Beyond Market Signals: NegotiatingMarketplace Politics and CorporateResponsibilities

Trina HamiltonDepartment of GeographyUniversity at Buffalo

(SUNY)105 Wilkeson QuadBuffalo, NY 14261trinaham@buffalo.edu

Key words:marketplace politicscorporate responsibilitysocially responsible

investmentethical consumptionstakeholdersnongovernmental

organizationsbranding

abst

ract In the face of stiff resistance to their legislative

efforts in national and multilateral arenas, nongov-ernmental organizations, unions, and others areengaging in marketplace politics to press their socialand environmental concerns. While important criti-cisms of market-based regulation abound, recentresearch has suggested that this form of politics is notrestricted to simple market signals or a singularmarket logic, so the question of what drives corpo-rate responsiveness remains. Drawing on a statisticalanalysis of a large data set of marketplace campaignsand in-depth interviews with campaign proponents,consultants, and targeted executives, this article pro-poses a relational framework for understanding mar-ketplace politics, situating campaign strategies inrelation to targeted firms’ brand vulnerabilities andcorporate social responsibility (CSR) “absorptivecapacity,” on the one hand, and parallel actions of keyintermediaries—including investment advisory firmsand pioneering competitors—on the other hand. Iargue that it is influential minorities of consumers,investors, and intermediaries—often in dialogue withtargeted executives—who create change, rather thanmajority, arm’s length market movements. Overall,this research enhances the multiplicity of recent casestudies by identifying common opportunities andbarriers for marketplace politics and contributes tothe burgeoning literature within economic geographythat is redrawing the boundaries of corporate CSRdecision making and capacity building.

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A decade ago, the editors at The Economistclaimed “it is consumers that dictate to companiesand ultimately decide their fate, rather than the otherway round,” and “Arrogance, greed, and hypocrisy areswiftly punished” (“The Case for Brands,” 2001, 11).Taken to the extreme, this market populism—thebelief in markets as “mediums of consent,” ratherthan simply exchange (Frank 2000)—reduces regula-tion to market signals, to boycotting and “buy-cotting.” Yet empirical studies have shown thatboycotts have, at best, a “slight measurable effect” onmarket value (Spar and La Mure 2003).1 Moreover,while ethical consumption is on the rise, it remains aniche market, limited to specific product categoriesand demographics (Devinney, Auger, and Eckhardt2011; Turcotte 2010; Dolliver 2008). In terms ofinvestor-led regulation, Emel (2002, 841) cautioned:“When the heat is on, corporations can simply repur-chase shares,” effectively containing negative marketsignals. Despite these limitations and other importantcriticism (e.g., the democratic deficit of a “one dollar,one vote” model), geographers and others are uncov-ering a more complex marketplace politics that isenacted in the marketplace—that is, “the world ofcommerce and trade” (Oxford English DictionaryOnline 2012)—but is not restricted to simple marketsignals or a singular market logic.

In the face of stiff resistance to legislative efforts innational and multilateral arenas, nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs), socially responsible investors,unions, and other stakeholders have increasinglyturned to marketplace campaigns that target corpora-tions directly over social and environmental issues(Manheim 2001). Yet this transfer of regulatorybattles to the marketplace is only partially understood,and the question of what drives corporate responsive-ness remains. I define marketplace politics as theleveraging of market actors—including not only con-sumers and investors but also analysts andconsultants—within increasingly politicized marketspaces. Specifically, market politics targets relativelypublic spaces that affect the reputations of brands andconsumers’ and investors’ decision making (retailoutlets and annual meetings, for instance), as well asthe behind-the-scenes corporate and analyst offices

1 At least when considered alone rather than as part of a multistrategy campaign. There are a few exceptionalcases. For instance, Wapner (1995, 327) described how activist and media reports about the potential healtheffects of the chemical Alar led to a huge decrease in the demand for Alar-sprayed apples and ultimatelyled the Uniroyal Chemical Company to stop producing the chemical.

Acknowledgements

I thank the National ScienceFoundation (NSF) forsupporting this research(award number 0327425)and my interview subjectsfor contributing theirvalueable time and insights. Ialso thank Henry Yeung andthree anonymous reviewersfor their very helpfulcomments and suggestions.

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where strategies are developed and assessed. Well-known brands are thought to beparticularly vulnerable to marketplace politics because the impact of both activist attacksand corporate responsibility initiatives on brand value is notoriously difficult to measure,yet the management of brand value is increasingly important. This measurement problemcreates a context for the renegotiation of the boundaries of corporate social and envi-ronmental responsibilities to include changes whose direct benefits are often unquanti-fiable, but that may affect brand value or reputational capital.

Economic geographers are well positioned to investigate the drivers of this market-place politics, having increasingly framed the firm as a potentially vulnerable institution,subject to both internal and external contestation and driven by diverse strategic impera-tives. As Yeung (2005, 309) argued, “Instead of being a mechanistic production functionor an abstract capitalist imperative, it is a contested site for material and discursiveconstructions at different organizational and spatial scales. . . . It is indeed a dynamic andevolving organisation constructed through ongoing social relations and discursivestruggles among social actors.” Upending the unified, singularly calculating firm allowsone to uncover the regulatory processes at work in the marketplace through corporateinteractions with stakeholders and in internal disputes over corporate strategy. Moreover,research on the “cultural circuit of capital”—the continuously reinvented “discursiveapparatus” created and deployed by “business schools, management consultants, man-agement gurus and the media” (Thrift 2005, 6)—has pointed to alternative circuits thatprovide “practical critiques, born out of actual attempts to produce new forms of eco-nomic institutions” (Thrift 2005, 49). In other words, economic geography is alreadyattuned to corporate contestation, both internal and mediated by external gurus andconsultants, although the details of how these “discursive struggles” and “practicalcritiques” play out through marketplace campaigns have not been fully uncovered.

Drawing on a statistical analysis of a large database of campaigns targeting U.S.-headquartered multinational corporations (MNCs) and in-depth interviews with keyinformants, I propose a relational framework for understanding corporate responsivenessto marketplace politics. This framework situates campaign strategies in relation to tar-geted firms’ brand orientation and corporate social responsibility (CSR) “absorptivecapacity”2 (i.e., their ability to integrate social and environmental issues into theirdecision-making and strategic development), and parallel actions of key intermediaries(including investment advisory and research firms and pioneering competitors) that arecentral to translating stakeholders’ concerns into legitimate business risks and actionablebusiness strategies. In contrast to market signals models, the research presented herehighlights the roles of influential minorities over majority market shifts and identifiesdialogue and negotiation as central determinants of the success of the campaigns.Overall, the research contributes to and extends recent work in economic geography thathas examined the role of external stakeholders in driving the social and environmentalperformance of corporations (e.g., Affolderbach 2011; Goodman 2010; Clark and Hebb2005; Freidberg 2004; Emel 2002), and the development of alternative cultural circuitsof capital (e.g., Hughes 2006; Thrift 2005). It moves beyond the case-study approach andprovides a relational framework for future analyses of the intersections between market-place campaigns and the burgeoning corporate responsibility consulting industry, and itredraws the boundaries of corporate CSR decision making and capacity building.

