Firms’ Response to Slacktivism: When and Why are E-Petitions Effective?

E-petitions have evoked an important debate about the potential for digital activism to pressure firms to change social policies and practices. One prevailing perspective is that slacktivism, a tendency of online supporters to provide only token support, undermines any possible impact. An alternative perspective is that social media dynamics underlying digital activism offer new pathways for social activists to pressure firms toward social change. To explore this debate, we combine insights from research on social movements, social media, and the logic of connective action to theorize the impact of social media mechanisms such as e-petition connectivity and velocity. With a hand-coded database of 1587 e-petitions targeting Fortune 500 firms from 2012 to 2017 through the platform Change.org, we empirically evaluate whether these e-petitions matter. Our empirical results strongly suggest that e-petitions do matter, and we explain when digital activism has impact. The activation of social media mechanisms spreads negative information and directly intensifies the threat to the targeted firm's reputation, pressuring firms to concede to e-petitioner demands. Furthermore, our findings indicate that firm visibility and resource availability can represent boundary conditions for the firm's vulnerability and ability to respond to digital activism.