Given that the benefits of Corporate Political Activity (CPA) are usually granted in the form of favorable industry regulation that benefits all industry participants rather than a single firm, small politically inactive firms are often able to take advantage of the benefits from CPA without investing in them. We argue that the free‐riding problem is context specific. Situations of extreme uncertainty create institutional voids that enable individual firms to more fully appropriate the returns from their CPA. In (...) this paper, we examine the influence that CPA had on the U.S. government’s disbursements of TARP funding in 2008. We find that politically active firms were able to avoid the free‐rider problem by obtaining more instances of TARP funding when compared to firms that were not politically active. In addition to being more likely to receive TARP funds, politically active firms received larger amounts of TARP funding than those firms who were not politically active. (shrink)

This article focuses upon answering the following question: Does corporate political activity (CPA) stand as an academic field? Following Hambrick and Chen, we consider three elements of the emergence of an academic field—differentiation, mobilization, and legitimacy. Utilizing a variety of data sources, we find CPA to be well differentiated from other academic fields; to have undertaken a number of activities to mobilize CPA as a field, but short of large-scale unification; and to have earned low to moderate (...) legitimacy within management, but little legitimacy outside of management. All in all, at this time, CPA does not squarely meet the elements necessary to emerge as a field. (shrink)

This paper contains a short outline of the rationale behind a workshop aimed at seeking connections between corporate social responsibility and corporate political activity. Two ‘provocateurs’ gave their view on these connections. After this kick-off two groups of ~10 persons each engaged in lively discussions on these connections, identifying a range of issues for further research and an interest in keeping this issue on the agenda.

Many tensions exist within the nexus of corporate social responsibility, competitive strategy, and political activity. Previously, these aspects of strategic management have been considered in relative isolation or at best in pairs. Accordingly, an attempt is made here to set out a general strategic problem of the corporation, in which all three aspects are combined. This project reveals a particular need to explicate the political assumptions held by or on behalf of the corporation. Examples might include (...) the classical liberal model, global hypercompetition, or variants of the stakeholder model. The project also reinforces the broader notion that when one adopts the perspective of a corporate strategist, one can sometimes find potentially productive ways of reframing issues in ethics, economics, and politics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide some insights for a normative theory of corporate political activities. Such a theory aims to provide theoretical tools to investigate the legitimacy of corporate political involvement and allows us to determine which political activities and relations with government regulators are appropriate or inappropriate, permissible or impermissible, obligatory or forbidden for corporations. After having explored what I call the “normative presumption of legitimacy” of CPAs, this paper identifies three (...) different plausible strategies to criticize and object to corporate political involvement: the “egalitarian” strategy, the “corporate citizenship” strategy, and the “market failures” strategy. It constitutes an attempt to develop the market failures approach to reflect on CPAs. My main claim is that within such an account, the idea that corporations have a license to operate considerably limits their right to engage in political activities. (shrink)

Building on literature in political CSR and corporate political activity (CPA) as well as responsible innovation and responsible lobbying, we introduce a framework to assess the legitimacy status of corporate political activity. We focus on the fact that companies frequently face sharp regulatory backlash after penetrating markets with their innovations. In response to regulatory backlash, big tech companies often employ an arsenal of corporate political activities to (re-)shape national and local regulatory (...) environments, which raises the important questions about the legitimacy of CPA tactics that we address. To develop and apply this framework, we briefly survey and then assess Uber’s corporate political activities in its 2015 New York City political campaign. (shrink)

Research on firm initial public offering (IPO) performance has primarily utilized an economics of information perspective, which assumes that publicly available information is incorporated into a stock’s price when it is issued. However, the valuation process associated with IPOs remains manifest with considerable uncertainty for the prospective investor. This study argues that corporate political activity undertaken prior to the firm’s IPO acts as a signal to investors, reducing the uncertainty the market places on the value of the (...) firm’s equity. Utilizing a sample of 180 IPOs, we show that the more a firm invests in corporate political activity prior to its IPO, the better its IPO performance. These findings provide evidence that corporate political activity acts as a nonmarket signal, influencing investor behavior by reducing the information asymmetries between investors and the target firm. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a conceptual framework to understand how a company’s CSR identity becomes defined as a political activity destabilizing the strong identity–image relations. We draw on theories of political CSR and organizational identity–image relations to study how CSR emerges as a corporate political activity in a context where the corporate CSR work is first appreciated and later critiqued by the public in the wake of socio-political events. We analyse the (...) micro-organizational processes in the context of macro-political level changes, and we refer to this as the ‘identity–image dynamics of political CSR’. Concretely, we describe in two vignettes how IKEA’s declared ‘apolitical and neutral’ CSR identity becomes entangled with national and international socio-political events that critically challenge the corporate engagement prior national understandings of citizenship rights. In this process, IKEA’s CSR identity becomes defined as a political and non-neutral activity. Our article contributes by bringing attention to the organizational level dynamics of political CSR by offering a conceptualization of how global and local socio-political events may disturb the alignment between CSR identity and image and challenge the corporate CSR work beyond managerial control. (shrink)

This paper develops a measurement tool for corporate political activity (CPA) by applying a resource-based view with a focus on political resources. In addition, path-dependence theory is used to examine inertial consequences of the trade-off between corporate stakeholder relationships, namely, between politics and customers. The following research questions are addressed: How can CPA be measured? And can CPA lead to strategic inertia over time? The empirical analysis is based on survey data primarily collected at 218 (...) major German companies. The results give new insights into today’s CPAs within the German market. Using explorative factor analysis, four components are identified: activities, function, public affairs, and strategy. (shrink)

This paper addresses the relationship between corporate political activities (CPA) and a firm’s customer orientation (CO) from a strategy perspective. Focussing on the potential negative implications of CPA, the paper argues that CPA over time may result in path-dependency for the focal strategic system and lead to a low level of customer orientation and strategic rigidity to readdress an appropriate level of CO.

