Amy O’Connor, associate professor of communication, recently received a National Science Foundation grant for a project titled “Collaborative Research: Mind Mapping Consumers and Activists’ Response to NGO-Corporate Partnerships. The research will examine how activists and consumers react to different messages from nongovernmental organization-corporate partnerships.

The National Science Foundation’s Science of Organizations Program awarded the three-year, $296,406 grant for the research, which is a collaborative effort between NDSU and Northwestern University’s Michelle Shumate, associate professor of communication studies. Both O’Connor and Shumate are listed as principal investigators.

“The research hypothesizes that messages about NGO-corporate partnerships can moderate the effects of initial poor fit, increasing intentions to purchase from companies and donate to NGOs, and decreasing the likelihood of corporations and NGOs being a target of activism,” O’Connor said.

O’Connor also is director of graduate studies in the NDSU Department of Communication.

The National Science Foundation grant number is Shumate/O’Connor 1359610.

NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.