The Movement for Corporate Political Accountability

这个项目将研究社会运动的来源和影响，社会运动一直在向大公司施压，要求它们披露更多关于政治支出的信息。这场社会运动，既包括传统的外部活动团体，也包括内部投资者活动人士，已经建立了十多年。该项目的主要研究目标是了解哪些公司是活动人士的目标，哪些公司已经改变了他们的具体披露做法，哪些公司甚至走得更远，并开始限制某些支出，以及与政治披露相关的信息是否会影响股票市场上的公司和投资者的看法。该项目的调查结果将为公司内部和外部关于美国公司政治披露要求的政策建议提供参考，这一直是政策制定者之间争论的一个话题。这些调查的结果将通过学术文章和著作广泛传播，面向包括商界和政界领袖在内的一般利益受众和广大公众。该项目还将培训研究生和本科生，并生成各种公共使用的数据集，以便其他学者以及记者和学生进行进一步研究。研究目标将通过几种方式实现。将创建2005年至2016年期间围绕S和普尔1500家公司的抗议和政治支出争议的原始数据库(基于媒体报道)。一项分析将考察公司过去的政治活动和公司联锁网络如何影响它们成为外部或投资者维权人士的目标的可能性。另一项分析将调查抗议和公司股东决议如何影响公司改变披露做法或限制支出的可能性。将对主要股东维权人士进行采访。累积异常收益(CAR)事件-研究与支出相关的争议如何影响公司的股价。将进行一系列实验，以检验政治披露做法的变化如何影响投资者对公司价值的看法。该项目将推进政治和经济社会学的学术研究，特别是在企业网络日益削弱和股东资本主义日益崛起的情况下，有关美国企业的政治权力的学术研究。它还将推进社会运动和组织理论交叉领域的研究。最后，这项研究将引起人们对当代公司采用的各种企业游说策略以及投资者、公众和政策制定者如何看待这些策略的关注。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will study the sources and effects of the social movement that has been pressuring major corporations to disclose more information about their political expenditures. This social movement, involving both conventional outside activist groups and insider investor-activists, has been building for over a decade now. The primary research goals of this project are to understand which firms are targeted by activists, which have changed their specific disclosure practices, which have gone even further and started restricting certain expenditures, and whether information related to political disclosure affects firms in the stock market and in terms of investor perceptions. The findings of this project will inform policy proposals, both internal and external to firms, regarding political disclosure requirements for U.S. corporations, which have been an ongoing topic of debate among policymakers. Results of these investigations will be disseminated widely through scholarly articles and writings for general-interest audiences including business and political leaders and the broader public. The project will also train graduate and undergraduate students and generate a variety of public-use datasets that will allow for further investigations by other scholars, as well as by journalists and students. The research goals will be pursued in several ways. Original databases of protests and political expenditure controversies (based on media reports) surrounding S&P 1500 firms over the period from 2005-2016 will be created. One analysis will examine how firms' past political activity and corporate interlock networks affect their likelihood of being targeted by either outside or investor activists. Another analysis will investigate how protests and corporate shareholder resolutions affect firms' likelihood of changing their disclosure practices or restricting expenditures. Interviews with leading shareholder-activists will be conducted. A Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CAR) event-study of how expenditure-related controversies affect firms' stock prices will be performed. A series of experiments will be conducted to examine how changes to political disclosure practices affect investor perceptions of a firm's value. The project will advance scholarship in political and economic sociology, particularly regarding the political power of U.S. corporations in light of weakening corporate networks alongside rising shareholder capitalism. It will also advance research at the intersection of social movements and organizational theory. Lastly, the study will draw attention to the diverse corporate lobbying strategies employed by contemporary firms and how those strategies are perceived by investors, publics, and policymakers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.