In the first section of the article, I outline current theorizations of the drivers ofcorporate social and environmental change, focusing in particular on brand management

2 I develop this concept later in the article, but it refers to the concept used in innovation studies to assesscompanies’ ability to “exploit external knowledge” (Cohen and Levinthal 1990, 128).

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and strategic diversity in the face of stakeholders’ demands in relation to social andenvironmental issues. Then, I briefly describe the results of my statistical analysis and setout the conceptual framework for the rest of the article. Finally, on the basis of myinterviews, I provide a detailed look at the processes of leverage-building and imple-mentation that have shaped this new regulatory politics.

Reimagining the Firm: Vulnerability, Diversity, and MediationAs I discussed earlier, economic geographers have come to conceptualize the firm as

a site of contestation, beset by internal contradictions and external influences, and recentstudies have addressed avenues of stakeholders’ influence on social and environmentalperformance. For instance, Clark and Hebb (2005, 2023) argued that “even slightchanges in consumer demand, captured by earnings declines and signaled to capitalmarkets, can affect investor and analyst expectations” and managers’ own stock-tiedcompensation. They contended that managers may yield on an issue preemptively—asrisk management—and documented examples of successful “behind-the-scenes pres-sure” from institutional investors (Clark and Hebb 2005, 2027). Freidberg (2004)described a similar risk mitigation strategy by British supermarket managers who wereconcerned about critical media coverage. She stated, “NGOs’ political clout lies not inany claim to represent the mass public but rather in their ability to convince the mediaand retailers alike that they speak to and for the critical public, in the two senses of thatterm—that is, the public that are both critical of retailers’ sourcing practices and asconsumers critical to their sales” (Freidberg 2004, 528).

Clarke, Barnett, Cloke, and Malpass (2007) and Kortelainen (2008) described howmarket researchers invoke potential or imagined ethical consumers to drive corporatechange, relying less on direct market signals and more on creating strategic possibili-ties for managers by “generating information about consumers” (Clarke et al. 2007,238). In his study of the Russian forest sector, Kortelainen (2008, 1299) argued greenmarket surveys “enabled [forest industry managers] to calculate the possible losses,gains, and new opportunities of the greening process. In consequence, the industrialiststhemselves started to perform green markets by speaking about environmentally con-scious markets that had to be closely observed. This was not only talk, but it resultedin material changes to forestry and forest management practices.” Kortelainen’sexample highlighted executives’ agency in mediating stakeholders’ influence. AlthoughNGOs can provide scripts to justify CSR initiatives, the scripts need to be taken up andinterpreted by executives who are willing to integrate the demands of a campaignrather than play defense.

Several factors affect executives’ cost-benefit calculations, including cash reserves(Lenox and Eesley 2009), the costs of acquiescing to activists’ demands (Lenox andEesley 2009; Spar and La Mure 2003), and competitive position (Spar and La Mure2003; Freidberg 2004). Yet there is additional evidence that managerial responses areguided by more than strict cost-benefit analyses (Spar and La Mure 2003; Brown 2010).For instance, Hughes (2005) identified a range of “ethical trading strategies” amongBritish food and clothing retailers, from “ethically driven” retailers to strictly minimalistresponses to ethical pressures. These differences in corporate culture affect firms’ deci-sions about joining the Ethical Trading Initiative and the types of factory auditingsystems to deploy, and Hughes’s analysis follows a poststructural tradition of dissectingcorporate strategies (e.g., O’Neill and Gibson-Graham 1999; Schoenberger 1994).Clearly, researchers need to move beyond market vulnerability to look at corporations’capacities and will to integrate social and environmental values.

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Finally, recent work turns our attention to influential intermediaries, including invest-ment ratings firms, ethical training programs, market researchers, and NGOs. Forinstance, Clark et al. (2007) pointed to the role of ratings firms in guiding investors’decision making on traditional corporate governance issues, as well as social and envi-ronmental concerns. Ratings firms act much like the market researchers described byClarke et al. (2007) and Kortelainen (2008). They provide a new context within which toevaluate corporate strategy and a rationale for willing (or embattled) executives toimplement social and environmental initiatives. Sadler and Lloyd (2009, 616) argued that“the work of CSR consultancies is critical to developing and framing ways of measuring(and thus managing) corporate responsibility programmes.” Similarly, Hughes (2006,1010) contended that an “ethical learning economy” is being constructed by “a new setof agents to the cultural circuit of capital described by Thrift.”

This development of new CSR scripts for managers fits Krueger’s (2002) conceptu-alization of “discursive regulation.” Kreuger explained that environmental activists intro-duced “an ‘ecological’ sensibility” into the gold mine–permitting process in Montana,replacing an “engineering paradigm” that had prevailed previously, and effectively shut-ting down the industry. In the case of Hughes’s (2006, 1014) ethical learning economy,“ethical awareness-raising courses” are pitched at the sometimes paralyzing gulf betweendifferent corporate units, such as retail buyers and CSR staff. These courses focus on“engaging, inspiring and empowering the retail buyers to think and act in more ethicallysensitive ways themselves in their purchasing practices” (Hughes 2006, 1016). Moreover,social auditing training helps develop “a completely new set of skills” from those that aregenerally held by retailers’ technical staffs (Hughes 2006, 1015).

As O’Rourke (2005, 124) noted, NGOs are now part of this ethical learning economy,“finding and promoting solutions in the marketplace,” and Affolderbach (2011) docu-mented this shift from confrontation to collaboration in her analysis of environmentalcampaigns against the forest industry in British Columbia, Canada. Van Huijstee andGlasbergen (2008, 301) identified two types of knowledge that executives can gain fromenvironmental NGOs: (1) expert knowledge about specific environmental issues and (2)knowledge about market risks and opportunities. In addition to technical knowledge andmarket insights, NGOs can also transfer credibility (Linton 2005; Tully 2004). Theseexamples suggest that the future of stakeholders’ campaigns may be in the (re)making asmuch as the breaking of brands.

Overall, the literature on marketplace politics in economic geography and relateddisciplines has evolved from an early focus on attacks on brands and market power tomore nuanced analyses of the mediating roles of corporate culture and capacities andexternal consultants. This evolution reflects not only shifts in the strategies of social andenvironmental campaigns but also an analytical shift toward poststructural and relationalapproaches to the decision making of firms. While the main sphere of political activityin these cases is the marketplace, the political process is conditioned by multiple acts ofnarrative building and interpretation rather than by the direct market signaling andcorporate response one may imagine on the basis of orthodox economic theory.

