Mixing Business With Politics: A Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents and Outcomes of Corporate Political Activity (original) (raw)
Related papers
Corporate political activity: A review and research agenda
Journal of Management, 2004
Corporate political activities, or corporate attempts to shape government policy in ways favorable to the firm, are commonly employed by firms across countries. We review recent scholarly work from management, political science, economics and sociology in the area of corporate political activity (CPA), paying particular attention to the literature published since Shaffer's [Shaffer, B. 1995. Firm-level responses to government regulation: Theoretical and research approaches. Journal of Management, 21: 495-514] review. To integrate this literature we provide a model of the antecedents of CPA, the different types of CPA, how firms organize to implement CPA and the outcomes of CPA both for public policy and firm performance. We conclude our review by proposing an agenda for future research in the area.
Corporate Political Activity: A Literature Review and Research Agenda
This paper reviews the diverse literature on corporate political activity (CPA) and develops a framework that details and integrates existing research in this field. A systematic analysis of extant CPA literatures is conducted to order them into domains that have implications for organizational performance. The paper is structured into three such domain emphases, which require further research investigation: resources and capabilities focus; institutional focus; and political environment focus. The contribution of each to an understanding of CPA in pursuit or defence of corporate competitive advantage is discussed. The authors also suggest that the internationalization of business, including the more recent emergence of developing country economies and companies, presents scholars with the challenge of understanding CPA in more varied institutional settings. CPA practices continue to expand as commerce goes increasingly global and, consequently, involves a wider array of political actors and institutions. The paper contributes by increasing the clarity of CPA classification, reflecting on the implications of a multi-polar world for CPA research and advancing future agendas for scholars in this research community.
Corporate political activity, public policy uncertainty, and firm outcomes: A meta-analysis
Strategic Organization, 2016
Although significant scholarship has been devoted to the study of corporate political activity, contradictory messages emerge regarding its impact on public policy outcomes and firm performance. Using meta-analytic methods on a US-only sample of 93 studies, working papers, and books, we try to disentangle two mechanisms that explain why corporate political activity is not always beneficial to firms: (1) the uncertainty about the public policy process itself, that is, can firms get the policies they want through corporate political activity? and (2) the uncertainty about the policies' impact on the firm, that is, whether firms effectively anticipate the implications of policies for their performance. Our results support the idea that these types of uncertainty play an important role in explaining the intermediary dynamics of corporate political activity. We find that in the United States, corporate political activity only weakly impacts public policy and at best has a (direct) weak effect on corporate outcomes.
Journal of International Management, 2022
Prior research has found that corporate political activity (CPA) can both positively and negatively impact firm performance. Combining agency theory with the resource-based view, we examine the relationship between domestic lobbying (a key form of CPA) and firm performance by explicating the moderating effects of international and product diversification. We argue that expansion into international and product markets increases a firm's resources and reduces agency costs in domestic lobbying. Our results, based on a sample of 737 firms, show that lobbying is positively associated with performance for firms that are diversified in both international markets and along product-lines; whereas lobbying is counter-productive for purely domestic and undiversified firms. Our results contribute to the literature on the firm performance implications of corporate political activity by highlighting the roles of international and product diversification.
Corporate political strategies
Accounting & Finance, 2011
The paper offers a comprehensive and integrative review of the current literature on corporate political strategies sharing common boundaries with finance, accounting and corporate governance. While there appears to be a heightened interest among researchers in studying the value relevance of corporate political strategies [Chen et al. among others], interestingly, finance and corporate governance scholars have yet to embrace the research on political strategies as part of their mainstream research. Taking a micro perspective at the firm level, we review the major scholarly works in the economics, finance and management disciplines with respect to the firm attributes shaping the corporate decision to engage politically, modes of corporate political participation, and the value impact of corporate political activity. The overarching theme of the review article is to integrate diverse -political economy and management -paradigms of corporate political participation and rationalize the value relevance within the corporate finance and corporate governance perspective. The paper also presents focused preliminary evidence on the determinants and value impact of corporate lobbying strategies. For the sample of 5452 firm-year observations, the results indicate that while for large firms corporate lobbying may not be agency driven and may create value, for small firms, despite low shareholder rights associating with higher lobbying engagements, lobbying still relates positively to value added.
The CEO as chief political officer: Managerial discretion and corporate political activity
Journal of Business Research, 2015
Corporate political activity (CPA) is an important nonmarket strategy aimed at advancing a firm's interests by influencing public policy. Yet studies report mixed results as to the impact of CPA on firm outcomes. Building on recent extant research we suggest that one reason for the ambivalent evidence regarding the impact of CPA on firm performance is the moderating role of CEO discretion on the CPA-firm performance relationship. In a longitudinal study of S&P 1000 firms over 10 years, we test competing perspectives regarding the moderating impact of CEO discretion on the CPA-corporate performance relationship. We find that some aspects of CEO discretion, in particular CEO duality, moderate the relationship between CPA and performance. The findings provide some support for an agency view of the impact of CEO discretion the CPA-performance relationships, which carry implications for both scholarship and regulation in the areas of CPA and corporate governance.
There is a widely held view that the performance of firms depends not only on the ability of managers to exploit economic markets but also on their ability to succeed in political markets. To test the value of political activism, recent scholarship has probed the impact of corporate political activity (CPA) on firm performance. However, mixed findings and the fragmented nature of the field raise more questions than answers as to the nature of this relationship. This systematic review examines scholarly articles for evidence of the impact of CPA on firm value. The findings suggest that CPA is more valuable in emerging countries and that relational CPA strategies are more common in emerging (versus developed) countries where social capital underlies political and economic exchange. We also document the paucity of research on informational CPA strategies and policy outcomes in the emerging country context. We consider the implications of these findings and others for local and multinational enterprises, and offer suggestions for further research
The Governance Challenges of Corporate Political Activity
Business & Society, 2013
This article explains the rationale for study of the governance challenges of corporate political activity. The topic is important, especially in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, but understudied to date. The authors review the literature bearing on this topic. The authors separate consideration of the topic into macro-level and micro-level issues. The macro level concerns the societal perspective. At this level, key research questions concern whether corporate political activity be allowed, and how it should be regulated. The micro level covers managerial and shareholder control over corporate political activity. At this level, key research questions include concern whether the firm should practice political activity and how to regulate practice through professional self-regulation, ethical guidelines, and corporate governance systems control. The remainder of this article contains focused summaries of the articles selected for this Special Issue. Each article is introduced and evaluated against the key research questions at the macro or micro levels of analysis.
The impact of corporate political activity over strategic management
2009
At this present rate of supersaturation of the markets, the interaction between economic actors and political officials gains a momentum without precedent. Difficulties faced by corporations generate lobby activities intended for soliciting financial support, public-private partnerships are sought, witch provide income and safety during crisis, and governments are also inclined to dialogize with the business. There is also an increased risk of occurrence of negative externalities, such as corruption, especially in emerging economies. All this, along with the natural tendency of the corporations to pursue at all levels achieving their interests, increasing profits, creating competitive advantage, lead to an intense corporate political activity.