When do stakeholders mobilize in response to corporate social irresponsibility? A systematic literature review

Figure 2 depicts the model that emerged from the inductive coding. We use this model in the following to structure the review.

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The model depicts stakeholder mobilization as a largely intra-personal process, where a stakeholder perceives and then evaluates a potential CSI incident and then decides to takeaction or abstain from taking action against a specific company based on the outcome of this evaluation. Examples of potential CSI incidents are company activities that harm the natural environment (Lin et al. 2016), deceptive behavior (Gatti et al. 2021; Wood et al. 2018; Xie and Bagozzi 2019), the undermining of social values (Karaosmanoglu et al. 2018), failure of products and service (Sinha and Lu 2016), or ignorance towards customers’ compliant (He et al. 2021; Kähr et al. 2016; Ma et al. 2021). Other triggers are harm caused by the product or services a company offers (Coraiola and Derry 2020), unfair business practices (Balabanis 2013; Ma et al. 2021), political affiliation (Antonetti and Anesa 2017) or being associated with other irresponsible companies (Lee and Zhong 2020; Scheidler and Edinger-Schons 2020). A company may also be targeted because of its country of origin’s policies or actions (Balabanis 2013).

Stakeholders perceive and then evaluate CSI to potentially develop an intention to mobilize, based on conditions internal to the respective stakeholder, such as the stakeholder’s cultural background or proximity to the CSI and conditions external to the stakeholder, such as the type of transgression. They evaluate both cognitively and affectively, to then potentially engage in action (mobilization) (see also Table 4). These elements connect such that stakeholder-internal and stakeholder-external conditions influence each both cognitive and affective evaluations, and both types of evaluations affect action or inaction. This model depicts, in total, the stakeholder mobilization process, as it emerges from our review. We discuss each of these elements in turn in the following paragraphs.

Stakeholders cognitively and affectively evaluate an occurrence to establish if it constitutes CSI and if they have the ability and incentives to mobilize against the respective company.

Central for the cognitive evaluation of an incident is the assignment of blame. Blame links an incident to a cause (Lange and Washburn 2012). Once an incident is observed, stakeholders usually try to determine its causes (sources) and attribute the incident to individuals or organizations (Xie et al. 2015; Xie and Bagozzi 2019). Such attribution helps rationalize subsequent decisions. When blame is attributed to a company, stakeholders are likely to mobilize against that company, as they conceptualize the incident as CSI (Antonetti and Maklan 2016a, 2016b; Lange and Washburn 2012). Stakeholders are generally more likely to mobilize if blame is attributed to a company rather than an individual (such as an individual middle manager), if they assume that an incident was intentional rather than accidental, and when they assume that the wrongdoing company has control over their behavior (Pizzetti et al. 2021; Valor et al. 2022). When stakeholders think the blame for an incident goes to individuals within a company, they might expect the company to make adjustments yet will not attribute blame to the company (Hans and Ermann 1989). Top-managers, however, are typically perceived as synonymous with their company, that is their misbehavior is attributed to the company (e.g. Zona et al. 2013). Hypocritical perceptions about a company aggravates stakeholders’ reactions (Yue et al. 2023), while perceptions of corporate or country warmth reduce stakeholder blame attribution (Shea and Hawn 2019). Repeated news about corporate wrongdoing also affect stakeholders’ cognitive evaluations, mediated by truthfulness (Pillai et al. 2023).

