Transcript Tainting and Ethical Change

External Stakeholders
_________________________
• Customers, activist groups/individuals,
religious groups, NGOs
• Try to change organizations’ strategies/
actions through negative feedback
– Act out against organizations: boycotts, legal (civil)
action, letter writing, protests (Eesley & Lenox,
2005)
External Stakeholders
_________________________
• Some existing work (largely theoretical) asks
how and why external stakeholders act out
against specific organizations?
– for identity-based and interest-based reasons
(Rowley & Moldoveanu, 2003; Rehbein, Waddock, & Graves,
2004; Eesley & Lenox, 2005)
– because of ideological position (den Hond & de
Bakker, 2007)
– and because of perceived unfair or immoral levels
of competition (DeCelles, Donaldson, & Smith, 2008)
External Stakeholders
_________________________
• Purpose of this research is to expand this prior
work in at least two ways:
– Other theoretical explanations for actions
• Symbolic or meaning-based explanations (value expression)
– The expression of values allow stakeholders to
experience a sense of meaning and purpose
– Expand methodology to include other channels in
which stakeholders act, therefore finding more tactics
and theory to explain these actions as well
Initial Thoughts: (1) Tainting
• Using same mechanisms / language/
research behind consumer-based product
advertisements, images, and logos,
highlight what is ethically wrong
• “subvertising” creates cognitive dissonance
and a feeling that something is flawed and
needs to be pointed out
• By changing the meaning of the company’s
message or logo, stakeholders act in symbolic
ways to express their values by drawing
attention to the meaning of an organization’s
actions or strategy
Initial Thoughts: (1) Value Expression,
Meaning through Tainting
• Tainting provides meaning for the stakeholder
and the intended audience --acting on something
personally important, or that has a greater or
larger purpose
– Research implications: Who uses this tactic opposed
to other tactics? How effective is this tactic relative to
others? How common is it?
Initial Thoughts: (2) Web 2.0 Enables
Witnessing effect
• Video provides for “witnessing” effect
• Nature of Internet (one on one) may make
people more likely to act because anonymous
(virtual lynch mob mentality)
– Quaker concept of moral responsibility -- those
witnessing an ethical violation (i.e., real time make
them inherently responsible to stop it
• Using video and internet distribution makes this
possible without restrictions of traditional media
Initial Thoughts: (2) Web 2.0 Enables
Witnessing effect
– Collective weight of more people (viral
transmission), witnessing an ethical wrong
probably increases likelihood of action
– May increase moral awareness, moral
responsibility, moral outrage
• Research implications:
– Is this tactic more effective at gaining attention towards an
issue and therefore at changing corporate practices?
– Research implication: Does witnessing via Internet video
make people feel more personally responsible/likely to act?
Methods
_________________________
• Search web 2.0 for company-relevant
incidents of tainting for ethical change from
2000- current
• Sort into identity, interest, unfairness, symbolic (and
other?) explanations for a more complete typology
• Develop theory about stakeholder calling for corporate
ethical change (both explanations and tactics used)
– Draw on research on values, value conflict,
meaning, symbols, social movements, legitimacy,
moral outrage (deontic anger)
– Demonstrate how this changes what we know
already about the targeting of organizations by
stakeholders for ethical change
Questions
_________________________
• Sample of organizations?
– Concerns like reputation, size/visibility may interact
with phenomenon of interest
– How to choose sample, how many?
• Should I narrow this down to a type of incident
(e.g., customer product safety, environmental
violation, general ethical issue such as oil
companies and profit margins/climate change)?
• Is mixed media okay (Videos, images?)
– Suggestions for best display of such powerful media to
text-based article?