Campaign TrendsThis article is based on a broader study of social and environmental campaigns that

targeted publicly traded, U.S.-headquartered multinational corporations between 1990and 2004. Most research on the dynamics of marketplace campaigns has been based oncase studies that may or may not reflect broader trends or on a single set of actors orstrategies (e.g., socially responsible investors or boycotts) that do not reflect the synergies

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among parallel actions. The goal of the study was to identify underlying trends in thedeterminants of successful campaigns and to gain a better understanding of the dynamicsof marketplace politics by studying the actions of multiple stakeholders and intermedi-aries that have targeted firms on the same social or environmental issue. The studycombined a quantitative analysis of 179 campaigns and in-depth interviews with 41 keyinformants, including campaign proponents, consultants, and executives of targetedfirms.3

To identify common dynamics among the campaigns, I tried to develop as complete adatabase of campaigns as possible. I started with lists of campaigns from academic work(Manheim 2001) and proponents of campaigns such as the Interfaith Center for Corpo-rate Responsibility. Then, I developed a snowball strategy, starting with Google and newssearches for corporate campaigns and following up on links to additional campaigns andcampaigners. There are undoubtedly campaigns that were missed, yet it was as exhaustivea survey of campaigns as I have found to date and provided a basis for generalizing thetrends that I identified.

Using publicly available secondary sources (e.g., annual reports and corporate andcampaign websites) and a proprietary database of corporate profiles developed for thesocially responsible investment (SRI) community,4 I collected data on the outcomes ofcampaigns (corporate change related to each identifiable campaign demand) and possibledeterminants of the success of campaigns, including (1) the characteristics of the stake-holders involved in the campaign and of the campaign itself; (2) the characteristics of thecorporation being targeted, including the company’s brand value and strategic orienta-tion; and (3) the characteristics of the sociopolitical climate or context. Table 1 presentsthe independent variables that I used for the statistical analysis. Again, the goal was toevaluate as wide a range of potential determinants of successful campaigns as possiblewithin practical limits. There were other variables I had intended to include (on the basisof their identification as significant factors in the case-study literature) but was not ableto quantify appropriately. For instance, I had originally developed a series of variables tomeasure media attention but found that too much variability was generated by differentsearch terms to provide comparable data, so I had to eliminate the variables from theanalysis, which could account for some of the unexplained variability in the final results.5

Table 2 presents some of the basic characteristics of the campaigns. In general, thecampaigns brought together multiple stakeholders, with the majority driven by largeNGOs and shareholder activists. They covered a broad range of social and environmentalconcerns, including the protection of endangered ecosystems, the implementation ofliving wages, and even the pricing of products. The campaigners deployed a diverse setof strategies aimed at raising awareness of the companies’ activities (through protests atretail sites and headquarters, for instance), cultivating and deploying powerful allies (viaconsumer boycotts, letter-writing campaigns, and shareholder resolutions) and, in almosthalf the cases, engaging in a direct dialogue with corporate executives. Although the state

3 The research methodology and statistical analysis are discussed in more detail in a previous article; seeHamilton (2009).

4 I purchased a 1-year subscription to KLD Research & Analytics’ Socrates database, a compendium ofprofiles of more than 3,000 corporations, including “narrative coverage of 65 issues related to: community,diversity, employee relations, environment, human rights, products, and controversial business lines(gambling, tobacco, etc.).” KLD was a corporate research firm serving socially responsible investmentmanagers and has since been bought out by MSCI. See http://www.msci.com/products/esg/global_socrates/.

5 For instance, a search of “Coca-Cola + recycling” returned different results from “Coca-Cola + bottledeposit,” making it impossible to create a single, comparable search for each campaign.

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was not absent from these campaigns—some campaigns focused on regulatory viola-tions, for example, the campaigns generally focused on engaging corporations directly bytargeting corporate branding, retailing, financing, and decision making.

Overall, these campaigns proved surprisingly successful; 74 percent elicited corporatechange on at least one demand, and 58 percent of the identifiable campaign demands(including policy, reporting, and operational changes) were addressed. To try to identifyunderlying patterns of influence, I conducted a stepwise discriminant analysis to identifythe variables that were the most significant discriminators between successful campaigns(those that elicited change on at least one demand) and unsuccessful campaigns. Dis-criminant analysis is generally used to understand group differences (see Hair, Anderson,Tatham, and Black 1998) and results in a function that can be used to predict groupmembership. When I started this research, I had expected the determinants of thissuccess to be related to the “hammer of the market” (Affolderbach 2011)—that is, thatconsumers and shareholders would be the most influential stakeholders and that con-sumers’ and shareholders’ actions would be the most influential strategies. I alsoexpected, as hypothesized in much of the literature, that consumer brands would be morevulnerable to market attacks because it would be easier to mobilize consumers against

Table 1

Independent Variables Used in the Statistical Analysis

Variables Operationalization

Campaign characteristicsTypes of stakeholders • Types of stakeholders (e.g., large NGOs, labor, shareholders) involved, as

reported by media, campaign materials, and/or the intervieweesDiversity of stakeholders • Total types of stakeholders involved in the campaignStrategies • Campaign strategies (e.g., protests, shareholder resolutions, ), as reported by

media, campaign materials, and/or the intervieweesCampaign issue • Campaign issue of concern, as reported in campaign materialsLocation of concern • General location of concern (i.e., location of the proposed changes), as reported

in the campaign materialsCampaign length • Total number of months (months to date for ongoing campaigns)

• Total shareholder resolutions filed on the campaign issueCorporate characteristics

Consumer brand • Corporation sells products directly to end consumersSize • Current number of direct employees as reported by KLDExecutive change • Change of chief executive officer during the campaign as reported in corporate

annual reports, on websites, in the media, or by KLDVertical integration • The site of contestation is vertically integrated into the corporation (i.e., it is

not an arm’s length supplier)Internationalization • Percentage of sales that are international as reported by KLDCorporate policy • Corporation has a specific corporate policy related to the campaign issue, as

reported in corporate annual reports, on websites, and/or by KLD dataCSR reputation • Number of social indexes the corporation is listed on, as reported by KLD

Contextual factorsImpending regulations • Impending governmental regulation in relevant jurisdictions related to the

campaign issue, as reported by the media and/or the intervieweesCompetitor changes • One or more competitors have implemented changes related to the campaign

demands, as reported by interviewees, campaign material, industry associations,and/or KLD data

Competing campaigns • Number of shareholder resolutions on other social and/or environmental issuesduring the campaign as reported by KLD or the Interfaith Center forCorporate Responsibility

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them. As is shown in Table 3, while campaigns against consumer brands were indeedmore likely to be successful, no specific stakeholder groups proved to be statisticallysignificant determinants of successful campaigns, and the only campaign strategy in theresulting discriminant functions was direct dialogue between campaign proponents andcorporate executives. The third variable identified was corporate policy, or whether thetargeted corporation had a policy in place related to the campaign issue.