Through blame attribution, stakeholders also assess their own role in the incident, that is if they are part of the problem or not. For instance, Scheidler and Edinger-Schons (2020) discuss how US consumers were criticized as partners in crime for purchasing items produced by the Rana Plaza factory as companies were reported as socially irresponsible for their negligence that caused the factory to collapse, leading to thousands of deaths. If stakeholders think they are displaying socially irresponsible behavior themselves, for instance when buying cheap despite the producer being notorious for child labor, they might assign part of the blame to themselves, which reduces the likelihood that they mobilize against the wrongdoing company (Scheidler and Edinger-Schons 2020). Stakeholders’ patriotism also plays an important role as stakeholders favor companies from the same place or region they come from (Li et al. 2022). Perceived corporate greed is among the factors that enhance blame attribution, such that stakeholders are particularly likely to mobilize against companies that appear greedy (Antonetti and Maklan 2016b). In the same vein, companies that appear opportunistic are also more likely to be assigned blame (Grégoire et al. 2010). It is also important if stakeholders think that a transgressing company is likely to make substantial adjustments. If stakeholders assume that a CSI incident is due to a “rotten system” in this company, and the incident was deliberate rather than due to misbehavior of individual employees, blame assignment increases (Guckian et al. 2018).

Moreover, the types of transgressions (Zeng et al. 2021) also play a role. For instance, Kim et al. (2019) discuss functional transgression as non-relational whereas interpersonal failures such as employee’s rude behavior are relational transgression. Consumers tend to evaluate relational transgressions as more severe when they happen in relation to an underdog brand (Kim et al. 2019). For other stakeholders, such an underdog effect has so far not been shown.

Stakeholders then consider the likely outcome of mobilizing, weighing their perceived chance of success against the benefits and costs they might incur when mobilizing, against the backdrop of their risk propensity (Barnett (2014) and the urgency of the matter (Rowley and Moldoveanu 2003; Zhou and Ki 2018). Stakeholdersare more likely to mobilize in response to CSI they perceive as a threat to themselves and their immediate social environment (Laufer and Gillespie 2004; Samp and Cohen 2008; Silvera et al. 2012). Stakeholders might also conclude that they can achieve a positive outcome if others mobilize (free riding), which might prevent mobilizing (John and Klein 2003; Trautwein and Lindenmeier 2019). Stakeholders who benefit from a potential CSI evaluate it as less severe than those who do not benefit (Ahn et al. 2016; Scheidler and Edinger-Schons 2020). Moral and economic benefits influence stakeholders' intention towards a misbehaving company (Lee 2024; Alexander 2002; Zasuwa 2025). Economic spillover effects reduce the mobilization of investors and activists against unethical conduct (Mackey et al. 2022). Investors’ reactions to CSI, specifically, are also moderated by board composition, where a high proportion of law professionals in the board reduces the intention to mobilize (Kanuri et al. 2020). The same effect has not been shown for other stakeholders.

Potential CSI incidents might evoke emotions that trigger affective evaluations, which in turn influence if stakeholders frame an occurrence as CSI and develop an intention to mobilize. Affective experiences such as anger, (Baghi and Gabrielli 2019; Lange and Washburn 2012; Voliotis et al. 2016), perceived personal vulnerability (Laufer and Gillespie 2004; Samp and Cohen 2008; Silvera et al. 2012; Trump 2014), or a desire for revenge (Wen-Hai et al. 2019), can lead to CSI framing and an intention to mobilize. Self-blaming and fear of escalation, on the other hand, can prevent stakeholders from developing an intention to mobilize (Al-Khateeb et al. 2017).

Moral outrage results when self-centered emotions like anger and disgust are caused by an incident that does not personally affect a stakeholder but violates this stakeholder’s moral standards, such as child labor, a breach in social values, environmental pollution or human rights abuse might do (Grappi et al. 2013; Lindenmeier et al. 2012). Moral outrage is connected to anger and contempt (Xie et al. 2015), as well as stakeholders’ perceptions of responsibility and moral reputation (Thomas and Fowler 2016) and is thus a jointly cognitive and affective evaluation (Antonetti and Maklan 2016b; Romani et al. 2013; Xie and Bagozzi 2019).

