Tarun Banerjee

Type

Text

Type

Dissertation

Advisor

van de Rijt, Arnout | Schwartz, Michael | Burroway, Rebekah | Walker, Edward.

Date

2015-05-01

Keywords

Sociology | Class analysis, Corporate Political Action, Fortune 500 Corporations, Networks, Organizations, Social Movements

Department

Department of Sociology.

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/76814

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

This project addresses an important but understudied question of social movement and organizational research: do corporations develop response strategies to protests individually or collectively with other firms? If they do so collectively, does this indicate firms have a class-based interest or more limited industry interest? I address these questions through a statistical examination of protests against U.S. Fortune 500 firms over 6 years (2005-2010). I test the effect of a firm’s embeddedness in corporate networks on its responses to protest. I find that 1) firms more embedded in class-wide networks are more hostile to protest. However, 2) this is moderated by the broader economic environment and the ideology of connected groups. Next, 3) corporate networks help unify the responses of connected firms and serve as a channel for communication between targeted firms. Finally, 4) industry networks have minimal influence on firm behavior, suggesting the responses of targeted corporations are indicative of a broad class-based collective interest. These results show that the responses of targeted firms are shaped in historically situated and ideologically identifiable ways. Consequently, this dissertation confirms the much hypothesized—but rarely documented—propensity of corporations to act collectively in response to social movements. | This project addresses an important but understudied question of social movement and organizational research: do corporations develop response strategies to protests individually or collectively with other firms? If they do so collectively, does this indicate firms have a class-based interest or more limited industry interest? I address these questions through a statistical examination of protests against U.S. Fortune 500 firms over 6 years (2005-2010). I test the effect of a firm’s embeddedness in corporate networks on its responses to protest. I find that 1) firms more embedded in class-wide networks are more hostile to protest. However, 2) this is moderated by the broader economic environment and the ideology of connected groups. Next, 3) corporate networks help unify the responses of connected firms and serve as a channel for communication between targeted firms. Finally, 4) industry networks have minimal influence on firm behavior, suggesting the responses of targeted corporations are indicative of a broad class-based collective interest. These results show that the responses of targeted firms are shaped in historically situated and ideologically identifiable ways. Consequently, this dissertation confirms the much hypothesized—but rarely documented—propensity of corporations to act collectively in response to social movements. | 212 pages

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