Increasingly, corporations receive pressure from activist organizations to alter activities that these individuals find problematic and irresponsible. Despite this escalation, research on activism from a public relations perspective progressed slowly; much of this literature privileges the perspective of corporations and rarely examines the process from the activist perspective. To address this gap, this dissertation examined how activist organizations use issues management and communication strategies to incite corporations to change their practices and policies while simultaneously building relationships with pertinent audiences. This study incorporated data collected from qualitative interviews with activist practitioners representing a variety of activist organizations, along with organizational texts and news articles. These data provided an understanding of how activist organizations campaign against corporations using a variety of strategies and tactics in an effort to pressure corporations into changing their behavior. Because this dissertation focused on how activist organizations generate and promote issues to gain the attention of their targets, issues management served as the theoretical framework. Guided by this theory and existing issues management models, this dissertation demonstrates how activist groups identify and establish legitimacy for their issue(s). As issues management is traditionally studied from a corporate perspective, the findings show that the process differs slightly for activist organizations and introduces the Issue Advancement Model to demonstrate how activists employ issues management. Additionally, this dissertation explored how activist groups develop relationships with their targets, supporters, communities, and other relevant publics, noting the nuances involved in each of these dynamics. Specifically, this dissertation supports claims that the dialogue approach is more appropriate for understanding and analyzing the corporation-activist relationship than other public relations models, but also notes that some activist organizations may not seek resolution. In addition to these theoretical findings, this dissertation also offers practical implications, introducing the Corporate Campaign Model, which depicts how activist organizations challenge firms while also offering suggestions for corporations targeted by these groups.

<p>Due to the political, economic, and technological changes brought on by the processes of globalization, since the mid-1990s, civil society groups have increasingly chosen to target corporate actors. This thesis focuses on the circumstances under which civil society groups have chosen to target corporate actors in addition to and instead of states. How corporate actors respond to activist demands and the factors that shape how they approach corporate social responsibility and the environment are also examined. This thesis uses a political economic opportunity structure approach to understand the relationship between civil society groups and corporate actors. While activist networks are increasingly targeting corporate actors, they also continue to target the state to achieve their objectives. This two prong strategy has been effective for activist networks because it allows them to take advantage of weaknesses found in both political and industry opportunity structures. However, while the impact of activist networks is shaped by the structural environment in which they operate, activist networks also create new opportunities through the strategic use of frames and tactics to draw attention to and create support for the issues with which they are concerned. Two case studies involving the global environmental movement and corporate actors are examined in this thesis. The first case study focuses on a global network of activists opposed to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the network’s interactions with states and a variety of corporations in their campaign to prevent the introduction of GMOs into the environment. The second case study examines the activities of a network of activists concerned about the environmental impacts of electronic waste (the e-waste network). The e-waste network sought to ensure the proper disposal of electronic waste and increase the sustainability of the electronics industry through the targeting of states and corporations.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)