Issue Construals and Corporate Water Stewardship

In the face of mounting environmental and social pressures, the importance of responsible corporate water stewardship (CWS) should be evident, yet not all businesses are taking water management issues seriously. The aim of this study is to explore why differences in CWS persist, especially within industries facing similar resource challenges in highly water dependent contexts. To address this question, we conducted an interview‐based qualitative research study with 35 managers in the North American craft brewing industry. We find that managers differ in how water management issues are construed, specifically along contextual and temporal‐hypothetical dimensions which can range from concrete to abstract. These differences combine to reveal three distinct cognitive frames around CWS: immaterial, important, and imperative. These findings contribute to research on the role of managerial cognition in CWS, and on the pertinence of construal level theory (CLT) to the CWS context. We also offer suggestions for consideration by both scholars and practitioners.