Executive Summary

This report presents findings on American attitudes toward corporate political activism. Key findings include:

Americans generally do not support corporate activism: Only 27.8% of respondents believe corporations should take stances on social issues.
Americans hold cynical views about the intention of corporate activism: Many more Americans believe corporations take stances on social issues as a marketing tactic (70.9%) rather than because of sincere beliefs (33.5%).
Perceived belief congruence with corporations varies by company: While most Americans are unsure whether companies hold beliefs similar to their own, significance variation exists between companies.
Partisans are split on corporate activism: Democrats are more likely to agree that corporations should take stances on corporate issues (39%) than Republicans (23.3%), and partisans perceive themselves as closer in beliefs with different sets of companies. All partisans, however, remain cynical about the motivations behind corporate activism.
Support for corporate activism varies by other demographics: Differences in support for corporate activism exist between racial and age groups, but less-so among gender and income groups.

Main Results

This briefing is part of a series of monthly reports on the state of partisan animosity conducted by the Polarization Research Lab (PRL) at Dartmouth College, University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University. The focus of this May 2024 report is corporate activism, with 3000 interviews conducted on the YouGov platform over the course of the month.

Corporate Activism in America

Americans, our results show, do not want corporations to take positions on social issues. While engaging in social advocacy can present positive marketing opportunities, the risks of a situation akin to Anheuser Busch and the general lack of public support suggest that it is likely most advantageous for corporations to avoid treading into social policy debates.

Corporate actions frequently intersect with politics. Recent examples include Twitter and free speech, auto manufacturers and worker unions, and financial institution mergers and consumer protections. Historically, corporations have engaged in politics only in private through lobbying activities or by necessity when confronted by lawsuits. Recently, however, corporations appear increasingly willing to take public stances on social and political issues, even when the company has only a loose (or no) connection to the issue. This has been typical of some companies, such as Ben & Jerry’s, but now extends to major global brands such as Nike (who partnered with Colin Kaepernick in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests), Anheuser Busch (who partnered with a transgender influencer), and Target (who publicly amplified its commitment to DEI initiatives).

We refer to this trend of corporations taking public stances on social issues as corporate activism. In response, such companies have often been subject to boycotts and buycotts, have been investigated and/or publicly chastised by prominent politicians, and have generally become one of a growing number of partisan symbols in an increasingly polarized country.

In this report, we ask questions related to corporate activism to better understand public attitudes toward the trend. In particular, we ask whether Americans support corporate activism, what they perceive the goal of such activism to be, and the extent they believe the values of particular companies align with their own.

Americans do not support corporate activism

We asked respondents if companies should take public positions on social issues. As is shown in the figure below, only 1 in 4 Americans (27.8%) agree they should, while 35.9% disagree, and 36.4% neither agree nor disagree. This suggests Americans, on average, are either ambivalent or still making up their minds on corporate activism, but do not overwhelmingly support it. There is also evidence that support for corporate activism may be context-dependent; e.g., some people may prefer certain companies take positions on certain issues, but not others.

Americans are cynical about the nature of corprate activism

What do Americans see when corporations take public stances on issues? It is possible such companies do so out of genuine belief that the issues are important and that their stance matters. Alternatively, companies may take positions more strategically, doing so as a marketing strategy to boost engagement and subsequent profits. The extent that either possibility is true is largely unknown outside the board rooms of such companies. To that end, we asked respondents why they believe companies take public stances on social issues.

The results presented below suggest an overwhelmingly cynical view of corporate activism. Only about a third of respondents believe corporations are trying to change social policy with their public stances. However, over two-thirds of respondents believe companies are doing so as a marketing tool, with only 7.1% disagreeing.

Perceived belief congruence with corporations varies by company

While a large segment of the population have generally negative views about corporate activism, those views may change when evaluating particular companies. Below, we ask respondents whether the political views of several companies that have recently been featured in political news are like their own. We see substantial variation in the responses. Boeing has the smallest share of those reporting having similar views at 10.2%, with Target having the highest share at 26%. However, Boeing also has the largest share of unsure or ambivalent responses 60.6%, suggesting its political views aren’t particularly clear to the public. Target has the lowest share of such responses at 40.8%, perhaps due to national news coverage of its DEI efforts.

