Companies have been recognized as a substantive force in shaping both political and social issues (Carroll, 1979; Epstein, 1987; Hillman and Hitt, 1999). The management literature has generally categorised companies’ non-market activities as either corporate social responsibility (CSR), which aims to benefit society, or corporate political activities (CPA), which aim to influence political processes.
However, in the last decade, there is evidence of more wide-ranging participation in political debates with companies engaging in socio-political issues which are clearly not related to their primary corporate objectives (Alzola, 2013; Nailik et al., 2016). Socio-political issues involve stances on sensitive topics that challenge established norms derived from individualized views (Haider-Markel and Meier, 1996). Nailik et al. (2016) classify these types of activities as socio-political involvement (SPI). They are mainly characterised by (1) lack of societal consensus, (2) low information rationality, and (3) evolving viewpoints and issue salience. SPI activities differ from other non-market activities (i.e. CSR and CPA) since (1) a company’s objectives are not known a priori, (2) operational relatedness is more distal, and (3) some stakeholders view SPI as beneficial, while others will perceive it as discriminatory. A key incentive for companies to engage in SPI is to build trust, legitimacy, and rapport with actual or future key stakeholders such as employees, customers, and activist investors, and to respond to stakeholders pressure (Nailik et al., 2016).
One major enabler of SPI is social media. Social media allows individuals and organisations to create and share content, to consume content created by other users, and to easily connect with other users (Hoffman and Novak 2012). Social media facilitates a fast and low-cost communication channel that companies can use to spread their ideas to a wide audience (van Dijck, 2013; Nailik et al., 2016). Among different social media platforms, Twitter has the peculiarity of being a largely open network with specific functionality and features that facilitate content sharing and amplification beyond a user’s immediate network, namely retweeting and hashtags.
Due to the lack of precedent, the debate about the recent referendum regarding the membership of the United Kingdom (UK) in the European Union ( “Brexit”) was characterised by a high level of uncertainty regarding the potential impact on the economy and on society.It also created acute divisions between the two main campaigns (i.e. leave vs. remain) and among different geographical regions. Given these characteristics, the Brexit referendum can be classified more as a socio-political issue than as a merely political one.
This paper analyses the tweets featuring the hashtag #Brexit generated by official corporate Twitter accounts during the period between the official announcement of the referendum and the final result. Specifically, we seek to empirically explore (i) whether corporate accounts engaged in SPI activities, (ii) whether any sub-topic or stakeholder bias is evident in such activities, and (iii) whether there is a relationship between SPI activities and stakeholder engagement. By providing initial empirical findings on company’s SPI on social media, this paper extends the existing literature and provides the basis for further empirical research.
