Mary-Hunter McDonnell

Mary-Hunter McDonnell
  • Bantwal Family Goldman Sachs Presidential Associate Professor
  • Associate Professor of Management

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    2203 SH-DH
    3620 Locust Walk
    Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests: organizational theory (political sociology, institutional theory); nonmarket strategy; corporate governance; corporate misconduct and punishment

Links: CV

Overview

Professor Mary-Hunter (“Mae”) McDonnell received her Ph.D. in Management and Organizations from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and a B.A. in Philosophy from the UNC Chapel Hill.  She is an Associate Professor of Management in the Organizational Behavior subgroup.  Previously, she served as an Assistant Professor of Strategy at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and as a Visiting Professor of Business Law at Northwestern University Law School.

Professor McDonnell studies organizational behavior within challenging institutional contexts, such as contentious social environments and uncertain regulatory environments.   Her research draws on organizational theory and political sociology to explore political interactions between corporations and their myriad stakeholders. In particular, she is interested in how a company’s interactions with its stakeholders shape corporate social activity and non-market strategy. Her work also sheds light on the mechanisms that stakeholders use to enforce social norms for corporations and to punish corporate transgressions.  She has published articles in leading peer-reviewed scholarly journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, the American Sociological Review, Organization Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Psychological Science, as well as law reviews including the Cornell Law Review and the Harvard Human Rights Journal.  Her dissertation won the Best Dissertation Prize from Oxford University’s Centre for Corporate Reputation, and her work was also awarded the Best Paper Prize at the 2014 Strategic Management Society annual conference.  She currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and the Academy of Management Journal.
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Research

  • Kate Odziemkowska and Mary-Hunter McDonnell (2024), Ripple effects: How Collaboration Reduces Social Movement Contention, Strategic Management Journal, 45 (4), pp. 775-806.

    Abstract: Research Summary Research suggests firms can reduce stakeholder contention (e.g., lawsuits, protests) by collaborating with threatening stakeholders. We propose that by tapping into stakeholder networks and identities, collaborations also produce ripple effects beyond the firm's partner to attenuate contention from a broader set of stakeholders. Using variation in firms' and stakeholders' willingness to collaborate exogenous to contention to account for selection, our examination of contentious and collaborative interactions between 136 environmental movement organizations and 600 US firms corroborates our arguments. Firms face less contention when they collaborate with a better-connected stakeholder motivated to share affirming information about the firm, or with a more contentious and authentic stakeholder. Our findings generalize to stakeholder criticism beyond movement organizations, suggesting collaborations are powerful tools for fashioning less contentious environments. Managerial Summary Companies can reduce conflict from hostile stakeholders like social activists by collaborating with their friends. We find social movement organizations mount fewer protests, boycotts, lawsuits, and other conflict against a company that collaborates with an organization that is either well connected in the movement or known for mobilizing movement's grassroots. This suggests that cross-sector collaborations quell conflict through passing affirming information about a company through interorganizational networks or through the broadcast of an affirming signal to the broader stakeholder environment. We find that criticism from a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., media) also abates, suggesting that collaborations are powerful tools for fashioning less contentious environments.

  • Mary-Hunter McDonnell and Samir Nurmohamed (2022), When are organizations punished for organizational misconduct? A review and research agenda, Research in Organizational Behavior.

    Abstract: Scholars have highlighted the use of punishment as a tool to defend laws and norms, deter deviance, and restore justice in the aftermath of organizational misconduct. However, current theory and research primarily draw on a micro-oriented lens to understand how punishment occurs in response to deviant actors within organizations, neglecting macro-oriented questions of whether and how organizations are punished for their misconduct. We review sociological and macro-organizational work that suggests punitive severity can vary with three key attributes of the organization: status, reputation, and embedded ties. We then develop a mezzo-lens framework motivated at the intersection of micro- and macro-perspectives on organizational misconduct to shed light on opportunities for theoretical expansion by crossing levels of analysis.

  • Ishva Minefee, Mary-Hunter McDonnell, Timothy Werner (2021), Reexamining investor reaction to corporate political activity: A replication and extension of Werner (2017), Strategic Management Journal, 42 (6), pp. 1139-1158.

