Search results

This paper aims to examine how and why consumers respond to chief executive officer (CEO) activism on social media. The authors developed a conceptual model that proposes impression management as a mechanism for consumer response to CEO activism.

In Study 1a, the authors examined 83,259 tweets from 90 CEOs and compared consumer responses between controversial and noncontroversial tweets. In Study 1b, the authors replicated the analysis, using a machine-learning topic modeling approach. In Studies 2 and 3, the authors used experimental designs to test the theoretical mechanism.

On average, consumers tend to respond more to CEO posts dealing with noncontroversial issues. Consumers’ relative reluctance to like and share controversial posts is motivated by fear of rejection. However, CEO fame reverses this effect. Consumers are more likely to engage in controversial activist threads by popular CEOs. This effect holds for consumers high (vs low) in public self-consciousness. CEO fame serves as a “shield” behind which consumers protect their online image.

The study focused on Twitter (aka “X”) in the USA. Future research may replicate the study in other social media platforms and countries. The authors introduce “shielding” – liking and sharing content authored by a recognizable source – as a tactic for impression management on social media.

Famous CEOs should speak up about controversial issues on social media because their voice helps consumers engage more in such conversations.

This paper offers a theoretical framework to understand consumer reactions to CEO activism.

Using critical disaster studies and state theory, we assess the disaster aid platform named Lebanon Reconstruction, Reform and Recovery Framework (3RF) that was put in place by international donors in the aftermath of the Beirut Port Blast in August 2020, in order to examine the effectiveness of its inclusive decision-making architecture, as well as its institutional building and legislative reform efforts.

The paper uses the case study approaach and relies on two original data sets compiled by authors, using desk reviews of academic literature and secondary data, in addition to 24 semi-structured expert interviews and participant observation for two years.

The aid platform appears innovative, participatory and effectively functioning toward recovery and reform. However, in practice, the government dismisses CSOs, undermines reforms and dodges state building, whereas the 3RF is structured in incoherent ways and operates according to conflicting logics, generating inertia and pitfalls that hinder effective participatory governance, prevent institutional building, and delay the making of projects.

The research contributes to critical scholarship as it addresses an important research gap concerning disaster aid platforms’ institutional design and governance that are under-studied in critical disaster studies and political studies. It also highlights the need for critical disaster studies to engage with state theory and vice-versa.

The research contributes to evaluations of disaster recovery processes and outcomes. It highlights the limits of disaster aid platforms’ claims for participatory decision-making, institutional-building and reforms.

The paper amplifies critical disaster studies, through the reflexive analysis of a case-study of an aid platform.

This study aims to observe and discuss an emerging disintermediation in transportation, finance and health care, and explain how these three key areas depend on intermediary institutions that are the fruit of modern corporate governance conditions that find their roots in classical sociological theory.

The authors review and incorporate a diversity of research literature to explain the likelihood for the development and continuation of disintermediation.

The authors map two sociological perspectives (Emile Durkheim’s theory of interdependence and Herbert Spencer’s theory of contracts) to two modern corporate governance theories (resource dependence theory and agency theory). The authors then discuss the challenging social situation resulting from modern corporate governance and show how these conditions create the potential for a continuum of disintermediation across the specific and crucial economic sectors of transportation, finance and health care.

The implications of this theoretical integration can help organizational leaders navigate complex social and strategic issues and prepare for the consequences that may result from the emerging disintermediation.

Despite the growing interest in the field of supply chain sustainability (SCS), little exploration of new theories exists. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce practice theories to SCS studies through a practice turn.

This is a conceptual paper in nature. Hence, based on theoretical arguments, the authors elaborate on how the practice turn can arise in the SCS field.

The theoretical elaboration is rooted in the understanding that sustainability is not limited to the materiality of environmental and social issues, as often observed. Instead, there is a need to include immaterial, emotional and intangible elements to better comprehend SCS practice. The authors argue that a continuum exists for a practice turn, including practice-based view, practice-based studies and critical practice theory.

The authors provide a research agenda with a comprehensive perspective of understanding the application and implications of practice theories to SCS.

The practice turn in SCS studies can support managers to better understand their practices not only through recognizing explicit activities but also mainly by reflecting on hidden elements that affect their performance.

SCS studies can better engage with grand challenges through a practice turn, which helps increase its contribution to solving social problems.

Unlike previous literature, the paper elaborates on how practice theories are powerful in supporting both scholars and practitioners in moving away from an extremely economic focus to genuinely embrace sustainability practice. In doing so, the practice turn appears as an important phase for SCS field maturity.

Based on a lexical analysis of publications on 529 Facebook pages, published between 2013 and 2017, this research explores how Brazilian left-wing activist groups participate on Facebook to coordinate their opposition and engage in social struggles. This chapter shows how activist groups set up two main digital network repertoires of action when mobilizing on Facebook. First, in direct connection with major political events, the platform is used as a media arena to challenge governments’ political actions and second, it is employed as a tool to coordinate mobilization, whether these mobilizations are demonstrations on the street or at cultural events, such as at a music concert. These repertoires of action exemplify ways in which contemporary Brazilian activism is carried out at the intersection of online and offline engagements. While participants engage through these two repertoires, this network of activists is held together over time through a more mundane type of event, pertaining to the repertoire of action allowing the organization of mobilization. Stepping aside from opposition and struggles brought to the streets, the organization of cultural activities, such as concerts and exhibitions, punctuates the everyday exchanges in activists’ communications. Talk about cultural events and their related social agendas structures activist networks on a medium-term basis and creates the conditions for the coordination of (future) social movements, in that they offer the opportunities to stay in contact, in addition to taking part in occasional gatherings, between more highly visible social protests.

