CSR’s New Challenge: Corporate Political Advocacy

Abstract

In summer 2011, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz launched a highly publicized campaign against the prevailing political climate in the U.S. and the respective “lack of cooperation and irresponsibility among elected officials as they have put partisan agendas before the people’s agenda.”1 Building a coalition with other corporations, they pledged “to withhold any further campaign contributions to elected members of Congress and the President until a fair, bipartisan deal is reached that sets our nation on stronger long-term fiscal footing.”2 Furthermore, in an open letter to his “dear fellow citizens,” he called upon all citizens to send a message to their elected officials in which to remind them “that the time to put citizenship ahead of partisanship is now.”3 Schultz’s political advance raised eyebrows not only in the corporate and political communities, but also among scholars concerned with questions of business ethics and corporate responsibility. Noted business ethicists Andy Crane and Dirk Matten, for example, commented: “For a business leader like Schultz to come out and so explicitly take a stand that effectively seeks to hold his domestic politicians to ransom until they do his bidding represents a fairly unique twist on the growing involvement of business in politics.”