Corporate crises have grown exponentially in recent times, with these crises having effects on the behavior of stakeholders alongside other consequences for organizations. For instance, companies suffer damaged reputations and damaged relationships with their stakeholders, especially customers and investors. Social movements that target organizational mishaps have witnessed significantly scaled platforms on social media, leading to more public awareness of the crises. In this paper, we utilize the case study approach to explore how the public reacts or responds to corporate crises. We adopt the Framing theory lens to conduct a qualitative content analysis and text analysis of the public’s response to corporate crises. We obtain data from the X platform (formerly Twitter) on the specific case of Volkswagen’s diesel emissions crisis of 2015. As a theoretical contribution, we derive propositions that will later be tested empirically. Our study builds on literature on social media-enabled social movements in Information Systems with a focus on corporate-oriented activism. We believe the study will assist social movement organizers in understanding framing techniques that most effectively get the attention of organizations.
