Chick-fil-A: Responding to Activists’ Threats

Marlene M. Reed; Mitchell Neubert; Ted Waldron

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Chick-fil-A: Responding to Activists’ Threats

Marlene M. Reed, Mitchell Neubert, and Ted Waldron

Baylor University, USA

Volume 12: 2015, pp. 188-202: ABSTRACT

Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-A, unwittingly ignited a firestorm of controversy on July 16, 2012, when he responded to a question related to his definition of marriage which came from a journalist who was interviewing him for an article in the Baptist Press. Cathy’s response indicated that he supported the Biblical definition of marriage. The implication of that statement was that he believed marriage was between a woman and a man. In the following days and weeks, activists accused Cathy of being insensitive to those who supported other definitions of marriage. This case recounts the experience of Dan Cathy who publicly expressed his personal values, and the criticism that he received from expressing those values. The goal of the case is to lead students to analyze the costs and benefits to an individual and an organization of giving public expression to one’s personal values. An additional goal is to highlight the ability of activists’ threats to alter an organization’s professed social values.