Assessing the Impact of CEO Activism

CEO activism refers to corporate leaders speaking out on social and environmental policy issues not directly related to their company’s core business. Distinct from nonmarket strategy and traditional corporate social responsibility, the recent wave of CEO activism focuses on social issues unrelated to their core business, ranging from environmental issues to LGBTQ rights and race relations. In the first study of this phenomenon, we implement two framed field experiments to provide evidence on how CEO activism can influence public opinions about government policies and consumer attitudes about the CEO’s company.

Keywords: business and society, corporate social policy, leadership, social activism, values

JEL Classification: M1, M14, M38

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Chatterji, Aaron and Toffel, Michael W., Assessing the Impact of CEO Activism (April 9, 2019). Harvard Business School Technology & Operations Mgt. Unit Working Paper No. 16-100, Duke I&E Research Paper No. 16-11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2742209 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2742209