The Handbook of Board Governance, 3rd Edition

24CEO Political Activism: Corporate Governance and Ethical Dimensions

John M. Holcomb, BA, MA, JD

Professor Emeritus of Business Ethics & Legal Studies University of Denver

Incidents of chief executive officer (CEO) political activism across a broad spectrum of issues have been growing since 2021. In most cases, CEOs have taken such political positions on a unilateral basis with little input from shareholders and other stakeholder groups. This raises corporate governance concerns, to be examined in this chapter. It will also discuss a prominent example of such activism, in the context of a case on CEO political positions on voting rights.

Beyond positions taken on voting rights, several CEOs have also staked out positions on climate change, on access to abortion by paying travel expenses to states where it is legal, on gay rights and transgender rights, and on doing business with Russia during the Ukraine war. With the exception of the latter issue, which poses questions of national security around which a consensus is more apparent, issues of voting rights, climate change, on access to abortion, and on gay rights and transgender rights more often produce partisan division. In those cases, CEOs have more visibly aligned their positions with liberal ones and positions of the Democratic Party.

A backlash has ensued from conservative political forces, such as the stands of Governor DeSantis (R-FL) against Disney on gay rights and transgender rights. Conservatives have also pushed ...