How Will B Corps Save the World? B Corps Using Frames to Mobilize Consumers to Solve Societal Issues

Abstract

B Corporations are increasingly trying to engage their prospective consumers in collectively contributing to their mission, i.e. they are trying to mobilize these consumers to solve the societal issue they stand for. To date, research on how B Corps can elicit this mobilization has been scarce. As social movements are known for using framing tactics to get others to act collectively, we build on the social movement literature to propose that to successfully elicit mobilization B Corps have to construct collective action frames by performing three core framing tasks: diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing. We argue that whilst diagnostic and prognostic framing increase consensus mobilization, the use of prognostic and motivational framing is not sufficient for a B Corps to elicit action mobilization. Due to their for-profit nature, to elicit action mobilization B Corps should make additional use of what we call utility frames, which are dedicated to attractively positioning the product and communicating the product attributes. Furthermore, we theorize that, while these core framing tasks are preconditions for eliciting mobilization, the extent to which B Corps achieve mobilization also depends on whether the company is perceived as legitimate and their frames are perceived as credible.