Conclusions: What Have We Learned?

This chapter summarizes each preceding chapter and then offers lessons for scholars and practitioners. Scholars should note the value of dynamic modeling in understanding interactions between activists and firms in the realm of private politics. Activists and firms can use the insights of the model to approach corporate campaigns more strategically. For example, for activists, the framework suggests that efforts aimed at hurting the reputations of firms can do more than serve an ideological aim at making companies look bad, or as a device to threaten harm. Activists can play the role of private regulators when effective public regulation is missing. For leaders of firms, the analysis highlights that corporate social responsibility and other initiatives can serve to enhance a firm’s reputation, but they can also be viewed as a form of risk management in the face of activist pressures that can potentially harm reputation.