Firms "named and shamed" by activists.

• Position: Corporate America

The anti-sweatshop movement of the 1990s reveals which companies are most likely to become targets of anti-corporate activists, according to a study in American Sociological Review. Researchers found that companies tend to attract the attention of labor activists if they are large and have prominent brand images or possess good corporate reputations. When combined, these factors were especially important.

"Companies that had all of these characteristics were nearly guaranteed to be a target of activism," points out lead author Tim Bartley. "Social movements are Increasingly pressuring companies to act in socially or environmentally responsible ways, so we wanted to see which companies are most likely to be pushed into this role.

"Nearly all of the large firms in the apparel industry of the 1990s could be credibly charged with benefiting from sweatshops, but only a small subset were named and shamed by activists."

The results suggest that activists choose companies whose visibility in the public and overall good reputation might make them more "shameable" than other firms. "Activists have enthusiastically adopted the strategy of trying to turn corporate strengths into vulnerabilities."

The researchers focused on large U.S. lead firms in the apparel, textile and footwear industries. They looked for...