Since a stepwise discriminant analysis builds a final discriminant function variable byvariable, Table 3 shows the variables and classification rates for each individual variablethat I identified as a statistically significant discriminator, as well as the final combinedfunction.6 Although none of the functions can fully discriminate between successful andunsuccessful campaigns, the classification rates hold some interesting insights. Forinstance, the consumer brand variable produced the largest overall correct classificationrate, yet did a poor job of classifying unsuccessful campaigns. By contrast, the additionof the corporate policy and direct dialogue variables resulted in much better predictionsof unsuccessful campaigns. In other words, consumer brands seemed to provide impor-tant foundations for campaign leverage, but the other significant discriminators pointedto the potential mediating influence of corporate strategic orientation (corporate policy)and the negotiation of new social and environmental responsibilities (dialogue), ratherthan arm’s length signaling and response. Overall, the discriminant analysis and thesimple descriptive statistics that highlight a surprising amount of corporate-stakeholderdialogue (44 percent of the campaigns), in addition to traditional oppositional tactics,provide strong support for a relational conceptualization of marketplace politics, eventhough they do not provide a complete predictive model.

A Relational FrameworkTo gain a more in-depth understanding of the dynamics of campaigns and add to the

explanatory power of the statistical results, I conducted interviews with key informants,including campaign and corporate consultants and executives of targeted corporations. Ideveloped a purposive sample of interviewees by choosing six campaigns representingdifferent corporate targets, issues, and locations of concern.7 The goal was not to analyze

6 For a detailed discussion of the discriminant analysis, see Hamilton (2009); each of the variables identifiedwas statistically significant at least at the .004 level.

7 Because of practical constraints, I had to choose the campaigns for the qualitative sample before Icompleted the campaign database; therefore the sample reflects my attempt to cover a broad range ofcampaign issues and locations of concern. The campaigns included (1) a community health and environ-ment campaign surrounding a manufacturing facility in the United States, (2) a global genetically modified

Table 3

Summary of Classification Rates for Discriminant Functions Generated by Stepwise Discriminant Analysis(percentage)

Function Variables IncludedCorrectlyClassified

Successful CorrectlyClassified

Unsuccessful CorrectlyClassified

1 Consumer brand 71.9 85.5 34.02 Corporate policy 59.8 53.0 78.73 Dialogue 57.0 50.8 74.54 Consumer brand, corporate policy, dialogue 66.9 64.1 74.5

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specific case studies but, rather, to examine the experiences of as many different actorsand types of campaigns as possible. As Table 4 indicates, I interviewed 41 people froma variety of stakeholder groups, broadly mirroring the stakeholder ratios of the largercampaign database (see Table 2).8 Specific organizational affiliations are omitted tomaintain the anonymity of those who requested it, and campaign affiliations are not listedbecause the interviews focused broadly on experiences across multiple campaigns. Themajority of the interviews were conducted in-person in 2004 in the Boston, New York,Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Chicago, and Miami areas, and the rest were con-ducted by telephone. The interviews were semistructured and focused on the identifica-tion of campaign targets, development of campaign strategies, coordination with otherstakeholder groups, interactions with targeted corporations, and evaluation of outcomes.I tape-recorded the majority of the interviews for transcription (in a few cases, I tookdetailed notes instead at the interviewee’s request) and coded the responses, along withbackground material provided by the interviewees and through secondary sources, intokey themes. While many themes and particularities of specific campaigns emerged fromthe interviews, this article focuses on the brand, policy, and dialogue dynamics identifiedas overarching trends.

Table 5 outlines the conceptual framework for the rest of the article. Drawing on myinterviews, as well as secondary source materials provided by the interviewees or uncov-ered during background research, it illustrates in more detail how branding, corporateCSR policies, and dialogue shape corporate responsiveness to social and environmentalissues. What emerged from the interviews was the necessity of a relational frameworkthat highlights how campaign strategies are related to corporations’ strategic orientations(specifically, their branding strategies) and CSR “absorptive capacity” (i.e., the type ofexecutive oversight, degree of background knowledge, and power within internaldecision-making structures). In addition to this interplay between corporate characteris-tics and campaign strategies, the interviewees highlighted time and again the role of keyintermediaries—particularly investment advisory professionals and competing firms—in

ingredient campaign against a food products company, (3) a global water pollution campaign against acruise line, (4) a U.S. farmworkers’ campaign against a restaurant chain, (5) a global recycled paper andold-growth forest campaign against a retailer, and (6) a developing country toxics and communitycompensation campaign against a manufacturing company.

8 This strategist-consultant category includes consultants working with shareholders, large NGOs, localorganizations, and unions. Compared to the stakeholder distribution in the large database, this sampleappears to underrepresent labor, although at least two of the strategists and consultants worked directlywith union campaigns, and several of the large NGOs and local organizations represented labor interestsor were nonunion worker organizations.

Table 4

Interviewees by Stakeholder Group

AffiliationTotal

(n = 41)

Shareholders 13Large NGO 10Local organization 7Strategists/consultants 7Executives 4

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shaping the dialogue around the materiality of the campaign’s concerns and the viabilityof alternative practices. These intermediaries are an important element of marketplacepolitics that were not captured by the statistical analysis but that correspond with recentwork in economic geography on the CSR consulting industry described earlier. Whatemerged from this analysis, although not a complete model of successful campaigns, isa compelling case for the potential impact of influential minorities of consumers andinvestors, and the intersection between campaigning and an emerging CSR infrastructureinside and outside targeted firms. While the sociopolitical context (e.g., impendingregulations and media interest) is highly variable from issue to issue and campaign tocampaign, this conceptual framework identifies some common dynamics of successfulmarketplace campaigns. In the following sections, I describe this relational framework inmore detail, with comments from the interviewees and background material (includingrecent campaign updates and CSR trends), highlighting successful leverage and capacitybuilding, as well as enduring obstacles.

Breaking the BrandWhile my statistical analysis confirmed that consumer brands are generally more

responsive to stakeholder campaigns than are nonbrands, the relative power of attacks onbrands varies, with some hitting closer to the heart of a brand’s value than others. Jackson(2002, 16) argued that a complex commodity politics “requires us to identify the manyways in which power is distributed along the chains and through the networks wedescribe and analyse.” Although campaigns cannot, in general, mobilize consumermajorities, they can identify and attempt to mobilize key demographics, specifically,those who are critical to a brand’s “cultural capital”—“its unique consumer value basedon its relevance and popularity in culture” (McKendrick 2011).

Table 5

A Relational Framework for the Success of Marketplace Campaigns

Variable Corporate Characteristics Campaign Strategies Intermediary Roles

Brand • Brand value is sustained bycultural and reputationalcapital.

• Campaigns leverageinfluential minorities ofconsumers and investorswith brand capital and/or aninterest in protecting brandvalue.

• Investment intermediariesprovide analysis and advocacyfor the materiality of specificcampaigns and issues.

