Competition and Constituents’ Polarization Online

Abstract

Society is becoming increasingly polarized. This affects how constituents with conflicting identities engage with organizations online. A strong catalyst of polarization is events that affirm or threaten constituents’ identities and exacerbate in-group versus out-group distinctions. Using a mixed method approach, we theorize that competitive contests between organizations are identity-relevant events that affect online engagement by identifying and disidentifying constituents in different ways. Specifically, we hypothesize that identity-affirming contest outcomes lead to a higher likelihood of online engagement than identity-threatening ones. Therefore, identifying constituents are more likely to engage online after their organization's competitive victories, whereas disidentifying constituents do so after losses. We further hypothesize that close calls or unexpected outcomes amplify these effects. In the context of online engagement by college football followers, we find that victories lead to higher online engagement than losses by team fans but lower engagement by team opponents. We also find that whereas fans are more likely to engage online after unexpected contest outcomes and, in some robustness tests, marginally after close calls, opponents are not affected by either outcome characteristic. To explore how competition and (dis)identification affect the emotional content of online comments, we supplement these findings with content analysis of online posts and a physiological laboratory experiment. Our study demonstrates that polarized constituents react to organizational events through identity-based mechanisms rather than objective evaluations of performance signals. Failure to account for the polarization of constituents therefore conceals important differences in how they engage with organizations online.