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Corporations are confronted with growing demands to take a stand on socio-political issues, i.e. corporate social advocacy (CSA), which affects their reputation in the public. Companies use different CSA message strategies, including calling the public to support and act on the issue they advocate. Using reactance theory, the authors investigate the impact of CSA messages with a call to action on corporate reputation in the case of a company's gender equality initiative.

A one-factorial (CSA message with or without a call to action) between-subjects experiment was conducted by surveying 172 individuals living in Switzerland. The CSA messages were created in the context of gender equality.

The authors' study indicates that CSA messages with a call to action compared to those without overall harmed corporate reputation due to individuals' reactance, which is higher for CSA messages with a call to action, negatively affecting corporate reputation. The impact of the CSA message strategy with a call to action on corporate reputation remains significant after controlling for issue alignment and political leaning.

Communicating about socio-political issues, especially taking a stand, is a significant challenge for corporations in an increasingly polarized society and has often led to backlash, boycotts and damage to corporate reputation. This study shows that the possible adverse effects of advocating for socio-political issues can be related to reactance. It emphasizes that companies advocating for contested issues must be more cautious about the message strategy than the issue itself.

The effectiveness of a message and its attributes have become important for digital media. This study aims to investigate how different elements of a website including both argument-oriented and emotional stimuli based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) can affect the issue involvement and change the attitude of the website visitors of a healthcare service provider.

The Ministry of Health and Education (MOHME) website was selected to explore how its content and design can persuade visitors. An online survey was conducted on 355 adults engaging in health protection behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis showed that one design element, i.e. website navigation and one social cue, i.e. social connectedness, have positive impact on issue involvement, while social presence and website satisfaction have a negative effect on issue involvement because of the random fluctuation suppressor effect. In addition, prior knowledge significantly influenced the issue's involvement. Further, website satisfaction has impacted attitudes directly. There was no significant relationship between argument quality and issue involvement.

Previous works have studied health-related behaviors in offline contexts; however, the scholars have not focused on the individuals' persuasion using ELM regarding the healthcare services provided in online communities. The results of the current study have theoretical and practical implications for scholars, website designers and policymakers.

Facilitated by social media, employee activism is on the rise, often in response to organizations' own socially irresponsible behavior. Given that digital employee activism is a vital yet underexplored research arena, the purpose of this study is to propose and test a theoretical model for understanding this phenomenon.

A survey was launched on Dynata, a US-based consumer panel company. A total of 657 representative full-time employees working at different levels of positions participated the survey to indicate their perceptual and behavioral responses to organizational social irresponsibility.

Moral obligation was a significant factor in mediating the relationship between organizational social irresponsibility and digital employee activism. Ideological psychological contract adds supplemental weights moderating the mediation effect on digital employee activism.

This study, based on social regulation theory, explores the rise of employee activism in response to organizations’ socially irresponsible behavior. The study identifies moral obligation and ideological psychological contract as the driving forces behind digital employee activism. This study advances digital employee activism scholarship by incorporating the normative lens of moral obligation and ideological psychological contract.

Educators have had good reason to be concerned with social justice in a context where diversity has become more pronounced in both our schools and communities, with widening divisions between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Internationally, increasing emphasis has been placed on utilizing the role of school leadership to address issues of social justice and equality, within a scenario where comparative studies of the performance of educational systems dominate the policy imagination globally, thus leading to increased pressure on school systems. This chapter presents a problematization of the social justice concept within education as presented in the literature, while setting out to critique this concept as an educational goal, as well as the role educational leadership is expected to play in the promotion of equity and social justice discourses through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). This theoretical chapter has implications for theory, policy, and practice.

Thus far, we have treated critical thinking descriptively and analytically in previous chapters. In this, the epilogue, as a closing chapter, we intend to consider critical thinking normatively – what it should be, ideally and holistically. We do this in four stages. First, recapitulating the essential concepts, theories, and paradigms of social welfare, social well-being, and social progress, we suggest that critical thinking should ultimately understand and further social progress and social well-being for all humanity. Second, we submit that the great wealth of corporate and free-market capitalism should – as spiritual capital – benefit all, especially the poor and the marginalized. Third, in order to realize the first two objectives, we posit that critical thinking should be repositioned as the art of aesthetic reasoning and aesthetic rationality such that, fourth, it is best realized within the framework of social mindfulness. We discuss major theories grounding these four parts and reflect on their managerial implications and propose future directions for critical thinking research and development.

This paper aims to provide a starting point to discuss how social enterprises can drive systemic change in terms of social impact through operations and supply chain management.

This paper reviews existing literature and the four papers in this special issue and develops a conceptual framework of how social enterprises and their supply chains create social impact and further enable systematic change.

Our paper finds that social impact and systemic change can be shaped by social enterprises at three different levels of analysis (organization, supply chain and context) and through three enablers (cognitive shift, stakeholder collaboration and scalability). Such dimensions are used to position current literature and to highlight new research directions.

This paper proposes a novel understanding of operations and supply chain management in social enterprises intended as catalysts for systemic change. Based on this premise we distinguish different practices and stakeholders to be considered when studying social impact at different levels. The conceptual framework introduced in the paper provides a new pathway for future research and debate by scholars engaged at the intersection of social impact, sustainable operations and supply chain management.

This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) on social inclusion within upstream supply chains, targeting a notable literature gap in modern SCM discourse. By delving into this critical, yet underexamined, domain, this study spotlights the pressing need to incorporate social inclusion practices, particularly as global supply chains face increased scrutiny over their social ramifications. It examines social inclusion’s intricacies, offering practical insights for industry professionals to adopt, so that trustworthy social inclusion practices can proliferate across their upstream supply chains, thereby making a substantial contribution to both theoretical understanding and practical application.

