Abstract
This article analyses and systematises the repertoires of action and reaction within conflicts between corporations and adversarial campaigns. Particular attention is paid to the parameters that turn conflicts between corporations and their critics into productive or destructive exchanges. Are protest campaigns able to fulfil a function that goes beyond serving as a seismograph for civil society’s concern and discontent? Which are the circumstances that enable conflicts between protest campaigns and corporations to unfold their potential for correcting social deficiencies? The analysis starts by outlining several typologies of confrontational and cooperative repertoires of action. Based on this starting point, a comprehensive analysis of more than 100 campaigns is presented, which systematises the dynamics of conflict between protest campaigns and corporations. An exemplary comparison of two particular conflicts completes the article in order to elaborate on the interplay between confrontation and cooperation.
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Notes
The project was headed by Professor Sigrid Baringhorst. The empirical research was conducted by the author as well as Annegret März and Johanna Niesyto. The systematisation of protest repertoires and corporate reaction has been developed by the author.
Further research questions, for instance, focused on the relationship between forms of political participation and types of new media usage.
Michael Stopford is no longer a member of the Coca-Cola Company but since February 2011 has been executive vice president and senior global corporate strategist of the public relations agency Weber Shandwick. Since August 2008 he had been the Deputy Assistant Secretary of General Strategic Communications Services in NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division. August 2008 has been the Deputy Assistant Secretary of General Strategic Communications Services in NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division.
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Kneip, V. Protest Campaigns and Corporations: Cooperative Conflicts?. J Bus Ethics 118, 189–202 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1585-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1585-y