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Increasingly, advocacy campaigns challenge companies to take social responsibility along lobal supply chains. To prepare for such situations, stakeholder management argues for proactive rm strategies and corporate communications promotes early identication of issues. Considerable research has been conducted about susceptibility of campaigns but it still is inconclusive about the relative importance of institutional factors and rm attributes.Much attention also is given to private politics and the evolvement of global non-state governance systems (private standards and certication). Firm-level responses and outcomes of campaigns are discussed mainly as corporate social responsibility, addressing rm policy (e.g., codes of conduct) and reporting procedures. Little attention has been given so far to rm organizational-level factors that inuence rm response. Also, only seldom have campaigns been addressed as triggers for organizational change. Some contributions are identied in the literature of organizational learning and about personal preferences of managers. This thesis contributes to this research gap by applying a process model of rm response to advocacy campaigns that build on literature of sensemaking in organizations.A qualitative approach has been chosen to study a situation in which the issue under focus interlaces with the context. Interview, documentary, and archival data of four companies has been collected to conduct a multiple case study (Nestl and Kraft in the coee sector and Blackout and Mammut in the clothing sector). The research process has involved building categories for a cross-indexing procedure according to qualitative content analysis, supported by the software MAX qda.The results indicate that rm response is more subtle than proposed. Two types of changes are identied. First, categorical change is reported in more open rm posture. Second, relative change is reported in legitimation, justication, transparency, and commitment. No notable change is reported in identity orientation and consistency. The ndings do not support claims of cultural transformation and they also contradict arguments that blame rms for only green-washing their image. The results support that campaigns are input for organizational learning. Consequently, further research may consider rm posture as dependent variable of rm response to advocacy campaigns. These ndings indicate that rms are likely to become aware of the underlying campaign issue. Campaign managers may notice that campaigns have an impact on rms and facilitate change of business practices. However, rms are not likely to adapt to specic claims. They develop their own initiatives consistent with their strategies.
