Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

4-2026

Abstract

We document that firms vary in their timeliness of support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, and that timeliness is an indicator of authenticity. We predict that firms that speak out quickly in support of BLM (via Twitter or their websites) have made more investments in diversity and inclusion, relative to firms that speak out slowly (via conference calls or annual reports) or that remain silent. Consistent with this prediction, quick-disclosing firms have greater workforce diversity, have boards with greater ethnic diversity, and are more likely to tie executive compensation to diversity and inclusivity. Furthermore, quick-disclosing firms increase their hiring of both Black American employees and Black directors relative to firms that stay silent. We also document that quick-disclosing firms are part of more supportive stakeholder networks. We develop an inclusivity index and show that firms with higher index levels are more likely to speak out on the Capitol Riots, the Asian Spa Shootings, and voting rights.

Keywords

Black Lives Matter, Diversity, equity, and inclusion, Twitter, Voluntary disclosure, Directors, Peers, Competitors, Customers, Employees, Stakeholders, Social networks

Discipline

Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics | Corporate Finance | Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication

Publication

Review of Accounting Studies

First Page

1

Last Page

56

ISSN

1380-6653

Identifier

10.1007/s11142-026-09951-6

Publisher

Springer

Copyright Owner and License

Authors-CC-BY

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Download

Share

COinS