The degree to which affective or cognitive evaluations dominate stakeholder decisions to mobilize is currently unclear, and likely situational and might vary between individuals. Some scholars found that stakeholders prioritize their own tangible benefits over their affective evaluations (Scheidler and Edinger-Schons 2020; Trautwein and Lindenmeier 2019), while others observed the opposite (Xie et al. 2015; Xie and Bagozzi 2019). When cognitive evaluations are trumped by affective evaluations, companies that are, as Komarova Loureiro et al. (2018) call it, “guilty by immoral association”, can face stakeholder mobilization as well, being punished due to the wrongdoings of a different company. Moral decoupling—a reasoning process in which judgements about performance are separated from judgements about morality—on the other hand, allows stakeholders to support transgressors while simultaneously condemning such transgressions, a pattern that has been found in consumer behavior (Bhattacharjee et al. 2013; Haberstroh et al. 2017; Jedicke et al. 2025).

We now turn to conditions internal to the stakeholder, that is stakeholder traits and characteristics that affect the stakeholder’s cognitive and affective evaluations. Regarding demography, research found that older people and men evaluate potential CSI incidents less critically than women and younger persons (Laufer and Gillespie 2004; Silvera et al. 2012). Women are more likely to show moral outrage than men (Lindenmeier et al. 2012). Regarding personality, evidence indicates that individuals with a narcissistic personality discriminate strongly between in-groups and out-groups and thus show bias in relation to who the victims are as they evaluate potential CSI. They evaluate potential CSI as more severe when it affects themselves or their related ones and distinguish regarding the (for example national) identity of the victims (Barbarossa et al. 2018; O’Connor et al. 2021). Even outside of a narcissistic personality trait do stakeholders evaluate potential CSI incidents more critically that affect victims they share a social identity with (Antonetti and Maklan 2016a, b; Lange and Washburn 2012; Antonetti 2020). If the harm is severe, observers discriminate less against victims based on victim identity than when it is not severe (Antonetti and Maklan 2018). Relatedly, a stakeholder’s identification with a victim or the transgressing company affects their evaluation such that stakeholders evaluate incidents less critically if they identify more with the transgressing company and more critically if they identify more with the victim (Antonetti and Maklan 2016b; Lange and Washburn 2012).

Even national cultural background can affect stakeholder evaluations. Stakeholders from a high power-distance culture, such as Russia or China, are less likely to view potential CSI as severe (Tavakoli et al. 2003; Williams and Zinkin 2008). Stakeholders with a collectivist cultural background, such as in most Asian countries, respond more to potential CSI related to a company’s behavior and unethical conduct than to incidents related to a company’s products or services (Baghi and Gabrielli 2019; Cavotta et al. 2023). Stakeholders from a religious background evaluate CSI based on their religious values and perceptions of public integrity (Babakus et al. 2004; Shi and Liu 2024; Karaosmanoglu et al. 2018). Extrinsically religious persons, i.e. those who use religion to express themselves to their environment or to achieve personal interests, tend to evaluate potential CSI more critically than intrinsically religious persons (Karaosmanoglu et al. 2018). Extrinsic religiosity affects prosocial behavior due to potential ethnocentrism that favors in-group members (Arli et al. 2021). Finally, conservative individuals seem to be less inclined to evaluate incidents as CSI (Jasinenko et al. 2020).

Moral orientation is another personality trait that affects CSI evaluation. Baskentli et al. (2019) mention how group-oriented vs self-oriented moral foundations affect stakeholder mobilization and found that stakeholders with self-oriented moral foundations mobilize more easily when the damage has been done to themselves than when it affects a group.

A stakeholder’s emotional intelligence is also pertinent since individuals with high emotional intelligence usually respond to potential CSI more constructively and calmly than those with low emotional intelligence (Ahn et al. 2016). Unsurprisingly, environmentally conscious stakeholders evaluate incidents about environmental degradation morecritically than those who are less environmentally conscious (Denommee-Gravel and Kim 2019).

