10616: Politically Related Boycotts Diminish Organizational Liking and May Have Unintended Consequences (session 25792)

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Polarization and rage fill the current political and social environment. Boycotts of organizations due to political stances are one important manifestation. However, there are no articles that empirically address the “micro” effects of boycotts. We examine how the existence of a boycott (based on politically related factors) of a simulated organization can influence job seeking. We report a main effect such that job seekers generally found boycotted organizations to be less similar to themselves and less liked by job seekers. We also found that job seekers who were politically dissimilar to a boycotted organization’s stance perceived themselves to be the least similar to that organization and liked it least. We also demonstrated that boycotts could have unintended consequences. While boycotters of an organization intend to coerce the organization into changing its political stance, the unintended effect of a boycott is on job seekers. The boycott discourages the very type of job seekers the external (boycotting) constituents would like to apply to change the organization and its political stance from within. Overall, boycotts can influence a variety of psychological processes such as job seeker perceived similarity, liking, realistic and symbolic threats, and intent to seek employment with an organization.

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