CSR Policy • CSR policies increase thepotential reputational risks ofsocial and environmentalcampaigns.

• Campaigns leveragediscrepancies betweenpolicies and on-the-groundrealties.

• Pioneering firms providetesting grounds for newmodels of corporatepractice.

• Campaigners becomeprogressive brandambassadors following acorporate change.

Dialogue • Broader CSR apparatus and“absorptive capacity”(executive oversight,openness, knowledge, andinternal bargaining power)facilitate dialogue andimplementation.

• Campaigners engage in adialogue with corporateexecutives on materiality,branding, supply chainreorganization, and otherissues.

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Youth markets are the focus of much of the work on the cultural capital of brands (e.g.,Klein 2000), as well as the successful campaigns identified by the interviewees. Onecampaign that was able to mobilize a youth demographic was the farmworkers’ cam-paign against Taco Bell, which focused on improving conditions for workers in Florida’stomato fields. The campaign directly challenged Taco Bell’s cultural capital with itstarget 18–24-year-old market9 by calling out Taco Bell market research about self-indulgence to mobilize students against the company: ‘It is time to show Taco Bell thatwe are more than just ‘self-indulgent’ cash machines ‘addicted to constant stimulation.’It is time to show Taco Bell that more than ‘insatiable cravings’ go into our buyingdecisions—that human rights and the dignity of labor also enter into our thinking whenwe decide where to spend our money’ (Coalition of Immokalee Workers [CIW] n.d.). Thecampaign mobilized enough support to ‘Boot the Bell’ (by removing or blocking con-tracts) from 25 colleges and high schools, with an additional 20 campaigns underwaywhen they declared victory in 2005 (Student/Farmworker Alliance n.d.). While the directhit may have been modest for a company with 5,600 outlets in the United States, it wasa symbolic hit as well, throwing into question one of Taco Bell’s expansion strategiesand one of its key demographics.

Such mobilizations of consumer minorities add a new twist to Freidberg’s (2004)concept of ‘critical citizens.’ While Freidberg proposed that citizens may become morepowerful by leveraging their identities as consumers, one may extend the concept to thinkof ‘critical consumers’ who are not only critical of corporate practices, but are alsocritical to the success of corporations beyond the sum total of their purchases (e.g., asbrand image-makers, growth markets). Not all campaigns are able to mobilize theseinfluential minorities, however. One organizer who was tasked specifically with mobi-lizing a broad base of college students explained that some proposed campaigns simplydid not align with or excite her organization’s base (Interview, NGO representative, 1June 2004).

This is not to say that youth markets are the only critical consumers. For instance, theinterviewees described conducting and publishing surveys and reports that were intendedto push firms to reassess consumers’ priorities. For instance, a report on the cruiseindustry argued, ‘The cruise industry’s own customer base is appalled at the practice ofcruise ships dumping untreated sewage into the ocean and the lax laws that enable thispractice’ (Oceana 2004, 3), citing evidence that the respondents already assumed thatcruise ships were doing what the campaign was demanding. The underlying message isthat it is disingenuous to assume that current buying behavior is a vote of confidence ina company’s practices. Although their impact was not always clear, these actions mirrorthe cases described earlier (e.g., Clarke et al. 2007; Kortelainen 2008) about the provi-sion of new scripts for managers to use to justify changes—that is, putting the firm aheadof broader shifts in public expectations.

Shareholder DiversityInfluential minorities can also be found within the broad SRI community. While some

social and environmental issues (such as climate change) have gone mainstream withinthe investment community, investors who are driven by more than profit motives, such ascharitable foundations and religious organizations, represent another unique source ofminority influence. Indeed, foundations were identified by several interviewees as having

9 The significance of the youth market to Taco Bell’s brand is symbolized by the Taco Bell Foundation forTeens launched in 1992. See http://www.tacobellfoundationforteens.org/.

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a lot of as yet-unrealized regulatory potential. This potential is best viewed in terms ofmandate, not money. As Stephen Viederman, a pioneer of foundation-led shareholderactivism and an interviewee, explained, “they . . . have more leeway. [S]o long as youmeet the federally mandated pay-out requirements and are not funding terrorism . . . andyou’re not paying your board members extraordinary amounts of money and things likethat, you can do almost anything. So foundations really have no restraints, institutionally,in the broad sense” (Interview, 17 May 2004). In other words, foundations’ investmentactivities are less constricted by legal norms of fiduciary responsibility than are those ofpublic or private pension funds, and they may develop a broader CSR mandate that isbased on their dual roles as social change agents and investors. In some cases, they areconsciously protecting their own brand and reputation by aligning their mission andinvestment activities.

Foundation executives and other influential shareholders often have direct access tocorporate executives. One foundation executive argued that when he shows up at annualmeetings, corporate executives have fewer assumptions about the motives of his foun-dation than about those of many NGOs. He posited that whereas representatives of NGOsmay be perceived as simply having an axe to grind, representatives of foundations areviewed by executives as more public spirited. And since these foundation executives areused to speaking the language of business, they have additional leverage to raise issuesthat may be ignored coming from other messengers (Interview, 28 May 2004). Forinstance, the Nathan Cummings Foundation got involved in marketplace politics when ituncovered contradictions between its environmental grant making and its “significantinvestment in Smithfield Foods, the largest hog producer and pork processor in theworld—and one with a checkered environmental record” (Emerson 2003, 38). As twofoundation executives explained, “a number of the Foundation’s grantees had beenattempting to get the company’s attention to talk about environmental issues, with littlesuccess. With the submission of just one shareholder proposal, the Foundation suddenlyhad access to the company’s Vice President, Environmental and Corporate Affairs and itsChief Legal Officer. In fact, they flew to New York to meet with us” (Lindblom andCampos 2010, 13).

Foundations and other influential shareholder minorities can be particularly impor-tant sources of leverage for campaigns that may otherwise be controlled through defen-sive public relations tactics or minimalist changes. Such responses may satisfymainstream shareholders’ concerns about reputational risk by burnishing the brand butdo not necessarily address the campaign’s core social or environmental concerns.There are significant obstacles to the broader diffusion of foundation-led activism,however, including a gap in knowledge about even the most conventional strategies. AsViederman explained, “I spoke to the senior vice president [of a large foundation] . . .and asked him if he would vote [in favor of our resolution] and he said, ‘Well, ourmanagers vote on proxies.’ And I said, ‘Well, you can tell your managers what to do,you can!’ And a couple days later he called me back and he said they would. Now,it’s great except for the fact that this is a highly sophisticated person and . . . therewas a lack of knowledge out there of the limits of the possible” (Interview, 17 May2004).

