Most scholarship on corporate political activity assumes that market forces wholly motivate firms’ political strategies. However, this conventional wisdom overlooks the role of employee groups in encouraging corporate activism. To evaluate whether employee groups are associated with firm social activism, we gathered all public statements in support of LGBT rights made by the five hundred largest publicly-traded US corporations from 2011 to 2017. In an exploratory observational analysis, we found robust evidence that in highly-educated workforces LGBT employee groups persuade management to take public stances in support of LGBT rights. Our findings suggest that internal pressure promotes activism on LGBT issues, and market, political, or social forces are insufficient to fully explain firm social activism. Although each does play an important role, since employee groups will use political, social, and especially market-based arguments to convince their managers to engage in activism.

中文翻译：

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为什么公司参与 LGBT 权利活动？LGBT员工团体作为内部压力团体

大多数关于公司政治活动的研究都假设市场力量完全激发了公司的政治战略。然而，这种传统观念忽视了员工团体在鼓励企业行动主义中的作用。为了评估员工团体是否与坚定的社会行动主义有关，我们收集了 2011 年至 2017 年 500 家最大的美国上市公司发表的所有支持 LGBT 权利的公开声明。在探索性观察分析中，我们发现了强有力的证据表明受过高等教育的劳动力 LGBT 员工团体说服管理层采取公开立场支持 LGBT 权利。我们的研究结果表明，内部压力促进了对 LGBT 问题的激进主义，而市场、政治或社会力量不足以充分解释坚定的社会激进主义。虽然每一个都扮演着重要的角色，