DesJardine, M.R., Sadri Karami, M.H. and Samei, A. orcid.org/0000-0002-2788-6556 (2025) How common owners contain the costs of media disapproval in controversial industries? In: Taneja, S., (ed.) Academy of Management Proceedings. 85th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, 25-29 Jul 2025, Copenhagen, Denmark. Academy of Management
Abstract
Various hidden forces shape the competitive landscapes we know. Situating our study in the context of within-industry common ownership and the media, we investigate the role that common owners play in thwarting media disapproval—where firms are disapproved in the media for contested business practices they share with their broader industry. When a firm in a controversial industry acquiesces to media disapproval, it implicitly acknowledges the “dirtiness” of the practice which can elevate costs and pressure on other firms to do the same. Because common owners hold shares in multiple peers in a single industry, we argue they will invest in firms that experience disapproval in an effort to prevent these firms from acquiescing to media disapproval. We posit this relationship is stronger when it is more difficult for common owners to divest from the controversial industry and when the source of disapproval is more credible. Bringing our theory full circle, we hypothesize that an influx of common owners into a target firm reduces the extent to which it will acquiesce to media disapproval. Using data on common owners of arms manufacturers, we find support for our theory. This study reveals new hidden forces that underlie organizational resistance to media disapproval.
Metadata
Item Type: | Proceedings Paper |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Editors: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 The authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a paper published in Academy of Management Proceedings is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | Institutional ownership; common ownership; media disapproval; organizational acquiescence |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 13 May 2025 11:55 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2025 12:06 |
Published Version: | https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/AMPROC.2025.1... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Academy of Management |
Refereed: | Yes |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:226232 |