An even more significant barrier may be the fear of being ostracized from the veryprofessional communities that give foundations credibility and power with targetedcorporations. Again, Viederman explained, “Since for many of them it might put them ina situation of conflict with peers in the corporate world, is it worth it? Or, even worse,there by the grace of god go I . . .” As a result, such shareholder activism remains limitedto a small minority of foundations (18 percent according to the Council on Foundations

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as reported by Emerson 2003, 41). Yet, in the same vein as the consumers discussedearlier, foundations provide a unique source of leverage for select campaigns.

Negotiating MaterialityAlthough foundations have a material interest in social and environmental issues by

virtue of their dual roles as social change agents and investors, many of the intervieweesdiscussed attempts to renegotiate the boundaries of materiality more generally. Propo-nents of campaigns regularly engage corporate executives over the materiality of theirconcerns, and these dialogues are influenced by numerous intermediaries within theinvestment research and advisory industry, as well as the Securities and ExchangeCommission (SEC).

For publicly traded corporations, a social or environmental issue is deemed mate-rial—a legitimate business concern—if it is likely to affect shareholder value. Whilesome issues are unequivocally material (e.g., legal proceedings and fines for regulatoryviolations), other issues are open to ongoing challenges. Over the past decade, the SEChas issued a series of bulletins guiding companies on social and environmental report-ing (Chan Fishel 2002). Despite these clarifications on the materiality of consumerboycotts and other issues, companies still systematically underreport social and envi-ronmental issues (Chan Fishel 2002; Lewis 2002). This gap in disclosures provides anopportunity for campaigns. For instance, a lawyer and campaign consultant explainedthat while one petroleum company’s disclosure “said that their sales of gasoline hadgone down due to competitive factors, at the exact same time when their dip in salesstarted to happen was the time when a boycott was launched.” So he “argued that theyshould at least be mentioning to shareholders that there was a boycott in place” (Inter-view, 21 May 2004).

Debates over materiality are often waged at corporate annual meetings through share-holder resolutions calling on corporations to disclose information, develop a policy, oralter its practices on a specific social or environmental issue. Indeed, 60 percent of thecampaigns (see Table 2) in my study used shareholder resolutions. Although theseresolutions are nonbinding, they are believed by many campaigners to be an importantentry point for negotiation and, in some cases, are withdrawn following dialogue andcorporate action on the issue.

The audience for these arguments is not only other investors but also influentialintermediaries, such as proxy voting consultants. As one shareholder activist explained,“It is definitely sometimes an agonizing process, trying to figure out what is the textbecause it’s also, . . . if we can get ISS [Institutional Shareholders Services] to see this inour favor then they will support it and make a recommendation, and we’ve found there’sdefinitely a lift when you get ISS support, approximately like 20%” (Interview, 27 May2004). Proxy consultants provide recommendations on how to vote on shareholderresolutions, and several interviewees discussed the role of ISS in particular. The “ago-nizing process” just described is symptomatic of the lack of a universal business case forcorporate responsibility. As one longtime shareholder activist noted, “There are probablygood business reasons to be a rapacious exploiter, too, but you can make a case for goodbusiness reasons to try to be ahead of the curve and be a responsible corporate citizen”(Interview, 21 February 2003). Another shareholder advocate shared his own laundry listof potential investor-friendly framings: “Is the company doing something illegal? Is theregovernment regulation? Is there new political pressure? Are they getting a lot of badmedia hits? How are their competitors doing? Are the shareholders upset? Are theregroups targeting them for a boycott? Or is there new technology that means they don’thave to do this bad practice any more?” (Interview, 20 July 2004).

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Although the literature on the business case for CSR emphasizes both risks and newcost-saving or market-development opportunities, risk is more pervasive in the materi-ality debate waged by these campaigns. Indeed, one CSR executive confirmed that whenspeaking at a meeting of the New York Society of Security Analysts, he found anemerging interest in CSR from a risk management perspective, but it was narrowlyfocused on “Is [Company X] in a position where their CSR profile is a business risk ora material, financial risk?” (Interview, 23 September 2004). In the petroleum casementioned earlier, consumer boycott activities represent a direct financial risk to sales.In many other cases, the risks are less easily calculable, so the dialogue revolves aroundthe nebulous issue of reputational risk. One socially responsible investment managerexplained:

The only way we’re gonna get a good vote is to present the case such that institutionalshareholders will realize that it’s an issue, and this phrase has been very popular in the past fouryears: “reputational risk.”. . . . A lot of times the resolutions early on make more of an ethicalor moral judgment, and the only way we’re gonna get a lot of the institutional investors to votein our favor is if they see this really could have an implication on shareholder value and how.(Interview, 27 May 2004)

While the interviewees described some of their success stories, they were not able toexplain ISS’s lack of support for other similar resolutions, although their interpretationof the potential risk of a specific campaign is likely mediated by such issues as mediaattention (including whether coverage is sustained over time) and the allies who areleveraged (including the critical consumers discussed earlier). In the case of the farm-workers’ campaign against Taco Bell, ISS recommended a vote in favor of a 2003resolution asking Yum! Brands, Inc. (the parent company of Taco Bell) to prepare asustainability report addressing its “policies and practices related to social, environmen-tal and economic sustainability throughout the supply chain” (Yum! Brands, Inc., 2004).The resolution received an almost unprecedented (for a social resolution) 39 percent votein 2003 and a 32.5 percent vote in 2004. Although Yum! Brands had been targeted forseveral years, the resolution’s sponsors suggested that the issue gained broader supportin 2003 when it was framed as a sustainability issue, rather than simply as a human rightsissue. Moreover, they specifically invoked the Dow Jones Sustainability Group’s (DJSG)definition of sustainability in the resolution, focusing on being responsive to a broadarray of stakeholders in order to secure a social “license to operate” and “superiorcustomer loyalty and ultimately superior financial returns” (Yum! Brands, Inc. 2004).The DJSG can be seen as part of an increasingly significant alternative “cultural circuitof capital” that is integrating social and environmental issues into its consulting andadvisory practices. Although the DJSG may be a minority voice, its strategic locationwithin the mainstream circuit (as part of the broader Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jonesmedia families) provides significant symbolic leverage.

Multiple interviewees also highlighted the importance of investment research firms,particularly Innovest Strategic Value Advisors. Innovest’s comparative analysis of cor-porate performance on social and environmental issues pays particular attention to “theirimpact on competitiveness, profitability, and share price performance” (Innovest n.d.).One shareholder advocate described his organization’s attempt to reach Wall Streetanalysts by holding roundtables on particular companies and specific social and envi-ronmental issues using Innovest reports. Referring to one particular meeting, heexplained: “[T]he people that attended seemed interested. We’ve had a couple of pressarticles out of it, wire services that ran it in a bunch of places. So I think it raised some

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questions, and the [Innovest] report was just really scathing [so it was hard to ignore]”(Interview, 20 July 2004). Moreover, he explained that “some investment groups thatwould generally not take information or would just kind of blow us off have now startedto ask questions,” particularly in relation to issues of climate change. These dialoguesrepresent another example of the circulation of new “scripts” for corporate action onsocial and environmental issues discussed earlier. The fact that Innovest, ISS, and otherSRI consulting and research firms were recently bought by more mainstream investmentadvisory groups10 suggests that they are making some headway on Wall Street and arebeing further integrated into the mainstream cultural circuit of capital. Future research isneeded to determine whether this development is good for stakeholders’ campaigns.While integration will undoubtedly increase their influence over mainstream institutionalinvestors, it could also narrow their focus and/or affect NGOs’ and other stakeholders’access to dialogue with them, effectively closing off a significant negotiating space.

