as a key sociopolitical process shaping organizational outcomes. We conceptualize two forms of polarization: proportional polarization, where the societal center diminishes without increased extremism, and positional polarization, where the proportions of ideological camps remain fixed as extremism intensifies. We then theorize—illustrated with a simple model—how these two types of polarization differently condition the efficacy of voice and exit. By demonstrating how activist strategies interact with polarization dynamics, we offer a framework for understanding when activism succeeds or fails in driving organizational change in an increasingly polarized world, contributing to research on social activism and stakeholder mobilization.

Abstract: Multinational enterprises (MNEs) face challenges in balancing climate action with supply chain resilience. While strategies such as redundancy and geographic diversification enhance resilience, they can also undermine sustainability by increasing inefficiencies. We propose that to navigate this tension, firms must develop dynamic capabilities to address location-specific environmental opportunities and risks by embedding sustainability expertise within the local regions where a firm’s supply chain operates. To test this hypothesis, we analyze 2,320 MNEs with data on global supplier networks, hiring patterns, and firm-level greenhouse gas emissions. While supply chain complexity has increased over the past decade, we observe no direct association, on average, between this complexity and emissions intensity. However, we find that firms that align their supply chain expansion with a greater dispersion of sustainability-focused human capital achieve significantly lower direct and indirect emissions intensity. This effect is driven by firms headquartered in, and sourcing from, countries with the most stringent climate policies, highlighting the role of regulatory frameworks in complementing corporate sustainability efforts. Our findings demonstrate that the integration of sustainability expertise across global operations can help to align resilience with environmental performance, underscoring the importance of localized knowledge and on-the-ground implementation in advancing sustainable outcomes.

Abstract: We examine how firms enter countries with high conflict risk. We develop new measures of within-country intergroup conflict risk derived from global media articles (2003-2020), and we find that although globally experienced firms avoid unfamiliar conflict environments, they exhibit a preference towards high-risk environments with which they have direct (or adjacent) experiences with the same (or similar) types of conflict actors present. Furthermore, when entering a new high-risk country, firms commit to more capital investment and job creation if they can leverage previous experiences with conflict management. Our results suggest that firms may strategically expand to diversify knowledge about different conflict actors, and that the management of specific conflict actors might be an important dimension of competitive differentiation for firms operating in high-risk environments.