A Processual Model of CEO Activism: Activities, Frames, and Phases. Issue 3 (March 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Olkkonen, Laura; Morsing, Mette
• Is Part Of: Business and society. Volume 62:Issue 3(2023)
• Page Start: 646
• Page End: 694
• Publication Date: 2023-03
• Subjects: CEO activism -- corporate activism -- frames -- processual model; Industries -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Industrial sociology -- Periodicals; Business ethics -- Periodicals; 306.3
• DOI: 10.1177/00076503221110184
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0007-6503

Abstract

Chief executive officers (CEOs) engage in activism when they take public stances on sensitive socio-political issues. In this study, we address the less-explored activities that constitute CEO activism beyond single stances as the activism is maintained over time. The data cover 6 years of campaign and media materials from a case company with several CEO-initiated activist campaigns. Our findings from an inductive analysis contribute to CEO activism theorizing in three ways. First, we extend CEO activism conceptually by identifying five underlying activities that support a public stance: anchoring motivations, modeling action, taking agency, enduring criticism, and normalizing activism. Second, we bridge individual- and organization-level analyses by depicting how a CEO involves a company in activism through activities that justify interrelated topic frame and role frame. Third, we develop a processual model that includes the pre-stance, stance-taking, and post-stance phases and explains how the underlying activities are interrelated and follow a pattern that serves to maintain CEO activism. Accordingly, CEO activism includes activities, through the pre-stance, stance-taking, and post-stance phases, whereby a CEO deliberately engages personally and through a company in public debate about sensitive socio-political issues and the role of businesses in addressing them.