    Abstract: Exploiting a whistleblower's leak of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) corporate sponsors, we quasi‐replicate and extend Werner's (2017) event study of investor reaction to covert corporate political activity (CPA). Werner found that investors reacted positively to the accidental disclosure of covert ties to the Republican Governors Association. In contrast, when we apply the same research design to the ALEC leak, we find that, on average, firms tied to ALEC experienced negative abnormal returns. In cross‐sectional models, we also find that the abnormal returns of ALEC sponsors were more negative for firms that faced shareholder contention around CPA and had liberal‐leaning employees, yet less negative for firms engaged in higher levels of institutional corporate social responsibility. The latter two cross‐sectional findings extend Werner's results.

  • Mary-Hunter McDonnell, Katarzyna (Kate) Odziemkowska, Elizabeth Pontikes (2021), Bad Company: Shifts in Social Activists’ Tactics and Resources after Industry Crises, Organization Science, 32 (4), pp. 909-1148.

    Abstract: Social movement organizations (SMOs) are increasingly using collaborative tactics to engage firms. Implications of this are not well understood by researchers. This study investigates one risk that looms over such collaborations: if the corporate partner is later implicated in an industry scandal. Ideas are investigated in the context of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. First, we find that industry scandals differentially affect contentious and collaborative SMOs’ ability to mobilize resources. SMOs that had collaborated with the oil and gas industry before the spill suffered from reduced public support after the spill, and those that had contentiously interacted with the industry enjoyed increased contributions. Second, we find that industry scandals affect SMOs’ willingness to collaborate with firms in the future. We show that the Horizon oil spill produced a broad chilling effect on environmental SMOs’ collaborations with firms both within and outside of the oil and gas industry. Our findings show that there are risks inherent to a collaborative strategy that cannot be fully mitigated. Further, we demonstrate that industry scandals represent critical exogenous events that affect social activists’ tactical repertoires for engaging in private politics.

  • Amanda Shanor, Mary-Hunter McDonnell, Timothy Werner (2021), Corporate Political Power: The Politics of Reputation and Traceability, Emory Law Journal, 71 (2), pp. 153-216.

    Abstract: We live, it is said, in a second Gilded Age, in which politics is dominated by corporate power and elite business interests. But how does corporate money flow into politics? This Article provides an original empirical analysis of when and why corporations engage in particular forms of political activity and uses those findings to develop a novel, empirically-grounded approach to the First Amendment’s treatment of traceability mandates in politics. We analyze the conditions under which firms shift between (1) using their political action committees (PACs) to contribute to candidates and political parties, and (2) engaging in less traceable forms of political activity, like lobbying, in which the specific targets of firms’ influence efforts are unknown. This Article identifies a key variable that explains when and why corporations shift from lighter (more traceable and direct) to darker (less traceable and more indirect) channels of political engagement. We demonstrate that corporate political activity grows darker as a firm’s reputation grows more negative. This dynamic produces the disquieting result that the corporate political interventions that are likely to be the most controversial are also those most likely to be deployed in ways the public is least able to monitor.

  • Mary-Hunter McDonnell and Adam Cobb (2020), Take a Stand or Keep your Seat: Board Turnover after Social Movement Boycotts, Academy of Management Journal, 63 (4), pp. 1028-1053.

    Abstract: This paper explores how contentious corporate crises -- i.e., charges of controversial political or social behavior -- affect the loyalty of a firm's most elite leaders: the board of directors. We exploit a sample of social movement boycotts, characterizing these as carriers of salient cues about a firm’s character and values that will differentially affect individual directors, depending on their personal ideology. We argue that boycotts that problematize a firm’s values will disproportionately prompt the exit of directors whose values align with the activists, while encouraging entrenchment among directors whose values are opposed to activists. Our results largely support our claims. First, we provide evidence that boycotts represent meaningful crises for boards, provoking a significant increase in turnover at targeted firms. At the director level, we find that the extent of ideological alignment between a director and the activist challengers predicts exit. While this general pattern holds across the ideological spectrum, we show that conservatives, compared to liberals, are more prone to entrenchment in the face of challenges from the opposition. Finally, we find that the relationship between ideological alignment and director exit is stronger after boycotts that generate a more adverse stock market reaction.

  • Stephanie Creary, Mary-Hunter McDonnell, Sakshi Ghai, Jared Scruggs, When and why diversity improves your board’s performance in ,.

  • Katarzyna (Kate) Odziemkowska and Mary-Hunter McDonnell (Working), Co-opting Contention: Field-level Effects of Firm-Activist Collaborations.

