MAKING THINGS RIGHT: CAN AN ORGANIZATION REDEEM ITS REPUTATION WITH CORPORATE SOCIAL OUTREACH PROGRAMS RELATED TO ITS ORIGINAL TRANSGRESSION?
Open Access
- Author:
- Plover, Sarah Ann
- Area of Honors:
- Letters, Arts, and Sciences (Abington)
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Debra Casey, Thesis Supervisor
Debra Casey, Thesis Supervisor
Gregory Mcmillan, Thesis Supervisor
Gregory Mcmillan, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- corporate social responsibility
scandal
sports
management - Abstract:
- This study examines, from a business ethics framework, a controversial act by a professional sports organization and its subsequent attempts to mitigate damage to its reputation. Corporate reputation is an important, non-tangible corporate asset. After a public scandal, a corporation faces obstacles in regaining public trust and re-building the damaged asset – the corporate reputation. To that end, management will often initiate corporate social outreach programs in an attempt to mitigate public outcry from perceived organizational transgressions. This is exactly what happened in the controversial 2009 hiring by the Philadelphia Eagles of Michael Vick – a convicted dogfighter – as their star quarterback. Shortly after the hiring, the Eagles organization began a philanthropic program, called Treating Animals with Kindness (TAWK), designed to educate and contribute money to the promotion of animal rights and humane treatment. This thesis examined whether members of identifiable public groups viewed the initial hiring as a violation of ethics by the Eagles organization and to what extent the TAWK program mitigated any perceived ethical wrongdoing. College students in management classes (N=139) were surveyed as part of their studies on business ethics. Results indicated that Eagles fans were significantly less likely to view the hiring of Michael Vick as an unethical act. Participants who believed the hiring was necessary to improve team performance and those who believed Vick has played well since his hire similarly were significantly less likely to view the hiring as an unethical act. There was no substantial support for the hypothesis that participants who particularly cared for animals and animal rights – the issue at the heart of the Vick controversy – significantly differed from non-animal focused participants in their views of the ethics of the Vick hiring. Further, educating participants about the TAWK program did not significantly improve their view of the original ethical act. These results suggest that sports fans will forgive their teams’ controversial decisions so long as they accomplish performance objectives and emphasize the utility of subsequent programs designed to restore corporate reputation.