Calif Chen ’23, School of Public and International Affairs

Calif Chen ’23

Major

School of Public and International Affairs

Project Title

Corporate Climates Project

Presentation Link

View Calif's Presentation

Certificate(s): Environmental Studies

My internship involved working on two projects: India’s Coal Transitions and Corporate Climates. The goal of the India’s Coal Transitions project is to identify and examine India’s policy network. I conducted data cleaning for stakeholder interviews, coded a node list and edge list of actor interactions for social network analysis, and assisted in developing research methods to identify consistent themes within the stakeholder interviews. The second project I worked on is Corporate Climates. The goal of my work within the project was to study the effects of company sustainability commitments and statements of varying narratives. Specifically, we wanted to examine how effective specific versus vague statements are in galvanizing stakeholders. I conducted a broad literature review of research on framing narratives and corporate statements. At the end of my internship, I compiled an overview of the literature, a list of dimensions commonly studied for messaging, and a list of commonly studied outcome variables. Overall, I gained a deeper understanding of the process behind developing research methods and the skills to conduct a literature review.

*  This internship is connected to the HMEI Urban Challenge project, “Norm Dynamics as Agents of Urban Social Change and Environmental Sustainability: Investigating Cross-Cultural Differences and Longevity of Intervention.”