Organizational social listening & corporate climate advocacy: Amazon & Amazon Employees for Justice

By Ioana A. Coman, Texas Tech University and Rosalynn Vasquez, Boston University

We set out to explore the relevant and timely phenomenon of organizational and social listening and the concept of dialogue, in the context of climate change advocacy. In this case study, we examined how Amazon, one of the largest, global tech companies, responded to its employees’ demands and calls for climate change actions and advocacy.

We were interested in exploring what happens when a company’s stakeholders (e.g., employees) are calling for climate change actions and yet the company does not seem to listen, and what are the ramifications for a lack of social listening and authentic engagement in times of abounding social change.

By using a qualitative approach, we analyzed the company’s official communication channels and social media interaction on Facebook and Instagram with their different publics, as well as public comments for both Amazon and Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (employee advocacy group).

On Sept. 19, 2019, CEO Jeff Bezos announced the company’s first corporate pledge to fight climate change and be carbon neutral by 2040. However, for many employees representing the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), this was not enough.

Nearly 3,000 Amazon employees walked out of company headquarters in support of the Global Climate Strike, as a sign of protest for the company’s lack of action toward climate change. This organized protest was a planned, bottom-up, grassroots effort that began inside the company to demand change from its corporate leader and has put Amazon in the accountability spotlight.

The climate crisis had gained momentum before this point, and various events and people were already leading global efforts. In fact, the increase of social and political activism had been further amplified on social media giving voice to a variety of stakeholders who were expecting organizations to stand by their values and take a stand on social issues.

Furthermore, as U.S. politics have become more polarized, companies are increasingly expected to step up and take a stand on controversial social issues, such as those concerning the environment.

Thus, socially responsible companies are increasingly expected to communicate well with their stakeholders and it’s PR’s responsibility to create opportunities for deliberation and change. This is in line with dialogic communication principles that espouse the importance of two-way communication between the company and its stakeholders. However, in Amazon’s case, there appeared to be a disconnect with its employees, which goes against dialogic communication and does not support the goal behind organizational listening.

We explored how Amazon handled its employees’ demands and calls for climate change action and advocacy as it played out on social media. We analyzed both organizations’ social media posts and comments. We found that Amazon kept communication about climate change to the minimum in terms of number of posts within a one-year period (but it did increase compared to the previous year).

These posts focused on the positive changes the company made and continues to make to fight climate change. The company never mentioned the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice and there was no interaction between Amazon and Employees for Climate Justice observed on social media. The comments to these posts also contained no messaging from the AECJ.

In fact, the majority of the comments were focused on customer service issues and sometimes Amazon was responsive in the comment sections. Any posts related to Employees for Climate Justice focused on criticizing Amazon’s actions, and calling for protests and boycotts, but had minimal traction and interaction.

For further information on this study, please email Ioana Coman at ioana.coman@ttu.edu or Rosalynn Vasquez at rosalynn@bu.edu. This project is supported by the 2020 Page/Johnson Legacy Scholar Grant from the Arthur W. Page Center.