Riskier Business: How Consumer Perceptions of Corporate Political Advocacy Have Evolved

Abstract

Historically, companies have largely avoided taking sides on political issues due to their risky polarizing nature and focused their efforts on business operations and controlling what impacts the bottom line. However, in the past decade companies have increasingly taken very public stances on politically charged social issues, referred to as corporate political advocacy (CPA). With the increasingly polarized political nature of the population coupled with consumers’ desire for organizations to help drive social change, abstaining from CPA is becoming less of an option for organizations. The purpose of this research is to investigate how consumer perceptions of CPA have changed and which social issues have the strongest influence on consumers’ purchasing decisions. Using comparative analyses from two datasets collected nearly 10 years apart, we find that CPA has had an increasingly significant impact on consumer purchase decisions but mostly when an organization takes a stand on a social issue consumers care about. The data revealed that COVID-19 and healthcare are the most influential social issues currently impacting consumer perceptions.