10.7910/DVN/LTYVZRMarsh, WaydeWaydeMarshUniversity of Tennessee at KnoxvillePeterson, Jordan CarrJordan CarrPeterson0000-0003-3436-9263University of Tennessee at KnoxvilleHarvard Dataverse2026Social SciencesMarsh, WaydeWaydeMarshUniversity of Tennessee at Knoxville2026-02-072026-02-117036315332091358212645text/x-r-notebooktext/comma-separated-valuestext/comma-separated-valuestext/rtf1.0CC0 1.0Corporations engage in numerous forms of political advocacy. Generally, however, scholars can only speculate as to why corporations express their preferences on questions of public policy or make decisions that may negatively affect the firm's bottom line. Existing research demonstrates that public perceptions of corporate political activity depend in part on an individual's tendency to agree with the corporation's expressed position(s). Here, we examine the conditions under which individuals approve or disapprove of corporate political advocacy by testing other origins of attitudes toward such actions by firms. Specifically, we use an original survey experiment to analyze how the motives behind state legislatures criticizing a company for engaging in sustainable investment practices shape public opinion toward this sort of corporate activity. We find limited support for our hypotheses. We find mixed evidence regarding whether elite frames shift preferences for corporate political engagement, with differences across partisan identification and preferences for government sanctions. Given the salience of social and environmental complications related to climate change, as well as ongoing debates over corporate influence on public policy, our results provide new insights into how the public processes corporate political advocacy.