HOW CORPORATIONS OVERCOME ISSUE ILLEGITIMACY AND ISSUE EQUIVOCALITY TO ADDRESS SOCIAL WELFARE: THE ROLE OF THE SOCIAL CHANGE AGENT

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Sonenshein, Scott
• 署名单位: Rice University
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0363-7425
• DOI: 10.5465/amr.2013.0425
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 349-366
• 关键词: STRATEGIC CHANGE; Stakeholder theory; ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES; SELLING ISSUES; ETHICAL-ISSUES; management; CONSTRUCTION; performance; SENSEMAKING; emergence

摘要

While corporations are increasingly being called on to improve social welfare, researchers have primarily focused their efforts on the role of external pressures and top managers in shaping a corporation's engagement with social issues. As an alternative, I consider the role of social change agents who work within corporations and direct their firms to address a social issue. I suggest two issue impediments obstructing these efforts issue illegitimacy and issue equivocality that are shaped by economic philosophies, institutional fields, firm missions, and social change agent beliefs. These impediments ground four types of issues that social change agents attempt to advance: convertible, blurry, safe, and risky. I propose meaning-making tactics best suited to address the type of social issue individuals seek to advance inside a firm: framing, labeling, maintaining, and importing. I argue that by matching the issue type and meaning-making tactic, social change agents will more likely influence top managers to support a social issue. This article contributes to the literature by explaining how meaning making serves at the heart of impediments to and potential solutions to firms' efforts to improve social welfare and by spotlighting the role of a firm's employees in encouraging the organization to improve social welfare.