Spatial distance from the site where an incident took place also plays a role. Stakeholders are more likely to mobilize if they or persons in their social network are spatially close to an incident (Guckian et al. 2020; O’Connor et al. 2021; Rowley and Moldoveanu 2003; Zhou and Ki 2018). In addition, foreign companies (in relation to the focal stakeholder) that engage in CSI are generally more easily condemned than local companies (Stäbler and Fischer 2020).

Finally, a central factor that shapes cost–benefit calculations, that is if stakeholders who can do mobilize, is how well they are able to organize (King 2008), as an unorganized mobilization usually fails to meet its objectives, negatively affecting cognitive evaluations (Zheng 2020). A common identity and interest can foster organized and collective action (King 2008; Reinecke 2018). Rowley and Moldoveanu (2003) argue that individual motivation alone cannot drive collective action, rather, the desire to express and protect a social identity is important. Accordingly, different stakeholders or stakeholder groups may have overlapping interests, but may act differently, failing to instigate collective action (Rowley and Moldoveanu 2003). Online communication platforms, such as YouTube or Facebook, empower stakeholders to stage a successful protest without formal organization and thus shift their cost–benefit calculus. Even other empirical studies showed that protests on online platforms, such as petition signing, can have offline effects (Antonetti and Manika 2017), which can affect cognitive and affective evaluations. For instance, Dave Carroll’s song “United breaks Guitar” posted on YouTube as a protest against United Airlines, resulted in an estimated $180 million loss in market capitalization (Kähr et al. 2016).

Cognitive and affective evaluations of CSI incidents are also affected by conditions external to the evaluating stakeholder. Media coverage of a CSI incident is one important condition. Media coverage frames and thus shapes discourses around incidents, affecting stakeholders’ cognitive evaluations, and also helping or hindering stakeholders in initiating responses (King 2008). Media framing also shapes affective evaluations, as media reporting can create anger or quench it (Hericher and Bridoux 2023; Kim et al. 2022; Kim and Cameron 2011). Media portrayals of incidents also affect evaluations contingent on if the wrongdoing is portrayed as emanating from a group of violators (e.g., an industry) or a single violator (e.g., one specific company). If an incident is framed as emanating from a group of violators, stakeholders are less focused on one company and less likely to form an intention to mobilize against that company (Liu et al. 2022). Media coverage thus affects blame attribution (Carberry et al. 2018; Carvalho et al. 2015; Kim and Cameron 2011). The reach and perceived reliability of a media publication determines its effect, where incidents reported by reliable as well as high-reach media have a larger effect than unreliable or low-reach media (Kim et al. 2022; Stäbler and Fischer 2020).

Company-related factors are important as well. Incidents caused by foreign companies usually get more media attention (Stäbler and Fischer 2020), and foreign companies suffer, as we already discussed, an attribution bias (liability of foreignness), leading to more critical evaluations (Crilly et al. 2016). The size of the wrongdoing company also affects stakeholder mobilization, where larger companies face harsher evaluations (Kanuri et al. 2020). Relatedly, the perceived power difference between a company and its stakeholders might deter stakeholders from mobilizing, where a substantial power difference reduces the perceived chances for success of a mobilization and might even instill fear of repercussions (Antonetti et al. 2021; Dufour et al. 2019; Hashimoto and Karasawa 2018; Lindsay 2012). Companies with strong resource bases can deter stakeholders from mobilizing, as those strong resource bases imply that the chance of success for the stakeholders is small (Frooman 1999; Lindsay 2012).

