Values and visibility: How CEO activism influences private and public consumer choices

Deskripsi

Firms and executives stances on controversial issues affect consumer behavior. This “political consumerism” might bemotivated by ideology and a desire to signal to peers, and thus vary for private and public purchases. We conduct an experiment with 1198 consumers to study how purchase visibility affects responses to CEO activism. Participants are randomly show neither generic production formation or that plus a CEO statement supporting gun rights. They then choose between receiving the product or receiving cash, with half assigned to a condition where their choice is visible to someone they know. Wefind that CEO activism reduces demand among people who disagree with the CEO regardless of purchase visibility, indicating minimal signaling motives. Our results have implications for firms using politics to differentiate products.