The aim of our themed symposium is to explore the limits and possibilities of corporate reputation for enabling corporate accountability. We articulate three perspectives on corporate accountability. The communicative perspective equates accountability with disclosure and stakeholder engagement. The phenomenological perspective focuses on stakeholder expectations and reputation management. The consequential perspective focuses on effects/consequences. We then examine how corporate accountability is understood, how it relates to ideals, mission, and purpose, alternative pathways to corporate accountability, reputational consequences, and the role algorithms play (...) in relationships between corporate reputation and accountability. Using a multitude of organizational contexts, these papers advance our understanding of how corporate reputation can be used as a mechanism for creating greater corporate accountability, and for identifying alternative pathways when corporate reputation fails to do so. (shrink)

This study investigates the pivotal policy question of whether a firm’s corporate governance influences its political spending disclosures. Using a sample of S&P 500 firms from 2011 to 2019, we find empirical evidence that a board of directors’ monitoring and resource provision roles affect a firm’s political spending disclosure. Extending agency theory-driven expectations, we provide evidence that measures of a board’s monitoring role such as female monitoring directors, shorter board tenure, audit committee size, audit committee meetings, and audit committee education (...) enhance a firm’s political spending disclosures. Second, drawing from resource dependence theory and examining a board’s resource provisions, we find evidence that female advisory directors, CEO duality, additional directorships, and audit committee characteristics (i.e., size, number of meetings, age, and education) promote political spending disclosures. The study contributes to corporate governance and corporate political activity literatures by outlining different types of governance that may drive a firm’s political spending disclosures, a key component of a firm’s political responsibility. (shrink)