‘Vote the Assholes Out’: How Value Congruence Work Aligns Stakeholders for Corporate Activism
Sean Buchanan, Mojtaba Mohammadnejad Shourkaei, Bruno Dyck
Journal of Management Studies · 2025 · Volume 62 · Issue 8
Abstract
Recent research has pointed to value congruence between a firm and its stakeholders as a key driver of corporate socio-political activism. However, this ‘stakeholder alignment’ model of corporate activism does not adequately explain how firms foster value congruence with their stakeholders. Drawing from an inductive study of Patagonia, Inc., we develop a social-symbolic work perspective of stakeholder alignment for corporate activism by introducing the concept of ‘value congruence work’. Our findings demonstrate howattractionalvalue congruence work aims to draw in stakeholders with similar values to engage with the firm, andco-evolutionaryvalue congruence work facilitates different forms of learning to sustain alignment between a firm and its stakeholders. Our findings offer new insights for research on corporate socio-political activism and values work in organizations.
Keywords
corporate activism, Patagonia, social-symbolic work, stakeholder alignment, value congruence, values work
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