5. 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)

6. 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)

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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?

10. 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

11. 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?

12. 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

13. 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?