Essays on non-market forces and marketing strategy

In this dissertation, I present two essays that focus on two non-market forces that have been relatively understudied in the marketing literature: ESG pressures (i.e., the increasing calls on firms to provide information pertaining to their impact on environmental, social, and governance issues) and political risk (i.e., the risks emanating from the legal, political, and regulatory environment in which the firms operate). In my first essay, I draw a conceptual distinction on ESG and CSR disclosures, drawing on the Stereotype Content Model and using text analysis on a sample of 3,350 Twitter disclosures about ESG and CSR from S&P500 companies. In my second essay, I investigate whether firms adjust their levels of marketing spending (R&D and advertising) when faced with high levels of political risk and whether these adjustments in spending can mitigate the negative impact of political risk on firm value. I compare these effects with firms’ level of non-marketing (lobbying) spending. Taken together, my two essays examine different forms of responses to non-market forces through marketing strategy and offers insights on which strategies are most effective. My first essay shows how firms can respond to non-market forces in the form of ESG and CSR pressures through different language in their disclosures; and my second essay shows that marketing strategies may be more effective in mitigating the negative impact of a key non-market force, political risk, compared to non-marketing strategies.Marketin