How a company reacts to a potential transgression shapes stakeholder evaluations (Nardella et al. 2020; Pfarrer et al. 2008). The transgressing company’s response strategy can dampen blame attribution and CSI evaluations (Grebe 2013a, 2013b; van den Broek et al. 2017). Companies that evoke the impression that they decisively commit to repairing the damages an incident has caused can instigate a self-healing mechanism to reintegrate into the stakeholder ecosystem. Effective early-stage responses to an incident involve discovering the transgression, giving appropriate explanations, accepting blame, and serving equitable punishment (Pfarrer et al. 2008). Companies often engage in impression management, as, for example, Volkswagen did in the Diesel scandal—‘managing the impression not the emission’, as Gaim et al. (2021) put it. Similarly, Boeing affected stakeholder intentions to mobilize after the first crash of a 737 Max by expressing sympathy. Such strategies at times fall short, however, in the case of Boeing when the second crash happened and information about Boeing’s culpability became widely known (Jong and Broekman 2021). In the same vein, BP’s ad campaign that delivered promises for making change was criticized for lack of a concrete plan for the victims of its scandal in 2010 (Kim and Cameron 2011). Integrating emotion in communication, for instance, adding some element of empathy in post-crisis response, can affect how stakeholders evaluate an incident, while a wrong message may backfire (Coombs and Holladay 2015, 2007; Zasuwa 2024). Overall, stakeholders are less likely to evaluate incidents critically when the post-incident message incorporates intensive emotional elements with empathy and concrete promises to make changes (Kim and Cameron 2011).

Research also indicates that the gender of the apologizer should correspond to the type of misconduct. Female apologizers (with more perceived warmth) are more effective in swaying stakeholders in case of value-related transgression, whereas male apologizers (with more perceived competence) reduce intention to mobilize in case of performance-related transgressions (Wei and Ran 2019). Bechwati and Morrin (2003) noted that polite language is more important than distributional justice. At times, companies can divert blame (Carvalho et al. 2015). Consumers’ forgiveness is also crucial (Septiano et al. 2020). The attribution of blame is, as discussed, an important predictor of reputation damage (Grégoire et al. 2010; Lange and Washburn 2012).

Evidence on the effect of a transgressing company’s reputation on stakeholder evaluations of an incident is inconclusive. Several studies discuss that a company’s positive reputation can dampen stakeholder evaluations, as stakeholders consider a company’s CSR history when evaluating a potential CSI incident (Allen et al. 2020; Kang et al. 2016; Yu et al. 2022; Peasley et al. 2020; Gutknecht 2024). Others, however, state that reputation can backfire, as stakeholders evaluate high-reputation companies more critically than low-reputation companies (Liu et al. 2020; Sharpe and Hanson 2020). Similarly, Barbarossa and Murphy (2020) warn against focusing on subsequent CSR as a penance for CSI, as such an approach can be considered deceptive (Coombs and Holladay 2015; Gatti et al. 2021; Skarmeas and Leonidou 2013). It is important to note that a company’s reputation interacts with managers’ emotional expressions as stakeholders analyze such information jointly (Kim and Cameron 2011). In company-consumer relationships, brand recognition can have an effect, as consumers seem to evaluate incidents connected to companies with underdog brands more critically than those connected to well-known brands (Kim et al. 2019).

The complexity of the business environment has also been found to influence stakeholder evaluation. In complex business environments, responsibility is diluted, as it is difficult to attribute an incident to a single company, especially when the incident is reported for groups of companies (Liu et al. 2022). For example, the complexity of some supply chains makes pinpointing blame difficult, and thus affects stakeholders’ propensity to mobilize against transgressions that happen in a company’s supply chain (Gold et al. 2015; Hofmann et al. 2018; Ma et al. 2021).

