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Mobilizing After Corporate Environmental Irresponsibility in a Community of Place: A Framing Microprocess Perspective

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Valeria Cavotta at Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Valeria Cavotta
Guido Palazzo
Guido Palazzo
Guido Palazzo
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Antonino Vaccaro at Universidad de Navarra
Antonino Vaccaro
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In this paper, we take a framing perspective to corporate environmental irresponsibility and focus it on the community of place as one among the most affected, yet rarely examined, stakeholders. In particular, we take a framing microprocess perspective, to study how interactions within a community of place affect a mobilization after corporate environmental irresponsibility. We elicit two framing microprocess, losses display and scale augmentation, and show how they significantly, though differently, affect a mobilization. In so doing, we enrich our understanding of how communities of place mobilize, the types of, and venues, where interactions take place in a community of place—and how these affect a mobilization.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
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Journal of Business Ethics (2023) 182:1155–1169
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04983-1
ORIGINAL PAPER
Mobilizing After Corporate Environmental Irresponsibility
inaCommunity ofPlace: AFraming Microprocess Perspective
ValeriaCavotta1· GuidoPalazzo2· AntoninoVaccaro3
Received: 30 November 2020 / Accepted: 21 October 2021 / Published online: 3 November 2021
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021
Abstract
In this paper, we take a framing perspective to corporate environmental irresponsibility and focus it on the community of
place as one among the most affected, yet rarely examined, stakeholders. In particular, we take a framing microprocess
perspective, to study how interactions within a community of place affect a mobilization after corporate environmental irre-
sponsibility. We elicit two framing microprocess, losses display and scale augmentation, and show how they significantly,
though differently, affect a mobilization. In so doing, we enrich our understanding of how communities of place mobilize,
the types of, and venues, where interactions take place in a community of place—and how these affect a mobilization.
Keywords Community of place· Framing microprocesses· Corporate environmental irresponsibility· Industrial waste
hazardous disposal
Introduction
Corporate irresponsibility is seen as entailing a decision
that involves a gain by one party at the expense of the total
system (Armstrong, 1977). When it refers to the environ-
ment, corporate irresponsibility encompasses a variety of
detrimental activities such as environmental frauds (e.g.,
Volkswagen scandal), depletion or destruction of natural
resources, and hazardous disposal of industrial waste. Over-
all, extant research on corporate irresponsibility has
advanced our understandings on antecedents (Chen etal.,
2008; Greve etal., 2010), attributions of irresponsibility
(Lange & Washburn, 2012), reactions to irresponsibility,
and firms’ coping measures vis-à-vis relevant stakeholders
(Antonetti & Maklan, 2016; Miceli etal., 2012; Nadeem,
2021; Pfarrer etal., 2008; Siltaouja & Vehkaperä, 2010).
A framing perspective in cases of corporate environmen-
tal irresponsibility has been used, typically, to explain how
firms, the media, and other organizations such as non-profits
(NGOs) and social movements (SMOs), construct firms’
irresponsibility by rendering some aspects of a particular
phenomenon more salient than others (Allan & Hadden,
2017; Clemente & Gabbioneta, 2017; Nyberg etal., 2020).
Though cases of corporate environmental irresponsibility are
detrimental in general, and also bear severe consequences for
the irresponsible firms (Xu etal., 2021), the communities of
place (Dunham etal., 2006), i.e., the geographic communi-
ties living near the premises where the environmental dam-
age has occurred, will be among the most affected (Beamish,
2001; Scott etal., 2012). For instance, in the years spent
studying communities contaminated with toxic substances,
Edelstein (1989) reported a host of negative, long-lasting,
environmental, social, psychological, and economic conse-
quences for the communities. These ranged from: fear of
imminent diseases and cross-generational effects, distrust
Editors at the Journal of Business Ethics are recused from all
decisions relating to submissions with which there is any identified
potential conflict of interest. Submissions to the Journal of
Business Ethics from editors of the journal are handled by a senior
independent editor at the journal and subject to full double blind
peer review processes.
* Valeria Cavotta
valeria.cavotta@unibz.it
Guido Palazzo
guido.palazzo@unil.ch
Antonino Vaccaro
avaccaro@iese.edu
1 Free University ofBozen-Bolzano, Piazza Università 1,
39100Bolzano, Italy
2 University ofLausanne, Unil Dorigny, 1015Lausanne,
Switzerland
3 IESE Business School, Carrer d’Arnús i de Garí, 3,
08034Barcelona, Spain
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
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