After the Parkland, Fla., shooting in February, executives companies across the country -- from Dick’s Sporting Goods and BlackRock to Enterprise Rent-a-Car and Delta-- made the controversial decision to cut ties with gunmakers and the National Rifle Association.
When President Trump announced the travel ban on several majority-Muslim countries last year, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos openly voiced their opposition to the policy.
This kind of CEO activism, when corporate leaders take political or social stances that are “unrelated to the bottom line,” has taken off in recent years, explained Aaron Chatterji, Associate Professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. He wrote about this trend in an article for the [Harvard Business Review](https://hbr.org/cover-story/2018/03/divided-we-lead).
There are three main factors driving this trend.
The first comes from inside the companies themselves -- the employees.
“A lot of millennials especially are pushing their bosses to speak out,” explained Chatterji.
Second is the increasingly polarized political climate.
“Being in the middle is really hard,” he said. “You see the middle sort of being hollowed out of both political parties. That’s where companies used to be, and [now] they’re forced to occupy one side or the other.”
And finally, social media gives CEOs “a microphone that’s always on” and access to direct conversations with their consumers.
But having a vocal CEO doesn’t come without risks.
“This is uncharted territory,” Chatterji said. “A lot of CEOs and companies are finding themselves getting burned by these activist stands,” because they open up the possibility of consumer backlash or even isolation from investors.
Many companies, though, also benefit from this movement. Chatterji pointed to Apple as an example.
After CEO Tim Cook called Indiana’s proposed religious freedom law “dangerous” in 2015, “we found...there were people who were more likely to buy Apple products.”
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Jeff Benedict, author of 'The Dynasty,' weighs in on the Kansas City Chiefs being the next big dynasty, who he thinks will win Super Bowl LIX and more. Watch!