Government regulation is also important (Ma et al. 2021), as is trust in government institutions. Trust in institutions influences cognitive evaluations such that stakeholders perceive less need to mobilize against a company if they trust existing institutions (Eckhardt et al. 2010). Hamann (2019) discusses how business-government interaction can result in de-responsibilization of a misbehaving company, influencing cost–benefit evaluations. Pro-development policies, favoring companies over other societal actors, can thus lead to less critical evaluations of incidents (Ross 2017), such that regulation might at time facilitate CSI instead of curtailing it (Lindsay 2012). The local social (norm) situation a stakeholder is situated in can also affect evaluations, where informal corruption (i.e. corruption in communities, not necessarily in the formal institutions) negatively affects intention and capacity to mobilize against CSI (He et al. 2021; Keig et al. 2015; Khan and Kamal 2021; You 2024). Stakeholders’ evaluations of incidents are also affected by the perceived level of security and institutional support (Friedrich and Quick 2024). Weak institutions make mobilization less likely, as ill-behaving companies tend to have more power in their local communities when these communities lack other support, such as unemployment benefits or other social protection, influencing a stakeholder’s cost–benefit calculations when evaluating an incident (Hail et al. 2018; Khan and Kamal 2021). A company's political connections can have the same effect (Kim and Lee 2021; Rashad et al. 2024; Antonetti and Anesa 2017; Yapici and Dheer 2023; Zhao and Mi 2024).

Moreover, broader ongoing issues can divert stakeholder attention away from a CSI incident, affecting how those incidents are evaluated. For instance, Boehmer and Harrison, (2021) studied a case where Adidas, during the first Covid lockdown, decided to withhold rent payments for its German stores, which was considered unethical, and thus a CSI incident, against the backdrop that the company had just had the economically most successful year in its history. The resulting stakeholder mobilization was very short-lived, however, as the rapid spread of the pandemic shifted stakeholders’ attention elsewhere.

Although not part of our core question, which pertains to when stakeholders mobilize against CSI, extant literature has also looked at the consequences of stakeholder mobilization, thus we provide a brief summary of the related findings here. The outcome of stakeholder mobilization for a company can be destructive or constructive (Ahn et al. 2016). Customers might purchase less (Escobar-Sierra et al. 2021), call to boycotts (King 2008; Scheidler and Edinger-Schons 2020), or use negative word of mouth (Antonetti and Maklan 2016a; Zeng et al. 2021), also damaging a company’s brand (Kähr et al. 2016). Investors show less interest in company shares (Gatti et al. 2021; Kanuri et al. 2020). Stakeholder mobilization against CSI can also take the form of constructive feedback. For instance, Romani et al. (2013) state “My anger is your gain, my contempt is your loss” to imply that stakeholder mobilization can be positive for a company, provided that the company accepts the blame and makes substantial improvements based on stakeholders’ demands. Ignoring stakeholder anger, however, may result in contempt, which is difficult to repair.

Nason et al. (2018) state that companies only concede to stakeholders’ demands (i.e., engage in a substantive response) when there is a threat to financial performance. Media coverage importantly leverages stakeholder pressure (King 2008). Companies also tend to concede if the mobilizing stakeholders are well-known or in other ways individually powerful (Ditlev-Simonsen and Wenstøp, 2013). Media and digital communication platforms provide leverage for mobilized stakeholders (van den Broek et al. 2017; Kölbel et al. 2017). Mobilizations with high in-group cohesion among mobilized stakeholders pressures companies more than when cohesion is low (Reinecke 2018). Stakeholder protests may also pressure regulators, contingent on the institutional environment. In a weak institutional environment, this might be ineffective, though, as wrongdoing companies might respond with deception instead of substantive change even to regulatory action (Hail et al. 2018). Structural arrangements can prevent the success of stakeholder mobilization, as when local communities that were victims of the Alcoa World Aluminum operations in Australia were structurally excluded from the related decision making (Ross 2017).

Table 4 sums up the results of this review.

Research on stakeholder mobilization is theoretically pluralistic, touching, for example, stakeholder theory,institutional theory, social identity theory, and various psychological theories. This is not a shortcoming of the literature but simply a consequence of the fact that stakeholder mobilization in response to CSI is an empirical phenomenon with wide-ranging implications for different fields, from management over marketing into the psychology and finance literature, touching even disciplines outside of the wider management field. Theoretical plurality is therefore expected, yet it leads to a certain ‘silo-ing’ of the literature. More integrative work on the intersection of the separate theoretical streams is needed. For example, the inconsistency regarding the effects of CSR on stakeholder mobilization in response to CSI (Arli et al. 2017; Peasley et al. 2020) could potentially be resolved by introducing insights from psychology. Generally, we would encourage researchers to look outside their home domain when writing about CSI, to avoid duplication of work and to ensure progress towards an integrated understanding of the phenomenon.