Indeed, new barriers—as well as new opportunities—for these renegotiations of mate-riality are continuously created. For instance, the SEC has restricted shareholder reso-lutions that it believes address only “standard business risks,” rather than issues “thatmay affect society as a whole” (Leone 2006). In general, resolutions are not to impedeon executives’ management of “ordinary business.” Some firms “employ specialistconsultancies to choreograph” potentially contentious annual meetings (Clark, Salo, andHebb 2008, 1387), while others slap shareholder activists with defamation suits (Kary2006), or even take flight. One interviewee described a target company that repeatedlymoved its annual meeting, at one point moving “to a town that was about three or fourhours away,” starting the meeting “at like seven in the morning, and [buying] up all thehotels in the town so everyone had to drive for hours to get out there” (Interview, 20 July2004).

Progressive Risks and OpportunitiesWhile the firms taking flight and filing suit play defense, some corporations try to gain

a competitive advantage by adopting progressive social and environmental policies.Although these progressive pronouncements are seen by some as another means ofdeflecting criticism rather than seriously engaging it, ambitious public commitments lendlegitimacy to stakeholders’ demands and provide fodder for public attacks and behind-the-scenes negotiations about the discrepancies between brand image and corporatereality.

Recent surveys of public trust in institutions in the United States have shown thatNGOs and religious organizations have far greater public credentials than do big busi-ness, the government, or the media (see Edelman 2011; Pew Center 2010). This differ-ential provides opportunities for campaigners to leverage their public trust to challengecorporate image making, on the one hand, and to increase the reputational return fromcorporations’ behavioral changes, on the other. In the case of an endangered forestscampaign against office products retailer Staples, the campaigners adopted a commonstrategy of identifying a “credibility gap” and then positioning themselves to fill it, asboth brand ambassadors and supply chain consultants. In 2002, the campaign producedan investigative report tracing Staples’s supply chain back to old-growth forests inIndonesia and Canada (Forest Ethics 2002a), specifically contrasting its findings withStaples’s claims that “we have absolutely no evidence that there is old-growth fiber in any

10 RiskMetrics acquired ISS, Innovest, and KLD (a leading SRI firm) between 2006 and 2009 and thensubsequently merged with the global investment advisory firm MSCI in 2010.

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of our products” (Forest Ethics 2002b). After reaching an agreement with Staples, thecampaign took out a congratulatory ad in USA Today that read: “We’ve been callingStaples names for years. Never thought treehugger would be one of them.” It also notedthat it “look[s] forward to spreading the word about Staples’ commitment to the dozensof Fortune 500 companies, as well as colleges and universities all over the country, thathave made commitments to stop buying products from endangered forests and toincrease their purchases of recycled paper” (Forest Ethics 2003).

Progressive corporate commitments and branding provide not only opportunities forcampaign attacks and arm’s-length brand ambassadorships (e.g., campaign sticks andcarrots) but also an entry for campaigners to become corporate consultants, providingspecialized expertise on defining and mapping endangered ecosystems and alternativesourcing strategies, for instance. Indeed, in the Staples case, NGOs became part of theongoing implementation of Staples’s new policy, partly because of the openness of theStaples’s executives. According to Mark Buckley, the vice president of environmentalaffairs at Staples, despite protests from others within the industry, NGOs were given theopportunity to make a presentation at Staples headquarters to the company’s suppliers.Moreover, they have since engaged in ongoing dialogues—some on the ground in theforests of the Carolinas and the Canadian Boreal—to develop common definitions ofendangered forests and other details of Staples’s environmental policy (Interview, 7September 2004).

Absorptive CapacityIt is instructive that the Staples executive described being out of alignment with

industry colleagues in inviting NGOs into the C-suite, because it reflects the differencesthat corporate CSR culture and capacities make. As I noted earlier, I use the term CSRabsorptive capacity to describe corporations’ ability to integrate social and environmen-tal issues into their decision making, much like the economic geography literature oninnovation has referred to corporations’ ability to “exploit external knowledge” (Cohenand Levinthal 1990, 128; see also Gertler 2003; Boschma 2005). Although my statisticalanalysis identified corporate CSR policies as being significant determinants of successfulcampaigns, my interviews focused on this broader CSR absorptive capacity (the policyvariable could also be a proxy for these broader factors), including outreach and accesspoints, preexisting knowledge of the campaign’s issue of concern, and the CSR staff’srelative power within the corporation.

At the most fundamental level, a successful dialogue hinges on a clear point of contactfor CSR issues. An investment manager noted that one company she was engaging onenvironmental issues “didn’t even have a person that was head of environment” (Inter-view, 27 May 2004). Another shareholder advocate explained, “We’ve been talking to[Company X] for years, but this is the first year I’ve felt anyone was paying attention, andthey’ve had three different directors of their corporate responsibility programs” (Inter-view, 20 July 2004).

Beyond access points, CSR absorptive capacity is also a function of corporate exper-tise on social and environmental issues. One advocate of fair-trade coffee noted, “theconference calls we had with [Company X], they obviously did not understand the issues,obviously did not understand the content [of the shareholder resolution]” (Interview, 10May 2004). The same advocate argued that the dialogue with a competitor was successfulbecause “they were much more knowledgeable about the issue. . . . There are two thingsyou want when you’re in dialogue with a company. One is that the people that you’retalking to have some power. The second thing is that you want them to be knowledgeableabout the issue.”

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Recent evidence suggests that the number of “C”-level executives who are chargedwith CSR oversight is on the rise (Whitehead n.d.), a signal that campaigns may, at thevery least, have more success making initial contact and perhaps cultivating internalallies. Moreover, knowledge of social and environmental issues is also on the rise in theMBA ranks. Indeed, one executive I interviewed graduated with an environmental MBAand a campaign consultant was heading to business school to join his interests in CSRwith a better understanding of corporate strategy. And, according to an annual survey ofCSR content in business schools, between 2001 and 2009, the number of elective courseswith social, environmental, or ethical content had grown, and the percentage of schoolsthat required students to take courses “dedicated to business and society issues”increased from 34 percent to 69 percent (Aspen Institute n.d.). Yet there is a long way togo, with one study pointing out that “less than 13 percent of Russell 1000 firms have anexecutive-level committee with responsibility for corporate social responsibility (CSR)or environmental, health, and safety (EHS) issues” (Sustainable Enterprise Institute2009, 10). While other companies may indeed have sub-“C”-level managers who areresponsible for CSR issues, they will necessarily have less bargaining power in internalstruggles over corporate resources and strategies.

