Crisis Management in the Delivery of Women's Reproductive Health Care: Responding to Social Activism

Abstract

This research extends work done in business and society by employing institutional theory to examine organizational responses to social activism. This work examines how womens' reproductive healthcare facilities have responded to anti-abortion activism. Institutional theory, coupled with the crisis management literature, was used to develop a set of hypotheses. Survey data indicate that rather than conforming to pressures by anti-abortion activists, facilities develop features that actively resist the pressures exerted by this stakeholder group. The work extends research in corporate social performance by pointing out that crisis management can be subsumed under stakeholder management. The work also contributes to the crisis management literature by providing a theoretical base for that work and moves the focus of the work from product/process failures in large organizations to social crises faced by small organizations. It also extends research in institutional theory by expanding the way in researchers conceive of coercive pressures.