The highest rate of disagreement was with Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch) at 39.2%. This may be due, in part, to the fraught marketing partnership with a transgender influencer. Conservative customers boycotted the brand after the partnership was announced. Amid the backlash, the influencer (Dylan Mulvaney) chastised the company for its response, leading to a new wave of criticism for the company by LGBTQ+ organizations. It appears, then, that Anheuser-Busch may have alienated both sides of the political spectrum.

Partisans are split on corporate activism

Because corporate activism often divides along political lines, we analyze whether support and perceptions of corporate activism varies with partisanship. In the figure below, we show a significantly larger share of Democrats (39%) agree that companies should take public positions on social issues than Republicans (23.3%), perhaps being driven in part by many more high-profile acts of progressive corporate activism than conservative corporate activism over the last several years. This is not to say such conservative activism is not present. For example, Spotify vociferously defended Joe Rogan’s free speech rights amid backlash for his use of racial slurs on his podcast.

Partisans are much more aligned on why companies engage in such activism. 66% of Democrats and 74.7% of Republicans agree that companies do so as a marketing tool, compared to 36.3% and 38.6% who believe companies do so to change social policy. Disagreement over corporate activism, therefore, appears to be more about what is being said than why.

To test this further, we look at how corporate value alignments vary between partisans. Again, we see significant variation. While some companies like Boeing and Walmart have similar distributions of value alignment, other companies have much more marked differences. The biggest gap in partisan beliefs that companies have views like their own is with Target: 38.9% of Democrats compared to 20.1% of Republicans. A similarly large gap exists for Nike: 34.8% of Democrats and 19.7% of Republicans believe they share political views with the company.

Significant differences between some demographic groups

Finally, we look at several demographic groups to determine whether differences in support for corporate activism exist beyond partisanship.

First, we consider the age of respondents. Below, we show that younger respondents between the ages of 20 and 40 are slightly more likely to prefer companies to take public positions on social issues, whereas those over 40 would prefer companies avoid such engagements.

We also observe some small racial differences in support. While Asian, Black, and Hispanic respondents support corporate activism at fairly similar rates (about 1 in 3), White Americans are significantly less supportive (only 1 in 5).

Lastly, we consider potential differences in both gender and income. In the plots below, we show minimal differences; male and female and high- and low- income respondents support corporate activism at very similar rates.

Appendix

About The Polarization Research Lab and our Data

The Polarization Research Lab works to understand and strengthen democracy by conducting rigorous science, producing public goods, and training the next generation of scholars. The Lab is led by PIs Sean J. Westwood at Dartmouth College, Yphtach Lelkes at the Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania, and Shanto Iyengar at Stanford University.
PRL studies the political attitudes of Americans and the behavior of elected officials. Our goals are to:
- Dispel rumors and show hard data on the democratic attitudes of citizens. We conduct the largest continuous tracking poll on YouGov, collecting 1,000 interviews of Americans a week.
- Identify the behavior of elected officials that contributes to toxic polarization.
- Produce publicly available reports and tools to help stakeholders advance responses to toxic polarization that are based in data and evidence. PRL works directly with journalists, democracy practitioners, and policymakers.

PRL Is Supported by

The Carnegie Corportation
The Charles Koch Foundation
The Hewlett Foundation
The Knight Foundation
The Templeton World Charity Foundation
New Pluralists

Survey Questions: Corporations

Would you agree or disagree that when corporations take positions on social issues they are: In a grid: Sincerely trying to change social policy / Trying to use social issues as a marketing tool
- Strongly Agree
- Agree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Disagree
- Strongly Disagree
Would you agree or disagree: Companies should take public positions on social issues
- Strongly Agree
- Agree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Disagree
- Strongly Disagree
Would you say the following companies have political views that are like yours or not like yours: In a grid: Walmart / Target / Amazon / Nike / Anheuser Busch (Budweiser) / Boeing
- Like my views
- Not like my views
- Don’t know