Introduction
Building credibility is crucial for businesses since it directly affects customer relationships and profitability. Hence, companies should continually improve their ethos – a unique notion of character that defines the group’s trustworthiness. Throughout the years, Activision Blizzard has been the golden standard of the video game industry in the issues of work productivity and organizational culture. Nevertheless, in 2021, the company experienced the largest scandal in its history concerning equality and diversity values. Experts criticized Activision Blizzard on social and pinkwashing, revealing that the organization’s claims about women’s rights and the LGBTQ community directly contradicted its actions. As a result, the company builds ethos by advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion, but it fails to address these issues due to deeply ingrained organizational problems. It is unethical to employees who suffer from daily discrimination and to customers who are being deceived by their favorite video game company. Ultimately, the current essay critically examines Activision Blizzard and proves that the company does not support its ethos claims.
Activision Blizzard Overview
Activision Blizzard has been explicitly promoting diversity values since the second half of the 2010s when the video game industry started to notice the opportunities for profit by adhering to sustainability. The company took pride in creating the first character on the autism spectrum in a multiplayer video game, transgender characters, and LGBTQ heroes (Bulatao, 2021). In other words, Activision Blizzard started explicitly emphasizing the existence of diversity and equality values in its games. At present, the company’s vision encompasses “a culture of inclusion and belonging” and “inclusive game and content design” (“Diversity, equity & inclusion,” 2022). Moreover, after the recent scandal, Activision Blizzard has started to actively promote its efforts to preserve the environment by reducing plastic waste and greenhouse gas emissions (Bulatao, 2021). In summary, the company builds ethos by supporting sustainability in social and environmental areas.
Based on this preliminary analysis, the current paper proposes three criteria to evaluate Activision Blizzard. The first measurement is the inclusion of the promoted social values, such as diversity and equality, in the organizational culture. After all, if the company advocates for these values, it should implement them in the internal work environment first. It is a trackable ideology that is particularly significant for Blizzard after the scandal. The second criterium concerns Blizzard’s commitment to the environment and its promises to reach “net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050” (Bulatao, 2021). Lastly, the third measurement evaluates the company’s efforts in promoting equality values and helping minority groups in the industry and society.
Organizational Culture – First Criterium
Organizational culture has always been Blizzard’s strength as the competitors described the company as one of the best places to work in the video game industry. This reputation of an inclusive work environment has been prevalent for a long time, and the company received multiple awards for LGBTQ and equality promotion in 2019 and 2020 (“Diversity, equity & inclusion,” 2022). However, in 2021, an investigation by the State of California revealed that the organizational culture was misogynistic and contradicted the company’s statements (Zwiezen, 2021). “Multiple women suffering daily harassment and abuse” became a relative norm in the work environment due to power abuse from executives and managers (Zwiezen, 2021, par. 2). Instead of directly fixing the problem, Activision Blizzard tried to stop the news from spreading by hiring union-busting firms and threatening employees (Zwiezen, 2021). Ultimately, the ethos that Activision Blizzard built over the years was destroyed within one year.
Hence, according to the first criterium, Activision Blizzard failed to implement inclusive work culture in the organization despite its policy of “social washing” that began in 2015. After the scandal in 2021, the organizational culture was arguably getting better as the company kept firing more employees involved in sexual harassment claims (“Activision Blizzard,” 2021). However, there is no credible evidence that this approach tends to improve the situation rather than trying to save the public image. As a result, Activision Blizzard does not show trustworthiness according to the first criterium of organizational culture.
Preserving the Environment – Second Criterium
Activision Blizzard performs considerably better on its promises to preserve the environment. The company explicitly stated its goals, such as “net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050” and “reduce plastic waste by 50% in five years,” in an attempt to build ethos (Bulatao, 2021). According to the latest report, Activision Blizzard was able to overachieve its plastic reduction objective by 10% due to the digital transformation of the company and remote work (“2021 ESG report,” 2021). Moreover, the organization is transparent about how it intends to reduce gas emissions and thoroughly describes its distribution of energy consumption (“2021 ESG report,” 2021). Although this data is directly from Activision Blizzard, its credibility is confirmed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) that governs the research. As a result, it is safe to assume that Activision Blizzard succeeds in building ethos according to the second criterium.
Helping Minority Groups – Third Criterium
The third criterium refers to various programs that Activision Blizzard has implemented to help minority groups. One of the notable examples is the Call of Duty Endowment – a subsidiary project that assists veterans in finding jobs. According to the company’s annual report and outside sources, the initiative has been successful, securing approximately 100,000 jobs in thirteen years since its establishment (Bulatao, 2021; Wood, 2021). Moreover, Activision Blizzard attracts candidates as a part of its Level Up U education program that teaches game development to aspire talents (“First program,” 2022). It focuses on diversity, specifying the objective of helping “underrepresented ethnic groups and women and non-binary participants” (“First program,” 2022, par. 4). Since it is a new initiative, it is unclear whether the company’s motives concern sustainability or are merely social washing. Nevertheless, the Call of Duty Endowment is undoubtedly a socially responsible practice that has helped thousands of veterans. Hence, Activision Blizzard achieves partial success according to the third criterium.
Evaluation Discussion
The evaluation has revealed that Activision Blizzard has been fulfilling its promises of preserving the environment and helping minority groups, but its organizational culture contradicts the company’s vision. The 2021 scandal was massive, and the fact that Activision Blizzard actively hid the oppressive work environment further complicated the situation. As a result, the company lost its ethos, trustworthiness, and public image, which was overwhelmingly positive before the crisis. Thus, although the company keeps its promises in preserving the environment and minority policies, customers cannot trust it.
It is a significant problem for Activision Blizzard since video game companies rely on customer loyalty and product quality. At present, consumers perceive the organization as not worthy of their trust, as millions of gamers boycott its games and new releases (Zwiezen, 2021). People realize that if the company has been lying about inclusivity for years, there is no reason to believe their future promises about games either. Ethos is crucial in business and is even more significant in the video game industry, where companies need customer loyalty to survive. Ultimately, Activision Blizzard should be viewed with suspicion, as it has already broken many of its promises concerning inclusivity, and there has been no radical change in the organizational structure. The company must fulfill all its promises and continue an active dialogue with its customers to restore its public image.
Conclusion
The current analysis has demonstrated the utmost significance of ethos and trustworthiness in the video game industry. As the official investigation revealed Activision Blizzard’s misogynistic organizational culture, many loyal customers understood that they had been deceived. It resulted in boycotts and protests not only because of sexual harassment and misogyny but also because the consumers felt betrayed. This development explicitly shows how fast companies can lose their public image if they do not fulfill their promises and act against sustainable values. Ultimately, one of the lessons that can be taught from this situation is that companies should implement their ethos into practice to maintain a trustworthy relationship with customers.
References
2021 environmental, social, and governance report. (2021). Activision Blizzard.
Activision Blizzard fired 20 employees following harassment claims. (2021). Reuters.
Bulatao, B. (2021). Activision Blizzard releases its first ESG report. Activision Blizzard. Web.
Diversity, equity & inclusion. (2022). Activision Blizzard.
First program of its kind at Activision Blizzard to train and develop talent for engineering roles. (2022). Yahoo!Finance. Web.
Wood, N. (2021). The Call of Duty Endowment releases white paper: America’s veterans stand ready to fill critical healthcare shortages. Business Wire: A Berkshire Hathaway Company.
Zwiezen, Z. (2021). Everything that has happened since the Activision Blizzard lawsuit was filed. Kotaku.