Are business associations - private, formal, nonprofit organizations designed to promote the common interests of their members - positive or negative for the economy and overall welfare? Scholars from institutional and organizational economics, on the one side, and from industrial organization,...

Research shows that corporate engagement in social issues often backfires. We suggest this may be because the corporate organizational form is viewed as inappropriate for social activism in general and/or because a particular campaign or organizational action is viewed as hypocritical. To test...