Organizational sociopolitical engagement in issue-centric networks: The roles of organizational size, industry type, and political ideology

As society becomes increasingly polarized, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are becoming more politicized, with more organizations adopting specific political CSR agendas to navigate this shifting landscape and engage the public. However, there remains a limited understanding of whether organizations exhibit preferences for particular sociopolitical issues and how such preferences vary based on organizational attributes. The notion of issue-centric networks, informed by network ecology and issue niche theory, offers a systemic understanding of how interorganizational CSR communication is structured through the co-mentioning of sociopolitical topics. This study examines how organizational attributes affect the co-mentioning of various sociopolitical topics within an interorganizational network. The study analyzed 102,441 Facebook posts by 60 organizational donors to major political action committees (PACs) from 2018 to 2023. The results reveal that large enterprises, national and Democratic-leaning organizations are more active in sociopolitical advocacy. Organizations of the same size and in the same industries are more likely to co-mention certain sociopolitical topics. This heightened involvement by politically active organizations enriches the network paradigm in public relations, illustrating how organizations leverage sociopolitical engagement not only to advance specific agendas but also to cultivate interconnected networks in online communities.