2017 - 18 Year in Review

30 BAD COMPANY: THE REPUTATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF CROSS-SECTOR INTERACTIONS WITH A STIGMATIZED FIRM Social movement organizations increasingly interact with firms through collaborative, rather than contentious, tactics. And yet the trade-offs associated with choosing to collaborate are not well understood. Activists recognize firms’ potential to be particularly useful allies due to their considerable resources, global scope, and political power. And yet activists fear that collaborating with a firm could damage their reputations and credibility, particularly if the company becomes embroiled in a scandal. We (Pontikes with coauthor Mary-Hunter McDonnell) shed light on these trade-offs through an empirical investigation of changes in the contributions received by activist organizations in the wake of the BP oil spill. Our results show that activists that had collaborated with BP prior to the spill suffered from decreased contributions after the scandal, relative to activists with no prior interactions with BP. To the contrary, activists that had previously contentiously targeted BP enjoyed increased contributions after the spill. These results shed light on the trade-offs associated with activists’ choice between a collaborative and contentious engagement strategy for interacting with private sector entities. Elizabeth G. Pontikes Associate Professor of Organizations and Strategy