Corporate Philanthropy as an Ideological Tool for Advocacy

Abstract

This dissertation explores a phenomenon of corporate advocacy giving: philanthropic giving by corporations to 501c3 advocacy nonprofits (e.g., activist groups, think tanks) via their affiliated foundations. Corporate philanthropy is often conceptualized as the voluntary redistribution of corporate wealth, channeled through service nonprofits. However, another important function of nonprofits is advocacy, which leads to the question of whether corporate giving is channeled toward advocacy nonprofits and what role it plays in the repertoire of firms’ nonmarket strategies. Given the lack of prior knowledge on this phenomenon, throughout three chapters of my dissertation, I develop an initial yet systematic understanding on this underexplored phenomenon of corporate advocacy giving. Based on a novel database on corporate advocacy giving from 2003 to 2015, I find that it is not only an empirically significant phenomenon, but also plays a distinctive role in the repertoire of firm nonmarket strategies. Especially, my findings suggest that it can be understood as an underexplored channel of corporate activism pursued to advance firm employees' issue-related ideological preferences, which can often be homogeneous and extreme. In doing so, I present a more nuanced and less optimistic take on the role of corporate philanthropic giving in society, thus raising the need for effective monitoring on the practice.