The Handbook of Board Governance, 3rd Edition

25Business and the Social Agenda: C-suite Activism, Corporate Responsibility, Workplace Trust, and the Board’s Role

Sally J. Curley, BA, MBA, IRC

CEO, Curley Global IR, LLC (CGIR)

Carol Nolan Drake, BA, JD

Founder and CEO, Carlow Consulting, LLC, and former Chief External Affairs Officer and Corporate Governance Manager, Ohio Public Employees Retirement System

“… when CEOs take public stands on controversial issues, they can galvanize support for their company from those who share their values. In this manner, CEO activism’s primary effect is through signaling which side of a public debate CEOs and, by implication, their companies are on. At the same time, CEO activism risks alienating consumers who disagree with the CEO’s public stance.”

—Aaron Chatterji, Mark Burgess, and Lisa Benson-Burgess Distinguished Professor, 2019, Sage Journals

Introduction

Although a few corporations have been taking a stance on social, political, and environmental issues for decades, for many organizations the pressure and expectation by stakeholders to “have a voice” is relatively new. Increased demand by numerous stakeholder groups has combined with global and social media attention to bring environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues into the mainstream. Most individuals are now familiar with movements such as #MeToo and #BLM and equally familiar with organizational responses. Whereas historically a company would not have taken a public stance on a contentious topic, today’s talent ...