Activism, Firm Identity, and the Extent of Changes to Contentious Industry Practices

This study develops a conceptual model that leverages firms’ organizational and collective identities to explain when activist campaigns will pervasively modify contentious practices in industries. We relate activist-contested practices with threats to target firms’ identity levels and recognize such threats as catalysts for target firms or broader groups of industry members to modify those practices. We also suggest that collective identity abstraction and industry attention moderate the relationships between identity threats and the diffusion of changes to contested practices throughout industries. Our conceptualization informs social movement and identity theories and offers abundant research opportunities.