A Response to "Strategy Under Woke Capitalism"
I have thoughts
Back in December, I read this paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4399629
This is the response I sent to the authors at the time:
In some senses, the paper is already out of date. The brand purpose movement (which I think you would position under woke capitalism) did not have a great 2023. The Bud Light controversy and Unilever's "revisiting" of purpose have pretty much scuppered it. BTW my position on brand purpose is similar to the critiques of it from Mark Ritson and Nick Asbury.
More broadly, political statements by brands in the US need to be understood in the context of the extreme political polarization of that market. I would predict that truly mass market brands will say less and less about politics over the next 5 years. Whereas brands that are aiming for a niche that aligns to one side in the political divide absolutely will. There are some interesting dynamics around age and class that firms will need to work through in making those decisions: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/12/17/in-a-politically-polarized-era-sharp-divides-in-both-partisan-coalitions/
How companies operate in markets with different degrees and types of polarization is important. While the political landscape of Australia has some similarities to the USA (and Australian policy entrepreneurs on both the left and the right are trying to import US ideas with varying levels of success), it is different. So you can't replicate a Peoria strategy in Sydney.
As for internal drivers, personally I love the idea of DEI and have been less than impressed with the execution. The empirical evidence indicates that most DEI interventions are ineffective. However they broadly fall under the heading of "Compliance". Organizations have a lot of compliance training that most employees complete without ever having learned anything. Therefore the impact of most of this DEI training will be minimal. And I say this as someone who has built corporate training programs. Most of them are money wasted.
As for "viewpoint diversity", 25 years of corporate experience has told me that most organizations have zero interest in viewpoint diversity from their employees. They are far more interested in compliance and conformity. The exact form of that conformity may change over time but it is there. There are some exceptions but they are not the norm.
BTW As a manager, I do not care what the political beliefs of my team are provided they don't disrupt our ability to function. Hiring people is hard, managing people is hard, and I don't have the time or inclination to be a thought policeman. I suspect my attitude is quite common.
More broadly, the context of DEI initiatives must be understood within the context of the labour market. When that market is tight then all kinds of promises will be made to would be employees. When the balance of power shifts in that market, promises evaporate. The work of Peter Capelli is instructive here: https://hbr.org/2015/07/why-we-love-to-hate-hr-and-what-hr-can-do-about-it
Personally I think senior executives love talking about performative DEI initiatives because it allows them to avoid hard conversations about power and money. But then I would think that.
And I loathe the term "woke". But that's just my viewpoint.
To summarize, the problem with “woke capitalism” is not the woke part but the capitalism part. The relationship between corporations and their employees is not a democratic one. It is often one of deeply unequal power relations. The left should be wary of the turn of the corporations towards issues like climate, race, and gender. These people are not your friends.