Media coverage of firms in the presence of multiple signals: a configurational approach

Recent management research suggests that firms try to orchestrate conformity and distinctiveness in their behavior to reconcile opposing demands of norm compliance and competitive distinction in order to appear optimally distinct. Whether they succeed or not depends on how audiences perceive the multiple signals they elicit. Extant literature has not fully uncovered how the media combine these different signals to form a representation of firms’ behavior and their subsequent reactions to these combinations. We adopt a configurational approach to address this gap in the environmental sustainability context. Drawing on unique proprietary data on 118 cases in the energy utility industry and using fsQCA, we determine that different equifinal signal configurations are associated with positive media coverage regarding environmental behavior or the lack thereof. We then generate five patterns of signals that explain media reactions and disentangle the underlying logics behind them. Our study adds to the research on the multifaceted nature of signal (in)congruence perception by discussing the role of conformity and distinctiveness and highlighting that this perception depends on the signals’ credibility. Delivering a balanced orchestration of conformity and distinctiveness signals is possible, but complex, because audiences tend to penalize incongruent postures they cannot associate with a given category.