    Abstract: In this paper, we explore the mechanisms of indirect co-optation, asking whether and under what circumstances firms that collaborate with activists face less contention from other activists. To shed light on this question, we employ a unique, self-constructed 10-year panel of all contentious and collaborative interactions between 118 environmental social movement organizations and a random sample of 150 of the largest firms in the United States. We find that indirect co-optation of the broader activist field occurs via two pathways: signaling and relational. First, as evidence of signaling, we find that collaborating with a more contentious activist produces more indirect co-optation, as these collaborations provide a stronger signal of the firm’s authentic support of the movement. Second, as evidence of relational indirect co-optation, we find that firms face less contention from activists that are board-interlocked with the activist with whom the firm collaborates. Our findings demonstrate the importance of considering the influence that firm-activist collaborations have outside the focal dyad in shaping the firm’s relationship with a broader movement. They also offer a broader view of the indirect effects of interactions between social activists and firms, inclusive of those resulting from cooperative private politics, a heretofore understudied phenomenon.

  • Mary-Hunter McDonnell and Brayden King (2018), Order in the Court: How Firm Status and Reputation Shape the Outcomes of Employment Discrimination Suits, American Sociological Review , 83 (1), pp. 61-87.

    Abstract: This paper explores the mechanisms by which corporate prestige produces distortive legal outcomes.  Drawing on social psychological theories of status, we suggest that prestige influences audience evaluations by shaping expectations, and that its effect will differ depending on whether a firm’s blameworthiness has been firmly established.  We empirically analyze a unique database of over 500 employment discrimination suits brought between 1997 and 2008, finding that prestige is associated with a decreased likelihood of being found liable (suggesting a halo effect in assessments of blameworthiness), but with more severe punishments among organizations that are found liable (suggesting a halo tax in administrations of punishment).  Our analysis allows us to reconcile two ostensibly contradictory bodies of work on how organizational prestige affect audience evaluations by showing that prestige can be both a benefit and a liability, depending on whether an organization’s blameworthiness has been firmly established.

  • Mary-Hunter McDonnell and Timothy Werner (2016), Blacklisted Businesses: Social Activists’ Challenges and the Disruption of Corporate Political Activity, Administrative Science Quarterly, 61 (), pp. 584-620.

Teaching

Current Courses (Fall 2025)

  • MGMT6250 - Corp. Governance Exec

    This course examines the relationships between corporate managers, the boards of directors charged with overseeing them, and investors. We'll review the responsibilities of the board, including financial statement approval, CEO performance assessment, executive compensation, and succession planning. While boards are legally bound to represent the interests of equity investors, in the course of carrying out this role they are often called on to respond to the needs of numerous other stakeholders, including customers, employees, government and society at large. With global brands at risk and mistakes instantly transmitted via Internet and social media, the reputational stakes are very high. The course is a combination of lecture, guest lecture, discussion, case analysis and in-class research workshops. We will review some of the theory underlying modern governance practice, drawing from theories and evidence provided by research across diverse fields, including finance, sociology, and organization and management theory. We'll study specific situations where boards and management teams faced governance challenges, and assess the strategies used to deal with them. Finally, we'll examine the ways in which governance arrangements and external stakeholder involvement in governance affects corporate social behaviorand global citizenship.

    MGMT6250002 ( Syllabus )

    MGMT6250004 ( Syllabus )

  • MGMT9340 - Soci Foundations Of Mgmt

    This seminar-based course, with active discussion and analysis, is required of all first-year doctoral students in Management and open to other Penn students with instructor permission. The purpose of this course is to examine and understand basics in the theory and empirical research in the field of macro organizational behavior and to build an understanding of people's behavior in organizations and across organizations. The course covers a blend of classic and contemporary literature so that we can appreciate the prevailing theories and findings in various areas of organizational behavior. This course covers macro-organizational behavior, covering the topics of organizational ecology, institutional theory, organizational status and reputation, impression management, social networks and social movements.

    MGMT9340001 ( Syllabus )

  • MGMT9999 - Independent Study

    An individual, PhD level course of study with guidance from an instructor, geared to a specific topic that is not part of the school's established curriculum.

    MGMT9999001 ( Syllabus )

All Courses

  • LAW7540 - Corporate Governance

    See Course Finder.