Relatedly, more integration with related questions and related theories would be beneficial. The topic of stakeholder mobilization intersects with literatures it has clear connections yet currently limited exchange with, such as social movement theory, resources dependence theory, and critical theory. In particular an integration of work on stakeholder mobilization in response to CSI with social movements theory seems promising, as this literature focusses on the social and communicational processes that shape when and how movements emerge, whereas most of the body of work we reviewed addresses the individual stakeholder and his or her evaluation of an incident. Integrating those two literatures could benefit both streams.

A fruitful way forward could also be to integrate research on stakeholder mobilization in response to CSI more deeply with research on shareholder activism, for example in relation to powerful investment funds, which is an active field of research in the finance literature (David et al. 2007). Activist shareholders can put substantial pressure on companies, and the literature on shareholder activism has developed insights that might be insightful to also understand when other stakeholders mobilize against CSI.

We have, as the review shows, a robust understanding of which external and internal conditions affect stakeholder incident evaluation, yet some gaps remain.

The digital dimension of stakeholder mobilization is, somewhat surprisingly, only slowly emerging. Digital technologies play a pivotal role in organizing both online and offline protests (Anderson 2021), yet how and when they shape stakeholder mobilization is so far not well understood. One could, for example, ask when online protests against specific firms gain traction, or which types of online protests are more or less likely to engage stakeholders. Research in that line emerges, yet it is still not fully developed. Relatedly, it would be important to study the role of social media in orchestrating attention and providing framing more systematically, as social media are likely to influence whether a stakeholder will or will not mobilize against CSI. John and Klein (2003) are doubtful concerning the ability of an individual person to influence company’s behavior, where Kähr et al. (2016) underline the power of even a single person in the era of social media. Future research might also aim to integrate with research on online communities and social media dynamics, where these issues have received more attention.

Another topic that we need to understand better is how today’s interconnected global business environments, characterized by intricate networks of supply chains that involve many actors, affect blame assignment. In a network of business relations, the impact of irresponsible practice can be far-reaching (Lee and Zhong 2020). Though consumers react unfavorably when they learn that a company prioritizes profit over responsible sourcing, the relationship to actual mobilization is not obvious in such complex environments (He et al. 2021; Mukandwal et al. 2024). More work is needed to elucidate stakeholder mobilization in such contexts.

In addition, the governments’ or other regulation bodies’ influence on stakeholder mobilization against CSI is not clear. This relation is empirically and conceptually challenging as well as relevant, as business-government interactions or lobbying activities blur the governmental role as a regulator. Even the public visibility of a company, resulting from if it is a B2B or a B2C company, if it is publicly listed or not, or how prominent and well-known the company’s brands are, is an external condition that has not received sufficient research attention, while likely being important. For example, while research has studied how media attention affects stakeholders’ propensity to mobilize, research has not sufficiently addressed if business-to-business companies are affected in the same way by stakeholder mobilization than business-to-consumer companies. One might speculate that B2C companies are targeted more.

Our review shows that empirical research on stakeholder mobilization focuses on the developed world (Stäbler and Fischer 2020; Strike et al. 2006), where studies on the developing part of the world are comparatively rare (Mutuc and Cabrilo 2022; Tan et al. 2024).³ This shortcoming is important because the stark differences in political, economic, social, and institutional contexts in which CSI occurs will affect both cognitive and affective evaluations and thus stakeholder mobilization. How, is currently not clear, due to the lack of empirical research from the “Global South”. This issue is also important because countries in the Global South suffer particularly from CSI, due to often weak local institutions that could deter CSI or because companies from the Global North tend to outsource their problematic activities to the Global South (Sampath et al. 2018; Fainshmidt et al. 2018). Factors such as high corruption, biased or state-controlled media, limited purchasing power, monopolized markets, lack of institutional support, constrained freedom of speech and dominance of informal institutions (Keig et al. 2015; Mombeuil and Zhang 2021) are bound to change when and how stakeholders mobilize against CSI, compared to the Global North, where most empirical work has been done. Social responsibility issues are also typically less emphasized in developing economies, often overshadowed by considerations of economic benefits (Pires et al. 2020), which makes CSI particularly likely and the issue of stakeholder mobilization particularly salient in such economies.

