Date of Award

Fall 12-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

School of Public Service

Program/Concentration

Public Administration and Policy

Committee Director

Wie Yusuf

Committee Member

Adam Eckerd

Committee Member

Jay O’Toole

Abstract

This dissertation considers the role of shareholder resolutions and employee strikes as representations of activist activities targeting corporations and their influence on corporate political activity (CPA). The study builds from the McDonnell and Werner (2016) study in Administrative Science Quarterly, “Blacklisted businesses: Social activists’ challenges and the disruption of corporate political activity” that assessed the role of consumer boycotts vis-à-vis CPA. Starting with the political marketplace framework, introducing the policy relationship framework, and using signal theory, the dissertation found some support that shareholder resolutions and employee strikes related to increases in PAC refunds, that temporal issue salience to the public of a shareholder resolution issue increased PAC refunds and decreased congressional testimony, that media coverage and company reputation may increase CPA (contrary to the study’s prediction), and that lobbying may decrease in the face of activist activity paired with reductions in other CPA (also contrary to the study’s prediction). The study concludes that based on the relationships found, activist activities (shareholder resolutions and strikes) generate signals received by policymakers regarding the relationship between the public and companies. This conclusion provides additional examples of signal theory in politics and an example of the policy relationship framework’s assertion that the relationship between public and company can influence the relationship between company and policymaker. The study used a quasi-experimental difference-in-difference design based on treatment and control groups constructed through coarsened exact matching. The study used data following the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that upended campaign finance in the U.S. (2010-2023).

Comments

Conflict of Interest Statement

The opinions expressed in this dissertation are the author’s and not those of his employer, clients, or university. All work was done using his own resources, not his employer’s, and on his own time. He was not compensated by any organization or individual to conduct this research.

Artificial Intelligence Usage Disclosure

During the research and writing phases of this dissertation, the author used artificial intelligence (AI) in the following ways presented to his committee chair and the Public Administration and Policy Program Director on April 24, 2025. 1) Common grammar and spell check features in Microsoft applications generated recommendations for edits. Some were accepted; some were not accepted. 2) MS Co-Pilot generated SQL queries for use in MS Access and command language for Stata based on detailed, plain English prompts for the type of data manipulation desired by the author. 3) The default Google Search AI and MS Co-Pilot generated detailed search results as part of the research process when seeking source material. The author did not use AI to craft any writing included in this dissertation. The author used MS Co-Pilot to create Figure 2 included with the text based on specific wording to be included in the graphic and design characteristics specified by the author. This is noted on the figure and the prompt used to generate the graphic is included as Appendix C.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/czg7-t823

ISBN

9798276042176

Download

Share

COinS