  • LGST8060 - Negotiations

    This course examines the art and science of negotiation, with additional emphasis on conflict resolution. Students will engage in a number of simulated negotiations ranging from simple one-issue transactions to multi-party joint ventures. Through these exercises and associated readings, students explore the basic theoretical models of bargaining and have an opportunity to test and improve their negotiation skills. Cross-listed with MGMT 6910/OIDD 6910/LGST 8060. Format: Lecture, class discussion, simulation/role play, and video demonstrations. Materials: Textbook and course pack.

  • MGMT2420 - Corp. Governance Exec

    This course examines the relationships between corporate managers, the boards of directors charged with overseeing them, and investors. We'll review the responsibilities of the board, including financial statement approval, CEO performance assessment, executive compensation, and succession planning. While boards are legally bound to represent the interests of equity investors, in the course of carrying out this role they are often called on to respond to the needs of numerous other stakeholders, including customers, employees, government and society at large. With global brands at risk and mistakes instantly transmitted via Internet and social media, the reputational stakes are very high. The course is a combination of lecture, guest lecture, discussion, case analysis, and in-class research workshops. We will review some of the theory underlying modern governance practice, drawing from theories and evidence provided by research across diverse fields, including finance, sociology, and organization and management theory. We'll study specific situations where boards and management teams faced governance challenges, and assess the strategies used to deal with them. Finally, we'll examine the ways in which governance arrangements and external stakeholder involvement in governance affects corporate social behavior and global citizenship.

  • MGMT6250 - Corp. Governance Exec

    This course examines the relationships between corporate managers, the boards of directors charged with overseeing them, and investors. We'll review the responsibilities of the board, including financial statement approval, CEO performance assessment, executive compensation, and succession planning. While boards are legally bound to represent the interests of equity investors, in the course of carrying out this role they are often called on to respond to the needs of numerous other stakeholders, including customers, employees, government and society at large. With global brands at risk and mistakes instantly transmitted via Internet and social media, the reputational stakes are very high. The course is a combination of lecture, guest lecture, discussion, case analysis and in-class research workshops. We will review some of the theory underlying modern governance practice, drawing from theories and evidence provided by research across diverse fields, including finance, sociology, and organization and management theory. We'll study specific situations where boards and management teams faced governance challenges, and assess the strategies used to deal with them. Finally, we'll examine the ways in which governance arrangements and external stakeholder involvement in governance affects corporate social behaviorand global citizenship.

  • MGMT6910 - Negotiations

    This course examines the art and science of negotiation, with additional emphasis on conflict resolution. Students will engage in a number of simulated negotiations ranging from simple one-issue transactions to multi-party joint ventures. Through these exercises and associated readings, students explore the basic theoretical models of bargaining and have an opportunity to test and improve their negotiation skills. Cross-listed with MGMT 6910/OIDD 6910/LGST 8060. Format: Lecture, class discussion, simulation/role play, and video demonstrations. Materials: Textbook and course pack.

  • MGMT9330 - Psych Found MGMT

    This seminar-based course, with active discussion and analysis, is required of all first-year doctoral students in Management and open to other Penn students with instructor permission. The purpose of this course is to examine and understand basics in the theory and empirical research in the field of micro organizational behavior and to build an understanding of people's behavior in organizations and across organizations. The course covers a blend of classic and contemporary literature so that we can appreciate the prevailing theories and findings in various areas of organizational behavior. This course covers micro-organizational behavior, focused on topics such as influence/status, virtual teams, job design, organizational culture and socialization, identity in organizations and overall look on where the field of micro-organizational behavior is going.

  • MGMT9340 - Soci Foundations of MGMT

    This seminar-based course, with active discussion and analysis, is required of all first-year doctoral students in Management and open to other Penn students with instructor permission. The purpose of this course is to examine and understand basics in the theory and empirical research in the field of macro organizational behavior and to build an understanding of people's behavior in organizations and across organizations. The course covers a blend of classic and contemporary literature so that we can appreciate the prevailing theories and findings in various areas of organizational behavior. This course covers macro-organizational behavior, covering the topics of organizational ecology, institutional theory, organizational status and reputation, impression management, social networks and social movements.

