Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Business Administration

Committee Chair

George Deitz

Committee Member

Subhash Jha

Committee Member

Orrin Cooper

Committee Member

Parker Woodroof

Abstract

Corporate sociopolitical activism (CSA) is a growing phenomenon among today’s business environment. Corporate sociopolitical activism occurs when organizations or actors on behalf of the organization release a public statement or take a visible action related to a bipartisan issue. This two-essay dissertation evaluates the impacts of corporate sociopolitical activism on key stakeholders of the organization—investors and consumers. The first essay uses an event study analysis coupled with a cross-sectional regression to analyze the impacts of CSA on shareholder wealth through the lens of signaling theory. The results indicate that, on average, CSA negatively impacts shareholder wealth. Different from prior literature, this evaluation considers the average brand rating (i.e., consumer-based brand equity) and a measure of brand rating dispersion to give a more nuanced picture of the impacts of CSA on shareholder wealth. The analysis indicates that greater dispersion among brand rating has a stronger negative impact on shareholder wealth in the CSA context. Further conditional effects were tested and the analysis indicates that CEO duality, CEO origin, industry dynamism and industry competitiveness all have significant effects on the relationship between brand rating dispersion and shareholder wealth in the CSA context. The second essay evaluates the impact of CSA events on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). This essay suggests that there are significant differences between consumer-based brand equity in a period prior to a CSA event compared to a period following the CSA event. From a source credibility theory lens, the analysis reveals that the negative relationship of a CSA event on CBBE is mitigated by a firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) reputation. This positive relationship is further strengthened depending on key characteristics of the brand name and the brand logo.

Comments

Data is provided by the student

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Embargoed until 7/13/2024

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