Mobilization and performance effects of firms' participation in social movements: Firms in the open source movement.

In this dissertation, I examine the effects of firms' participation in social movements on movements' mobilization of individuals and success with respect to their goals. While prior literature has examined the effect of social movements on firms, the reverse question of the effects of firms on social movements has not been systematically explored. However, the importance of firms as external allies of social movements makes their micro- and macro-level consequences for movements theoretically and strategically relevant, both for firms and the movements in which they participate. I fill this gap by arguing that given the contrasts between the logics of firms and social movements, particularly differences in their goals and organizational models, firms have complex and contradictory effects on movements' mobilization and success. I present a framework to analyze these effects by combining important individual, organizational, and movement-level processes triggered by the participation of firms in social movements. First, I argue that the sponsorship by firms and the distinctive characteristics of firm-sponsored projects have two contradictory effects on mobilization: the increased availability of individual rewards results in higher membership in firm-sponsored activities, but simultaneously, the detrimental effect of such sponsorship on movements' collective identity results in lower involvement of participants in firm-sponsored activities. Second, I argue that firms influence social movement success through three distinct pathways: changes in mobilization levels, changes in the organizational characteristics of the social movement groups, and finally, changes in the conduciveness of the external environment of sponsored social movement projects. I develop and empirically test several hypotheses based on these arguments in the context of the open source movement, in which many firms have chosen to participate in recent years. My dissertation examines the comparative mobilization and success of firm-sponsored and community-based open source projects in the period from 2000 to 2007.Ph.D.ManagementOrganizational behaviorSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/127062/2/3328941.pd