Shadbush Collective--Pittsburgh, PA
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Beyond the Boardroom
 a workshop on strategic
corporate research
Shadbush Environmental Justice Collective
Pittsburgh, PA
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Shadbush Collective--Pittsburgh, PA
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Goals...
• This workshop is an activist
skillshare...
• We'll be talking about
approaches to researching
companies and how we
might use that information to
develop campaigns.
– We're not here to discuss
specific corporations or why
people might be opposed to
them.
– We are trying to get a serious
and accurate understanding of
how these companies work so
we can identify strategies to
most effectively confront them.
• This workshop is geared
toward activists who are
interested in developing
sophisticated campaigns
and targeting major
corporations.
• While research and
corporate campaigning
tactics are valuable, they
should be used to support,
not replace, the ongoing
organizing an mobilizing
efforts we are already
engaged in.
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Agenda
Why research companies
How companies 'work'
Where we can find
information
Putting Research into
ACTION
Next Steps
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Why Target Corporations?
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Why Target Corporations?
 Today 51 of the world's 100 largest economies are
multinational corporations
 Multinational corporations cannot be kept in check
through simple legislation or litigation because they
are able to transcend national laws and regulations
 GE CEO Jack Welch is famous for saying “Ideally you'd have
every plant you own on a barge.” If any national government
tries to impose restrictions on the factory's operations, the
company would simply move the barge somewhere else.
 Even if companies could be kept in check through
legislation, corporate influence in the American
political system is so pervasive that effective
regulations on corporate greed are simply untenable.
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Why Research?
 Companies today are
larger and more complex
than in the past.
 Major companies are also
becoming increasingly
insulated against traditional
forms of protest.
 Our movements simply
aren't strong enough to
confront corporate power
in a head to head battle.
 To win, we must generate
LEVERAGE
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The Corporation
 A corporation is a legal entity that has a separate
legal personality from its owner or its members.
 In US law, corporations are granted five principle rights
 The ability to sue and be sued (this gives the corporation access
to the courts)
 The right to a common treasury (this gives the corporation the
right to hold assets separate from the assets of its members)
 The right to hire agents (this gives the corporation the right to
hire employees)
 The right to a common seal (this gives the corporation the right
to sign contracts)
 The right to make by-laws (this gives the corporation the right to
govern its internal affairs)
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What do companies do?
The short answer...
MAKE MONEY
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What do companies do?
Make Decisions
Make 'Stuff'
Live in an Environment
Plan for the Future (or at least
successful companies do
that)
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The Big Pieces
Operations (making stuff)
Business Environment
Profit Centers and Growth Plans
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Command and Control
a common example
Board of
Directors
Top
Management
Front Line
Management
Shareholders
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Command and Control
it gets a little more complicated...
Board of
Directors
Shareholders
Top
Management
Analysts
Creditors
Front Line
Management
Market
Conditions
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But really, who's running the show?
 If a single shareholder holds more than 10% of the company's
stock, that's a pretty good indicator that it has a significant
level of influence
 High turnover among top management is an indicator that the
Board of Directors is playing a strong role in the company
 Conversely, if a CEO has been in power for a long time, she
is likely running the show.
 A CEO's pay (in relation to other CEO's in the same industry) is
an indicator of her power in the organization.
 Often news articles in the business press will chronicle internal
strife between key decision makers. Read those articles and try
to get an idea of what's going on. But keep in mind that you're
likely not getting the whole story.
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The Big Pieces
Command and Control (decision making)
Business Environment
Profit Centers and Growth Plans
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Operations
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A possible operational structure
Front Line
Management
Raw
Materials
Primary
Production
Facility
Secondary
Production
Facilities
Distribution
Facilities
Sales Outlets
Employees
Third Party
Manufacturer
End Use
Customers
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What are the target company's
products or services??
 Most companies today are incredibly diversified so the
answer here isn't always simple
 What is the company best known for doing?
 Where is the company making the most money?
 Do any of the company's facilities produce raw materials
for other facilities?
 What do we know about the process of manufacturing
any of the company's products?
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Where are the company's
facilities?
 Take a look at the geographic location of the company's facilities
 Where is the company growing?
 Are any countries or regions particularly important to the overall
business plan?
 How do transportation and logistics needs fit into the company's overall
operations?
Alcoa's facilities worldwide
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What's important?
 How important are the raw materials suppliers to the
company?
 If the raw materials are traded on a relatively tight market or
the company relies on a small number of suppliers to provide
essential raw materials, those relationships can be incredibly
important.
 How important are the company's customers?
 Is the company selling to only a handful of loyal customers or
are the products being traded on an open market?
 Are these consumer goods and services or materials sold to
institutional customers?
