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Inertia Busters: Social Movement Influence on Impervious Incumbents facing Environmental Turbulence
Conference proceeding

Inertia Busters: Social Movement Influence on Impervious Incumbents facing Environmental Turbulence

Todd Schifeling, Thomas Peyton Lyon and Ion B. Vasi
Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, Vol.2019(1), pp.935-938
08/01/2019
DOI: 10.5465/AMBPP.2019.166

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Abstract

Environmental change pressures incumbent organizations to decide when to adapt and exit from investments in a declining technology. As the alternatives become more economically feasible, companies will vary in how responsive they are to the shifting competitive circumstances. We investigate how contentious activism can prod recalcitrant companies to hasten their exit. This mechanism helps to account for movement influence on targets that are otherwise impervious to activism. It also broadens research on incumbent adaptation and strategic change to consider external stakeholders that accelerate rather than delay change. We find support for our theory from an analysis of coal plant retirements in the U.S. from 2008-2015

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