Given the historical legacy of policing Black bodies, this research focuses on the structures of anti-Blackness within school policing and the strategies students of Color activists use as they work to defund or abolish police departments in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Specifically, this article looks to Twitter as a counter-storytelling space for students of Color activists to organize and build movements to end anti-Black school policing. Through the frameworks of critical race theory (CRT) and Black critical theory (BlackCrit), this research applies inductive coding to analyze 42 Twitter posts from three students of Color-led organizations based in Los Angeles.

This document analysis presents four themes, which describe four dominant strategies students of Color activists use in their campaigns to defund or abolish school police in the LAUSD: (1) centering Blackness and Black student experiences, (2) making demands for the elimination of funding and support for school police, (3) calling for a shift in funding to support Black students and (4) employing multiple tactics concurrently.

These findings demonstrate the importance of developing and centering a critical understanding of anti-Blackness to achieve racial and educational justice within social movements.

Moreover, the demands of students of Color activists reflect visions of public schools free from anti-Black school policing.

Social media (SM) platforms tempt individuals to communicate their perspectives in real-time, rousing engaging discussions on countless topics. People, besides using these platforms to put up their problems and solutions, also share activist content (AC). This study aims to understand why people participate in activist AC sharing on SM by investigating factors related to planned and unplanned human behaviour.

The study adopted a quantitative approach and administered a close-ended structured questionnaire to gather data from 431 respondents who shared AC on Facebook. The data was analysed using hierarchical regression in SPSS.

The study found a significant influence of both planned (perceived social gains (PSGs) , altruism and perceived knowledge (PK)) and unplanned (extraversion and impulsiveness) human behaviour on activist content-sharing behaviour on SM. The moderating effect of enculturation and general public opinion (GPO) was also examined.

Sharing AC on SM is not like sharing other forms of content such as holiday recommendations – the former can provoke consequences (sometimes undesirable) in some regions. Such content can easily leverage the firehose of deception, maximising the vulnerability of those involved. This work, by relating human behaviour to AC sharing on SM, offers significant insights to enable individuals to manage their shared content and waning probable consequences.

This work combined two opposite constructs of human behaviour: planned and unplanned to explain individual behaviour in a specific context of AC sharing on SM.

Early childhood and early elementary are key times when children develop internal and external antifat attitudes; thus, it is necessary to better understand the available children’s literature around fatness.This paper aims to examine children's picture books with fat protagonists to better understand the current landscape of children's literature. Drawing on relevant literature around fat characters and the fat studies movement, this critical content analysis considers five children’s books featuring fat protagonists.

This study uses critical content analysis to analyze texts featuring fat protagonists, including two rounds of initial reading and analysis. Using lenses of critical literacy and critical multicultural analysis, the author looks for common themes, silences and absences in the texts, images and peritext.

This paper identifies themes of characters initially internalizing antifatness, then pushing back against antifat bias toward existing with joy and without stigma. Several of these texts even draw on the history of fat activism, highlighting societal critique and a potential activist component of children’s literature with fat protagonists.

The study has a small number of books, due to the limited number of texts that fit the study parameters.

The paper concludes with examples of scaffolding for teachers and parents to have conversations with young children about antifat bias while also acknowledging notable absences, particularly boy protagonists.

These themes illustrate the power of young children to push back against antifat bias and critique oppressive social structures.

There have been very few studies looking at antifatness in children’s picture books. With more books with fat protagonists coming out in the 2020s, this study offers an understanding of the themes present, while also emphasizing the need for an intersectional approach to literature with fat protagonists.

This research investigates the influence of corporate–NGO collaborations on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure measured in three different ways (i.e. extent, level and quality) in low-income developing economies. Additionally, it examines the moderating effect of corporate profitability in the relationship between corporate–NGO collaborations and CSR disclosure.

This research uses multivariate regression analysis based on data collected from 201 non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE).

The findings reveal that corporations with NGO partnerships are more likely to disclose CSR information and provide high-quality information regarding workers, the environment and community-related issues. Further, corporate profitability positively moderates the corporate–NGO collaborations and CSR disclosure relationship.

Research limitations are presented in the conclusion section.

The findings underline the crucial significance of NGOs and their associated normative isomorphism logics for CSR disclosure in low-income countries with weak law enforcement and relatively ineffective state institutions, which were previously believed to lack such institutions.

While some research has suggested that companies in developing countries perceive significant pressure from NGOs to adopt social disclosure, no study has specifically explored how internally driven corporate–NGO collaboration (as opposed to external NGO activist pressures) promotes CSR disclosure specifically in developing economies.

This chapter on anti-racism struggles applies an anti-racist activist framing, both critically examining and recognising the milestones achieved through centuries of pro-justice and anti-racism struggles. It delves into the arduous journey that the global fight for racial equity has undergone and highlights the significant progress as well as setbacks experienced during this lengthy struggle. The earliest history of the fight against racial oppression and domination goes back to anti-slavery and anti-colonial movements. Scholars have analysed the emergence, development and state of global anti-racism struggles in a variety of ways. I approach this subject from a sociological perspective, highlighting the role of social structures, groups and institutions that have contributed to shaping the outcomes of anti-racist initiatives. While recognising the role of individuals and leading political activists, this chapter emphasises anti-racism as a collective social justice struggle. To do this, I explore various local and global anti-racism endeavours and examine how they may influence discussions on race, racism and racial equity and their evolving trajectories across different societies.