Corporate Activism – New Kid on the CSR Block: Perceptions of Social Justice in Starbucks’ Corporate Activism Discourses

Abstract

Over the past decade, large-scale American companies have taken a new kind of social stand and publicly spoken out on issues unrelated to their core business activities. The rights of LGBTQI+ people, racism, and gender equity, among others, have become hot topics on the corporate agenda – and companies are not afraid to show this through campaigns, partnerships, statements, and public comments. The phenomenon has been titled as corporate activism.

The activist efforts of companies are evidently connected to corporate social responsibility (CSR), i.e. the idea that companies have responsibilities that go beyond profit-making. In recent decades, CSR practices and theories have been criticized for being too instrumental: the realm of CSR is argued to be dominated by business interests which ultimately leads to unequal stakeholder participation and shallow CSR practices. At first glance, it seems that corporate activism might be something different. The private sector is becoming more vocal, engaging in new discourses, and moving to uncharted terrains in scales that the U.S. society has not witnessed during its modern history.

The upsurge of corporate activism has gathered attention within non-academic literature, but academic research on the topic remains scarce. The overall objective of this thesis is to address the research gap and establish initial connections between Peace Research and corporate activism. The more targeted objective is to critically examine how issues of social justice manifest in corporate activism discourses. To reach these goals, this research provides a thorough introduction to CSR and corporate activism and conducts a case study analysis on the U.S. coffee company Starbucks. A theoretical framework founded in CSR-theorizing and the methodological tool of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) guide the analysis of the data.

The findings reveal that Starbucks’s activism discourses respond to mounting external pressure for corporate societal engagement and leadership. Activism is justified by emphasizing the relatable character of the company and its current Chairman emeritus Howard Schultz and romanticizing the U.S. as a promised land that needs protection. In addition, the discourses highlight the difficulties the country is facing in the current political landscape and the meaningful role of Starbucks in answering the problems. The findings ultimately show that Starbucks’ activism efforts are derived from the narrow and instrumental perspective of an advantaged group and fail to bring out the voices of those who are marginalized against and disadvantaged. As a result, dominance and unequal power relations are likely reproduced and the aspiration to spark positive social changes stays hollow.

Overall, the research builds a normative theoretical structure around the concept of corporate activism instead of analyzing the phenomenon solely from instrumental and descriptive perspectives. The study contributes to an understanding of how corporate activism, despite its efforts to enact positive change, can uphold dominance and be justified with semantically strong arguments. Although the study managed to achieve its objectives, more research is needed to increase the generalizability of the findings and further understand the connections between corporate activism and social justice.

The study fundamentally shows that corporate activism is the new kid on the CSR block, and it is here to stay. If corporations are to make a genuine impact, they need to critically self-examine their position and advantages in society. The corporate activist who engages in an equal dialogue with those stakeholders who are disadvantaged and marginalized against, asks how to best support them, and (most importantly) listens is the one who changes the game.