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The Big Pieces
Command and Control (decision making)
Operations (making stuff)
Profit Centers and Growth Plans
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Environmental Factors
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Business Environment
 Companies exist in complex environments of rules,
regulations, oversight, and enforcement
 These rules and enforcement mechanisms vary
drastically from location to location and from industry
to industry
 Some quick questions:
 Are the company's employees unionized?
 Is the industry dangerous for workers or the environment?
 Have we heard about this company (or any similar company)
being fined for violating certain regulations?
 Which regulators does the company seem most concerned
about?
 Are any other civil society organizations actively targeting this
company? Could other civil society organizations be called to
pressure this company?
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Using Regulations to Build Power
 Unfortunately, most environmental, health and safety, and
labor regulatory agencies are simply rubber stamp
organizations. Simply calling OSHA or the EPA isn't going to
get our target company to clean up its act
 We can, however, use regulatory agencies as tools in
a broader pressure campaign
 Filing objections to permit applications or formal
complaints to regulatory agencies forces the
company to notice and respond to your organization
 Remember, these objections and complaints do not necessarily
have to have anything to do with the goals or focus of your
broader campaign.
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The Big Pieces
Command and Control (decision making)
Operations (making stuff)
Business Environment
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Profit Centers and Growth Plans
 Here we ask:
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What is important to the company?
Where is it making the most money?
Where is it making the most profit?
Where is it making new investments?
 Why is this important?
 We don't want to spend our time and resources
targeting business segments that the company is
moving away from! Similarly, targeting a particularly
unprofitable segment might give the company an
excuse to move away from it.
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Where is the company going?
 A company's short-medium turn growth strategy is
probably the most un-confidential confidential
information anywhere
 This will be blasted all over the company's press
releases, annual reports, earnings reports and financial
filings.
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Sources
where to find the information we
need
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Sources
 We're going to walk through a
couple incredible sources for
finding information on many
types of companies and
organizations
 These documents provide an
incredible insight into our
target company but, of
course, they don't tell us the
full story
 Don't get lost in your sources.
 A good rule in developing an
initial profile of a company is
that you'll spend 20% of your
time finding 80% of the
information you need
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What Information Can We Get Our
Hands On??
 The information that is readily available for use in our
research efforts varies from company to company based
 Government reporting requirements differ drastically based on
type and structure of organization, particularly ownership
structures
 Different information is available on companies and
organizations in different industries
 Reporting requirements differ from state to state and country to
country
 While information is easier to come across in some situations
than others, we can learn valuable information about just
about any organization through careful research
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Types of Organizations
Publicly held companies incorporated in the US are
often considered the easiest companies to research
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SEC Filings for Publicly Traded Companies
 The best and easiest place to start to look for information on
publicly traded companies are filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC)
 10K--Annual report to shareholders
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Company History
Businesses
Risk Factors
Outstanding Legal Proceedings
 PROXY (Def 14 A)
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Pictures and Biographies of Director
Time and Place of Annual Shareholders’ Meeting
Executive Compensation
Stockholdings of Major Investors
 These filings and other documents can be found on any
publicly traded company’s own website or online at the
SEC’s EDGAR Database www.sec.gov
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Other Sources on Publicly Traded Companies
 Annual Report
 This often contains the same information as the SEC 10K, but in
a much glossier, prettier format
 This document also contains a “letter to the shareholders” from
the CEO or Chairman. This letter can be an incredible source of
information on the company’s short term growth plans.
 Mainstream public financial websites
 Finance.google.com
 Finance.yahoo.com
 These sites provide up-to-date information on share prices and
financials, as well as links to current news coverage on publicly
traded companies
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Where to look for information on
Privately Held Companies
 While information on privately held companies is often more
difficult to find, there are still plenty of places to look
 If the company was ever publicly traded, we can go back and
look through old SEC filings. While the information will be
outdated, we’ll get a good idea of how the company is
structured.
 Trade publications and the industry press often offers great and
extensive coverage of companies, both public and private
 These publications are often expensive and difficult to get. Check
out a local university’s library to see if they have a subscription
 For both public and private companies, a company’s own
website is often an incredible source of information.
 Most states require all corporations to register with the Secretary
of State. This information is often available online.
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Researching Nonprofits
 To research non-profits,
you’ll want to employ the
same sources as private
companies and other
organizations.
 Additionally, non-profits
are required to file a 990
form with the IRS each
year
 The 990 form provides
information on a nonprofits
board of directors, staff,
financial contributions, and
budget.
 These forms are available
online at
www.guidestar.com
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Government Sources
 www.USA.gov is the federal government’s general portal for
information on a whole host of topics from the economy to the
environment.
 This can often be a jumping off place to find new sources and new
public filings.
 www.opensecrets.org provides an easily searchable database of
Federal Elections Commission filings.
 This allows us to find political contributions by donor.