  • MGMT9520 - Sem Macro Org Behav

    Organizations are ubiquitous, and so is organization. This half-semester course explores organization theory (OT) from the 1960s through the end of the 20th century. We will examine the proliferation of organizational theories during this time period (such as contingency theory, resource dependence theory, ecological theory, and institutional theory) and understand how each theory attempts to relate structure and action over varying levels of analysis. We will determine one or two additional schools to add once we discuss your exposure in other management classes to other potential topics such as behavioral decision theory, sense-making and cognition, organizational economics, corporate governance, social networks, and the like.

  • MGMT9600 - Non-Market Strategy

    This course builds on the foundational material presented in MGMT 955 with a deeper focus on current research examining institutional influences on multinational management. These include regulative supports (e.g., laws, regulations, contracts and their enforcement through litigation, arbitration of incentive compatible self-regulation) but also normative (e.g., socially shared expectations of appropriate behavior, and social exchange processes) and cognitive (e.g., creating shared identity to bridge differences in values, beliefs and framing) elements of the institutional environment. We will examine not only strategic responses in the market environment but also influence strategies of multinational and domestic firms that seek to alter the institutional environment in which they operate. We will draw not only upon the international business literature but also related literatures including political economy, sociology, law, finance, communications, institutional theory, strategic corporate social responsibility, social movements, network theory and the management of extractive industries.

  • MGMT9999 - Independent Study

    An individual, PhD level course of study with guidance from an instructor, geared to a specific topic that is not part of the school's established curriculum.

  • OIDD6910 - Negotiations

    This course examines the art and science of negotiation, with additional emphasis on conflict resolution. Students will engage in a number of simulated negotiations ranging from simple one-issue transactions to multi-party joint ventures. Through these exercises and associated readings, students explore the basic theoretical models of bargaining and have an opportunity to test and improve their negotiation skills. Cross-listed with MGMT 6910/OIDD 6910/LGST 8060. Format: Lecture, class discussion, simulation/role play, and video demonstrations. Materials: Textbook and course pack.

Awards and Honors

  • Wharton Teaching Excellence Award, 2018-2024
  • Stakeholder Strategy Best Proposal Award at the 2017 SMS Annual Meeting in Houston, TX for “Co-opting Contention: Field-level Effects of Firm-NGO Alliances” (with Kate Odziemkowska), 2017
  • Organization Science Outstanding Reviewer Award, 2017
  • Academy of Management Journal Best Reviewer Award, 2017
  • Organization Science Outstanding Reviewer Award, 2017
  • Organization Science Outstanding Reviewer Award, 2015
  • Winner, Best Conference Paper Award at the 2014 SMS Annual Meeting in Madrid, Spain for “Blacklisted Benefactors: The Political Contestation of Nonmarket Strategy.”, 2014
  • Winner of the Best Dissertation Award, Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, 2014
  • Organization Science Outstanding Reviewer Award, 2014
  • People’s Choice Best Presentation Award, Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) Annual Conference, Johnson School of Management, Cornell University, 2014
  • Honorable Mention, Art Stinchcombe Dissertation Prize in Organization Studies, 2013
  • Winner of the Best Paper Award at the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) PhD Academy for “If You Can’t Beat them, Join Them: Corporate Sponsorship of Social Movement Boycotts”, 2012
  • Finalist in INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition. Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS), 2012
  • Winner of the Williston Contract Drafting and Negotiation Competition (Annual competition open to all first year students at Harvard Law School), 2008

In the News

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Latest Research

Kate Odziemkowska and Mary-Hunter McDonnell (2024), Ripple effects: How Collaboration Reduces Social Movement Contention, Strategic Management Journal, 45 (4), pp. 775-806.
All Research

In the News

How Corporate Governance Is Changing

A recent "Beyond Business" panel discussion, hosted by Wharton Dean Erika James, focused on how boards can redefine corporate governance to maximize a company’s social impact while balancing the needs of all stakeholders.…Read More

Knowledge at Wharton - 11/23/2021
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How Should Companies Respond to ESG Issues?
Wharton Magazine - 04/15/2022

Wharton Stories

Mary-Hunter McDonnell gestures in front of a white board covered in blue writing. She wears a black long-sleeved dress.How Companies Engage with Social Activism

Boycotts, protests, and other tactics aimed at forcing businesses to change their behavior are on the rise, according to Assistant Professor of Management Mary-Hunter McDonnell. “We’ve seen a 75 percent increase since 2000 in the number of social movements targeting firms,” she said during her whiteboard lecture on corporations and…

Wharton Stories - 07/27/2018
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