Conceptualizing the post-stance phase of corporate activism : a social media investigation

Abstract

Corporate Activism (CA) and related concepts such as Brand- and CEO- Activism are growing business practices with significant media and academic attention, encompassing the fundamental act of a company stance on a divisive sociopolitical or environmental topic. While extant research has addressed a multitude of strategic considerations around CA and examined various antecedents and consequences, the author contends that there is a lack of focus around the immediate post-stance phase of CA, which refers to company actions that take place directly after the activist stance has been communicated. Utilizing a sample of Twitter accounts from 100 global brands, and through categorizing various two-way interactions within company social media platforms around the Black Lives Matter movement, the author provides a first insight into the proposed post-stance phase.

Through qualitative content analysis methods and an inductive coding exercise, the author highlights a variety of findings; company behaviors can range from a selfless support of the initial stance to a company-centric and value-focused approach, or to a focus on company policy and reputation management. On the other hand, consumer interactions can involve stance-related criticism, inquiries, suggestions, and emotional responses. Simultaneously, the author identifies a set of company and consumer interactions that are not related to the stance, occurring within the same context. As the main result, findings indicate that there is no standardized approach for responding to activism-related consumer comments, that customer service-related issues are often taking precedent, and that companies will typically reply to a marginal amount of comments while rarely engaging in debate around the topic in question. As well as highlighting an additional avenue for future Corporate Activism research, the findings of this thesis can also be used by practitioners to better understand and prepare-for post-stance dialogue with consumers.