In addition, research has focused on consumers and investors and their reactions to CSI, which is consequent as the mobilization of consumers and investors against CSI has an immediate and visible impact via purchasing behavior and stock market valuations, respectively. The mobilization of other stakeholders, such as local communities or NGOs, has been studied to a lesser degree and mostly with case study methods, leading to somewhat isolated evidence. We would like to encourage more research that systematically studies the mobilization of in particular these stakeholder groups, potentially integrating with extant work in the social movements and public management fields, where these topics have received attention. In particular, local communities should be studied more, because those are often most affected by CSI, in particular in developing countries with weaker institutional arrangements.

This review provides important contributions to the literature on stakeholder mobilization, integrating so-far dispersed insights across disciplinary and discursive boundaries. It highlights the importance of personal factors, self-identification, perceptions of severity and urgency of damages, and macro-level factors such as institutional support, level of corruption, cultural values, moral emotions, power dynamics, corporate response mechanisms, and media coverage in influencing mobilization efforts, aligning the conceptual insights developed in different disciplinary silos into a broad framework that serves to depict the intra-personal processes that determine if a stakeholder will mobilize against CSI. Understanding the interdependencies between internal and external conditions and cognitive and affective processes can provide insights into when individual stakeholders mobilize against CSI, and allows us to derive suggestions for future research. This, in turn, encourages us to re-visit central pillars of stakeholder theory, such as the concept of stakeholder salience (Mitchell et al. 1997). The review shows that even stakeholders that initially lack salience can, through the processes outlined, pressure firms. It also outlines the multifaceted process that grants salience to stakeholders, which is more complicated than previously acknowledged.

CSI is damaging, in all parts of the world and all its forms, thus it is imperative for societies and regulators to better understand when stakeholders mobilize against it, to, when possible, facilitate and support such mobilization, to police corporate misbehavior. Our study indicates several ways in which this can be done. First, it reveals the importance of at least two core processes that determine when stakeholders mobilize: blame attribution and cost–benefit calculations. Regulators and the surrounding society can support in particular cost–benefit calculations of stakeholders, by providing protection for mobilizing stakeholders against company repercussions. This is less relevant if the stakeholders are customers with little vulnerability vis-à-vis a company, yet this point is quite central for mobilization of less powerful yet more vulnerable actors, such as local communities. Lowering the anticipated costs of a protest by regulatory protection would increase the chance for mobilization.

In addition, regulators respond often to stakeholder mobilization and fail to respond to CSI when stakeholders do not mobilize. Our review sensitizes for the fact that non-mobilization might not indicate that there is no need for regulatory intervention, but that affected stakeholders or wrongdoing firms display characteristics that prevent mobilization. Regulators can also subtly support stakeholder mobilization in response to CSI by making CSI more visible, for example by enforcing transparency. This makes it easier for stakeholders to correctly assign blame, and more difficult for firms to hide or offshore CSI activities, for example in complex supply chains or geographically distant countries. An example of such an attempt is the emerging EU supply chain regulation.

For companies, our study underlines the importance of suitable communication and timely responses to address issues efficiently. Evidence is strong that companies often fare best when accommodating stakeholder demands in response to CSI (or abstain from CSI in the first place).

In sum, our paper integrates a growing body of work, outlining that and where more work is needed to address important gaps this literature still has.