Employing five search queries across two leading academic databases, this investigation reviewed 86 articles that examined social issues related to social inclusion in the upstream supply chain. Via content analysis, this study aims to answer essential research questions and employs statistical bibliometric analyses to investigate the collected data further.

This study’s findings establish a definition of social inclusion within the upstream supply chain and present a conceptual framework delineating levers and indicators for evaluating such practices. Through rigorous analysis, it becomes apparent that mechanisms such as supplier compliance, collaboration and development are crucial for promoting social inclusion; however, their importance differs at various levels of suppliers in multi-tiered supply chains. Furthermore, a methodological matrix is introduced for assessing social inclusion practices’ efficacy, equipping practitioners with a roadmap for developing and executing strategies that extend social inclusion efforts throughout the supply chain, as well as emphasising these levers through monitoring, assessment and application of six specified indicators.

This study contributes to the dialogue surrounding upstream supply chain management by spotlighting social inclusion practices, addressing the literature gap in comprehending how social inclusion dynamics operate within upstream supply chains and outlining a distinct direction for forthcoming research. By highlighting the pressing importance of enhancing social inclusion practices, this study not only enriches the theoretical landscape but also lays the groundwork for subsequent empirical studies aimed at deciphering the complexities and practical hurdles associated with the efficient execution of these practices.

This study aims to investigate the impact of online collective feminist actions on social media participation and the perceived value of social media as part of the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA).

A mixed methodology is used. Within the SIMCA model in the context of feminist collective actions, social identity, group-efficacy and fear predicted the intention of online collective action participation in the first part (quantitative) of the study. Contrary to predictions, the influence of anger on the intention to participate in collective action was negative. In-depth interviews are conducted in the study’s second (qualitative) part to investigate why individuals do not participate in collective actions despite their anger at violence against women.

The concept of online feminist collective action, from the perspective of the SIMCA model, deals with violence against women in the context of social marketing, revealing the importance of online collective actions as an antecedent of social media participation and the perceived value of social media. The possible causes of the negative impact of anger, which is an important emotion within the framework of the SIMCA model, on online feminist collective action were determined, and a contribution was made to the social marketing literature in the context of women’s rights.

The study makes three major contributions to the literature. First, women’s rights are addressed in the context of online collective action, an issue that has received little attention in social marketing. Second, in the context of the social identity theory of collective action, online collective feminist action and its predecessors are addressed. Finally, the Turkish case is used to highlight the probable causes of anger’s negative impact on collective action.

This study aims to investigates the impact of felt obligation for constructive change, constructive voices on social media and social media knowledge competence on digital social entrepreneurship among Indonesian youth.

This study uses Hayes’ process model to assess the stated hypotheses using survey data gathered from 489 Indonesian youth.

Youth with elevated social media knowledge competency might display diminished motivation to participate in digital social entrepreneurship, even when their felt obligation for constructive change remains robust. While promotive voice on social media mediates the relationship between felt obligation and digital social entrepreneurship, the notable absence of a mediating role for prohibitive voice on social media contradicts traditional Positive Youth Development (PYD) theory

This research challenges conventional PYD theory by suggesting that youth with high social media knowledge competence may have reduced motivation for digital social entrepreneurship, despite a strong commitment to positive change. While promotive voice behavior mediates the relationship between felt obligation and digital entrepreneurship, the absence of mediation by prohibitive voice contradicts traditional PYD principles. This study expands the PYD framework, highlighting the challenges related to social media knowledge competence and prohibitive voice in engaging youth advocates for digital social entrepreneurship. It emphasizes the need to adapt PYD theory to address the complexities of the digital age effectively.

The findings offer valuable insights for students, aspiring young entrepreneurs, educators and policymakers interested in advancing the development of digital social entrepreneurship in a developing nation.

This research offers valuable practical implications for policymakers, educators and society. It suggests the importance of nurturing a sense of responsibility among young individuals, enabling their active involvement in addressing issues like environmental degradation and discrimination. Creating supportive online communities for collaboration and constructive voice behavior on social media can provide judgment-free environments. Additionally, advocating for partnerships between youth and various stakeholders can boost resources, mentorship and funding opportunities, enhancing the prospects for impactful digital social entrepreneurship.

This study contributes to an underexplored area in the field of social entrepreneurship by investigating the intersection of youth, digital advocacy and digital social entrepreneurship. The incorporation of the PYD theory introduces a novel dimension to recent research in this domain

This study examines the role of values, social causes, PR ethics and sustainability in public relations (PR) curricula in a European country. PR students are asked about the value of learning imponderabilia versus technical skills needed in the PR industry.

The method used for this study is a quantitative online survey among PR students from six public universities with established PR programs. The study is another part of a long-term project about PR education, students' job prospects, the usefulness of PR studies at work and the role of values and technical skills in PR curricula.

This study shows that the PR students believe that their profession should include broader social issues, like equality, ethics, activism and ESG (ecological, social and governance). Most students report that their curricula cover ethics, sustainability and social responsibility and that these subjects would be useful in their future careers.

Even though the study was conducted in one European country, it may be interesting to scholars and practitioners elsewhere and may be adopted and replicated.

Identifying PR students' needs, expectations and attitudes towards the PR industry and understanding the worldviews of new graduates, with their commitment to social causes and activism, should be helpful to their teachers and instructors, future employers or clients in terms of faster and more efficient onboarding.

A better understanding of the current requirements for graduates of PR studies should help them find enough opportunities in the job market and improve the organizational communication of their future employers.

Measuring PR students' opinions on their educational experience, the role of professional skills and socially conscious, ethically oriented classes can contribute to better formulation of PR curricula and may be useful for the PR industry and academia in other countries.