The professional backgrounds of CSR executives and the firms’ CSR structures alsoaffect the executives’ strategic orientations and power within the broader corporatehierarchy. For instance, Mark Buckley, vice president of environmental affairs at Staples,explained that his background in procurement led him to define his role as that of aninternal consultant. This role is facilitated by the company’s CSR structure, whichincludes an Environmental Action Group with senior-level managers from every aspectof the business (Interview, 7 September 2004). In contrast, many campaigners werefrustrated by public relations professionals whom they thought had neither the knowl-edge nor inclination to address their concerns seriously.

From Campaigning to ConsultingOnce corporations agree to move on a specific campaign issue, my interviews revealed

an ongoing dialogue between corporate executives and NGOs around rebranding,supply-chain research and management, and ongoing oversight. One may think of theseprocesses as campaigning or consulting beyond “the win,” with campaign proponents—often but not exclusively large NGOs—switching back and forth between campaign andconsultant roles. There has been significant interest in the emergence of this “normal-ization process” between corporations and NGOs (Zadek 2003), yet only limited empiri-cal work has delved inside these negotiations and learning processes.

The Staples example provides evidence of campaign leveraging of its reputationalassets, as well as scientific knowledge about the geography of endangered forests andsupply-chain knowledge of common sources of different products. Another campaignerexplained that he had become a national expert on plastic lumber, allowing him to “callup any number of people and sit down with them and discuss some new idea we have forthem” (Interview, 28 May 2004). The goal of these informal R&D relationships is todevelop models for products and processes that advocates can then market to othercompanies via dialogue or campaigning. One shareholder advocate noted that someexecutives reported that their new supply-chain knowledge “makes them more efficientall across the board. Now they can identify something quickly, so if someone says get outof redwood, it’s like OK, how much do we really have? Where’s it coming from? Whatare the alternatives?” (Interview, 21 July 2004).

In some cases, however, campaigns have to partner with pioneering competitors(sometimes smaller firms or governmental entities) that become campaign intermediar-

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ies, providing spaces for experimentation and a proving ground for alternative practices.For instance, in 2005 CIW (a grassroots organization of immigrant farmworkers)announced Taco Bell’s commitment to “a penny per pound ‘pass-through’ ” and coop-eration with CIW “to improve working conditions in Florida’s tomato fields” (CIW2005), yet it took another five years to reach an accord with the tomato growers furtherup the supply chain. To counter industry’s attempts to implement a watered-down codeand prevent members from cooperating with the agreement, CIW reached individualagreements with a number of small growers and partnered with these early adopters todevelop and test the new standards before rolling them out to the rest of the industry(Brown 2010). Finally, on November 16, 2010, they celebrated a partnership agreementto roll out CIW’s fair food principles and monitoring system to “over 90% of the Floridatomato industry” (CIW 2010).

ConclusionOverall, my study revealed complex “power-geometries” (Massey 1993) behind the

success of marketplace campaigns. Rather than a strict hierarchy based on financial orother forms of leverage, different stakeholder groups gain influence at different pointsin the campaign (e.g., critical consumers during the leverage-building phase and NGOswith supply-chain expertise during the strategy development and implementationphase). In other words, power in marketplace campaigns is tied to specific spaces andcampaign moments, rather than to individuals or identities. Moreover, my researchfound that marketplace politics is relational, hinging on corporations’ CSR absorptivecapacity, and mediated by an emerging alternative cultural circuit of capital within theinvestment advisory and CSR consulting communities. Although important work withinthe political science and geography literature has explored the specific opportunitiesand barriers for marketplace politics in individual industries (e.g., Schurman andMunro 2009; Kortelainen 2008; Wahlström and Peterson 2006; Hughes 2005; Freidberg2004), my research has provided a broader perspective on the dynamics of this regu-latory process. And it has contributed specifically to the broader economic geographyliterature that is reimagining the firm and identifying the opportunities for renegotiatingcorporate social and environmental performance in the marketplace. Specifically, it hasoffered a unique peek into the alternative “cultural circuits of capital” that are beingdeveloped (both inside and outside targeted corporations) and that facilitate market-place strategies.

In light of the increasing importance of dialogue and corporate-stakeholder coopera-tion, important concerns about co-optation remain (see Trumpy 2008). Whereas CIW ismaintaining control over the monitoring of its new farmworker code in Florida (with helpfrom the University of Miami Law School), in other cases, this monitoring is “privatized”and turned over to certification institutions with various standards (see Gereffi, Garcia-Johnson, and Sasser 2001; Hamilton 2011). Perhaps most important is the question ofwhat issues and stakeholders are privileged by this new politics. Although I did not findevidence of a strict stakeholder hierarchy, there is likely an uneven development to theCSR initiatives resulting from this type of regulation, if only because of the heavyreliance on shareholder activism by many (but not all) campaigns and the limitedinvolvement of smaller, resource-strapped organizations during the implementationphase. While dialogue is clearly proving successful for many campaigns, the resourcesthat are necessary to sustain ongoing negotiations and to develop corporate strategies andoversight mechanisms are often beyond the reach of smaller NGOs and communityorganizations. The next frontiers for research on marketplace politics, then, are in further

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untangling the complex power-geometries and regulatory coverage of these processes(see Angel, Hamilton, and Huber 2007).

Finally, it is important to highlight two significant developments since this researchwas conducted, namely, the rise of social media and the global financial crisis-andrecession. The impact of social media on marketplace politics is unknown, althoughone may expect it to add firepower and significant organizing capacity to attacks onbrands, particularly those that are aimed at leveraging youth markets. On the otherhand, while social media may indeed enhance the visibility of campaigns, they are notcentral to the dialogue between corporate executives and campaign proponents thatsecures the implementation of CSR initiatives. One of the key findings of my researchwas that the success of campaigns is determined as much by these dialogues-andnegotiations as by oppositional power, and I would argue that these insights remainrelevant in light of the explosion of new protest and organizing platforms, although itcertainly deserves attention in future research. In terms of the global financial crisis,research has suggested that CSR has not been taken off the corporate agenda, but thatCSR initiatives have been refocused and NGO finances have been compromised(Hughes 2012). This potential diminishment of NGOs’ capacities to participate in dia-logue and work with companies to develop new models of social and environmentalresponsibility is also deserving of future research, as is the potential impact of thecrisis on the perceived materiality of specific social and environmental issues. Thesedevelopments remind one of the continuous reorientation of priorities and resourcesthat frustrates attempts to model marketplace politics. Although this article has notoffered a predictive solution, it has provided a guide for the ongoing analysis of thepotential synergies and overlaps among contentious politics, “alternative” elementswithin the investment and advisory industries, and targeted corporations’ CSR absorp-tive capacities.

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