 It also provides some in depth information on PAC’s
 In Pennsylvania, campaign contributions can be found at
http://www.campaignfinance.state.pa.us/
 The EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO)
database can give us information on compliance with a host of
environmental regulations on a facility by facility basis. www.epaecho.gov/echo/
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Other Valuable Sources
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Company Information Databases
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In addition to the sources listed above there are some great databases with encyclopedic information on major companies.
The depth of the information and the number of companies covered varies drastically from database to database but the
amount of information available is incredibly broad. If nothing else, these databases allow us to get a quick snapshot of our
target company and other industry players.
The Thomas Register http://www.thomasnet.com/
Business Week’s Company Insight Center- http://investing.businessweek.com/research/company/overview/overview.asp
Forbes- www.forbes.com
Hoovers- www.hoovers.com

Dirt Diggers Digest- Philip Mattera from Good Jobs First! a labor research consulting group, writes a monthly
newsletter for corporate researchers called the “Dirt Diggers Digest.” Each month, the digest profiles a few of
the newest sources for information on the web. Phil has complied an index of all of the sources he’s written
about online at http://www.corp-research.org/dirt_diggers_index.htm
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www.theyrule.net – This site uses a relatively outdated database of corporate directors to show links between
major publicly traded companies. It’s really great for visualizing connections but not great for much else.
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The Wayback Machine- www.internetarchive.org
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Wikipedia
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A new, emerging source of information online is Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org). Using what is known as ‘Wiki’ software, the site
is a giant compilation of user generated encyclopedic information on almost 2 million topics. The interface allows users to
search topics and quickly jump from article to article by simply clicking on a wikipedia hyperlink.
Wikipedia can be an incredibly valuable tool, but it is also important to remember that all of this content is user generated.
Responsible users will cite their sources. Check their sources and do not use any information from wikipedia on publicly
distributed documents. If you find something interesting that you want to use be sure to confirm the information and find
another source that you can cite.
CorpWatch- http://www.corpwatch.org

CorpWatch brings original research together with articles from the corporate press to provide one of the most extensive libraries
of corporate ‘dirt’ on the internet. CorpWatch researchers follow entire industries as well as individual corporations to provide
an incredible and extensive research.
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Using Research in Campaigns
A few illustrative examples
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Targeting Financial Institutions
 Several successful
campaigns have
targeted lending
institutions as major
funders of corporate
misdeeds
 An important key in
messaging these efforts
is illustrating that the
financial institution
(which is a different
organization than the
target company)
actually has the power
to correct the situation
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Capital Strategies
 There are dozens of effective approaches to using
shareholders as leverage points
 Divestment Campaigns
 Proxy Collection and Shareholder Resolutions
 As an agitprop tool
 With the intent of actually passing a resolution
 Communicating with shareholders about our
issues
 Communicating with shareholders about
financial issues and corporate
mismanagement.
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Consumer Strategies
 Once we’ve determined who is buying our target
company’s goods or services we can explore the possibility
of targeting consumers
 Consumer strategies only work under certain circumstances
 The products that the company sells have short product
lives (need to be replaced or repurchased frequently)
 Our organization has the capacity to run an effective
boycott
 The company’s products are highly branded
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Some Other Research Based
Campaign Strategies
 Litigation
 Pressuring regulators to regulate! (OSHA, EPA, SEC, NASD)
 Remember: These regulatory probes don’t need to be directly related
to the issues we’re organizing around!
 Interference with applications for new permits
 Before opening or expanding facilities, most operations will
have to obtain permits from state and local agencies. There
are often opportunities for the public to get involved in these
proceedings.
 Interfering with key decision makers’ personal and business
relationships.
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Divergent Approaches to Research Based
Campaigning
 Some campaigners prefer to cast a wide net and ‘hit’ the company
from as many directions as possible
 This often means that each strategy is less developed because most
activist organizations simply can’t afford to put extensive resources
into each part of a large campaign
 It does, however, create the image that the organization is
‘swarming’ the target company and hitting it from every direction.
 Also, we often don’t know what is actually going to get under the
company’s skin. This gives us an opportunity to try a lot of
approaches and see what works in the situation.
 Other campaigners prefer to pick one or two strategies and devote the
majority of the campaign’s resources to those efforts.
 This allows for more dynamic and developed tactics
 But it is the activist version of putting all your eggs in one basket. If the
strategy doesn’t work you’re wasting your time and energy.
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Summary
 Research based campaigning is a powerful tool but it
cannot replace organizing and mobilizing
 Companies exist in a complex network of interlocking and
interconnected relationships
 Readily available information can help us understand and
undermine these relationships
 Research can open our campaigns to a myriad of new
tactics and strategies, but only if we’re creative enough to
turn the data into action.
 Research won’t tell us what to do, it will, however, help us
understand how our target works.