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The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of presidential tweeting about corporations on publics’ perceptions of and behavioral intentions toward those corporations. Specifically, the authors examined publics’ intentions to boycott or buycott (Friedman, 1996) Nordstrom, four months after President Trump’s tweet denouncing the company’s decision to discontinue his daughter’s clothing line.

An online survey was conducted among 517 American citizens using Qualtrics panels in June 2017. Respondents were compensated for their participation.

The authors found strong associations between perceived moral inequity and boycott intentions, and perceived business/economic nature of corporate action and buycott intentions. Furthermore, demographic characteristics associated with both types of perceptions were also examined. Younger, more educated respondents tended to accept Nordstrom’s actions as being routine business decisions, whereas conservative participants saw Nordstrom’s actions as being morally iniquitous.

This study is one of the first to explore the impact of presidential tweeting, albeit indirectly, on publics’ perceptions and intentions toward corporations who form the subjects of said tweets. Practitioners may utilize these findings to provide guidance to corporations who may be at the receiving end of presidential tweeting.

This study aims to examine personal factors that drive the initiation of an online firestorm, an online collaborative attack against a brand that usually occurs when a brand fails or engages in misconduct.

A structured questionnaire is used for data collection. Via an online panel, 303 questionnaires are completed. Hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling.

Civic engagement and, to a lesser extent, narcissism explain intentions to initiate online firestorms. Individuals’ inherent concern for others and for ethical issues prompts them to punish a brand publicly, with the expectation that other individuals will follow and that the brand will feel compelled to react. Misconduct-related appraisal factors, such as severity, proximity, moral inequity and outrage, can amplify the effect of civic engagement.

Future research should investigate whether the findings hold for different types of misconduct, cultures and other forms of narcissism.

By providing managers with a better understanding of the motivations for launching an attack, this study offers guidance on managing a brand when an online firestorm occurs.

Whereas previous research has focused on external drivers of online firestorms, this study builds on the prosocial behaviour literature to analyse the individual characteristics prompting the initiation of an online firestorm.

Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, this study aims to conduct an empirical investigation on whether and how psychological and motivational factors (i.e. attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) affect actual purchase behavior. It does so through the lens of boycott intention and gender differences in the context of boycott campaigns.

Focusing on the South Korean boycott campaign against Japanese companies, this study employs a structural equation model using survey data from 571 South Korean consumers to test the hypotheses.

While the three psychological and motivational factors inhibit all three dimensions of actual purchase behavior (i.e. purchase frequency, number of items purchased and purchase amount) through increased boycott intention, perceived behavioral control of boycotts directly curb South Korean consumers from purchasing Japanese products. Additionally, the effect of boycott intention on overall actual purchase behavior is stronger for men than for women, suggesting a moderating role of gender.

To mitigate the devastating impact of unexpected consumers' boycott campaigns, this study advises that global brand management and attractive online channels are essential while considering the differential impact of gender.

By conceptualizing three dimensions of actual purchase behavior capturing behavioral changes before and after a boycott, this study highlights the linkages between psychological and motivational factors, intentions and behaviors. Additionally, this study attempts to clarify the previously conflicting evidence on gender's role in boycott campaigns while taking a culture-inclusive psychologies approach to gender.

The purpose of this study is to explore how citizen protests against perceived acts of racial injustice impact on share prices of companies who weigh in on the protests. In particular, corporate statements that directly address the issues around the protests are identified and possible mechanisms underlying how these may impact shareholder value are discussed.

The authors first use a qualitative research approach of content and sentiment analysis to track how companies or their chief executive officers (CEOs) present their stance against racial injustice, as represented by their use of linguistic markers. Then, the authors use an event study methodology to assess the response from stock market participants.

The findings suggest that CEOs primarily convey their stance using language that is emotive and empathic. In addition, shareholders earn a significant abnormal return of 2.13%, on average, in the three days following the release of the statements.

This study considered only US-listed companies. The sample size, also, is relatively small. Institutional and cultural differences across countries may also vary. Thus, future research could explore the extent to which the findings generalize to other contexts.

Results provide insights to top managers who communicate with various stakeholders on emotionally charged social issues. Findings also offer insights on the timing of trades for investors and arbitrageurs.

Findings contribute to the understanding of corporate behaviour in times of social upheaval. Insights from the study may also be used to inform corporate communication decisions about important social issues.

This study brings into focus the role that affective appeal and moral emotion can play in evoking motivation for corporate activism, and the impact that this has on investor opinions’ formation process.

Purpose – All modern societies are marked by unequal relationships between dominant and subordinate groups. Given that dominant group members often have the resources to determine if and how inequities might be dealt with, it is important to know when and how dominant group members will respond to inequity.

Approach – In this chapter, we present a new framework for how individuals experience inequality: the inequality-framing model. According to the model, individuals distinguish between inequities of advantage and inequities of disadvantage, which is predicted to lead to different experiences of inequity. We then review prior literature that indicates that perceptions of ingroup advantage and outgroup disadvantage can influence when and how dominant group members will respond to inequity. We specifically investigate hierarchy-attenuating responses to inequity, such as support for affirmative action policies, and hierarchy-enhancing responses, such as denial of inequity, disidentification from the group, the motivated construal of inequity, and the motivated use of colorblind ideology.

Research and practical implications – The model suggests that researchers and practitioners alike would do well to pay attention not only to the magnitude of inequity, but also to the way in which it is described. Importantly, dominant group members are more likely to have the power over how inequalities are discussed, which has ramifications for their experience of and willingness to remedy inequity.

Originality – This chapter provides an overview of research indicating that how inequity is described – advantage or disadvantage – can have implications for how dominant group members experience and respond to inequity.

Prior tax compliance research has largely ignored low-income individual taxpayers, as they have historically been viewed as having an immaterial impact on Federal tax revenues. However, the earned income tax credit (EITC) program has altered the Federal tax revenue landscape in this regard. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigated the magnitude of EITC tax overpayments for tax year 1999 and concluded that between 27 and 31% of EITC filings were overstated, resulting in over-payments of between $8.5 and $9.9 billion (IRS, 2002). These excessive payments represented about 0.5% of total Federal revenues and 2.8% of the total tax gap. Thus, to the extent that low-income individual taxpayers intentionally under-report their incomes in order to receive higher EITC’s, the Federal budget is noticeably affected.

This study extends and complements extant tax research by examining the compliance intentions of low-income individual taxpayers. Relying on the theory of planned behavior, we examine the extent to which perceived tax equity (vertical, horizontal and exchange), normative expectations, and legal sanctions affect tax compliance intentions. Consistent with the hypotheses, the results indicate a significant positive relationship between compliance intentions and: (1) equity perceptions of the tax system; (2) normative expectations of compliance; and (3) penalty magnitude. Additionally, the findings suggest two-way interactions between penalty magnitude and exchange equity, and penalty magnitude and normative expectations. Research results reported herein hold important policy implications related to the Federal government’s efforts to reduce tax cheating and increase compliance among low-income individual taxpayers.

This study examines the differences between 64 male and 53 female college students in their perception of various benefits of sports participation. Potential benefits of sports participation include moral reasoning (caring versus fairness), socialization, competition, health and fitness, and leadership traits (masculine versus feminine). Responses to a questionnaire indicate that there is no difference between males and females on perceived benefits of sports participation with regard to moral reasoning, socialization, competition or health and fitness. There was, however, a significant difference between males and females with regard to competition as a motivating factor to participate in sports. There was also a significant difference between males and females in terms of leadership traits. Males perceived that sports gave them more masculine traits than what females perceived. There was no difference, however, between males and females in their perception of femininity leadership traits from sports participation.