We review articles about corporate political activity published in Business & Society since its beginnings 60 years ago and in a set of other leading management journals over the past decade. We present evidence that most studies of CPA use the political markets’ perspective. Under the premise that the contemporary political environment has changed significantly since the inception of the political markets’ perspective, our review asks two interconnected questions. First, to what degree have changes (...) in the political environment challenged the ability of the political markets’ perspective to understand the pillars of politics: issues, institutions, interests, and information? Second, to what degree have CPA scholars augmented or diversified their theoretical arguments to accommodate these changes in the political environment? We document the CPA literature across these dimensions and questions and note that many scholars are already adopting other theories side by side with the political markets’ perspective. (shrink)

Abstract:The new push to move political issue activity from the federal to the state and local levels—a new New Federalism—has implications for the ethical and political legitimacy of business political activity. While business political activity at the federal level may be both less costly and less risky than when action shifts to states or localities, at the state or local level it is likely to be more visible, and individual firms may be perceived (...) to have more power. Increased corporate power raises questions about the legitimacy of firm involvement in the political process at the state and local levels. The issue of legitimacy is viewed in the context of the literature on political subcultures being used to study state economic development. (shrink)

Research on corporate political activity has considered a number of antecedents to a firm’s engagement in politics. The majority of this research has focused on either industry or firm-level motivations that lead to corporate political activity, leaving the role of the firm’s leader noticeably absent in such scholarship. This article combines ideas from Upper Echelons Theory with research in corporate political activity to bridge this important gap. More specifically, this research utilizes (...) CEO demographic characteristics to determine whether a firm will invest in political activity and how these characteristics influence the particular approach to political activity the firm undertakes. Considering 27 years of data from large U.S. firms, we find that a CEO’s age, tenure, functional, and educational backgrounds influence whether and how the firm invests in political activity. (shrink)

While support for corporate political activity (CPA) is well echoed in the literature, little has been done to empirically examine its ethicality. Moreover, existing ethical CPA frameworks assume normative and rational leanings that are insufficient to provide a comprehensive account of CPA ethicality. Utilizing the Ghanaian context, adopting a multiple case study design involving 28 Directors from 22 firms, and employing a grounded theory approach, I explore how the ethicality of CPA is determined in weak institutional environments. (...) The findings reveal that business executives evaluate ethics at three levels (i.e. context, organizational and strategy) using three principles (i.e. utilitarianism, justice and institutions). Leveraging this knowledge, I present an eclectic framework that bridges the long-standing gap between normative ethical prescriptions and lived ethical realities. In doing so, I move away from abstraction to give “voice” to the actors involved in CPA. I also present a model that shows how the ethical judgement process is influenced by managerial intuition and interactive personal and organizational experiences. This article has important theoretical and practical implications for ethical business-government relations in developing countries. (shrink)

Corporate social irresponsibility continues despite institutional pressures for socially responsible behavior, resulting in disasters like the Kalamazoo River Oil Spill and the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. We conduct an in-depth abductive analysis of the Kalamazoo River Oil Spill to explain factors that enable corporate forgetting work projects. Specifically, we illustrate how a corporation’s political activities allow it to gain the power to suppress its mnemonic community’s voices, thereby attenuating an irresponsible event’s memory from the minds of its (...) stakeholders, protecting its image, and maintaining legitimacy in the shareholder and state’s eyes. We also highlight how the remembrance and forgetting of an irresponsible incident diverges between stakeholders based on their characteristics, future goals, and aspirations and whether they directly suffered from the disaster. Our research makes notable contributions to forgetting work literature by highlighting the importance of corporate political activities and context on the success of corporate forgetting work projects. (shrink)

Firms have been relying on corporate political activity to achieve access and to affect public policy change for decades. Most research on CPA and public policy outcomes has implicitly assumed that access afforded by CPA results in an either- or policy outcome such as votes or election outcomes. Based on recent research on how CPA can be a strategic signal to government agencies, however, it is possible that CPA may in fact, have a linear association with public (...) policy outcomes as opposed to merely a dichotomous one, and we explore this relationship in the unique public policy context of government contract awards. We specifically analyze how higher levels of CPA impact the financial value of government contracts awarded to firms. Utilizing the S&P 1500 sample for 16 years we find that CPA has a one to one association with the value of contract awards, indicating that CPA and public policy outcomes can be linked in ways that motivate firms to continuously invest in CPA, to maximize their political rents. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this finding in light of extant research on CPA and its direct impact on public policy outcomes. (shrink)

Political contestability is an important issue in the ethical analysis of corporate political activity (hereafter CPA). Though previous studies have proposed analytical frameworks for creating contestable political systems, these studies conceive firm-level factors such as size and wealth as the main (and perhaps, only) determinants of contestability. This relegates the influences of informal managerial-level attributes such as tribalism, especially in ethnically diverse contexts where politics and tribe are inseparable. In this article, I explore the linkages (...) between managers’ tribal identity and political contestability among firms in Ghana. I found that contestability is affected by _tribal consonance_ (similarity) and _tribal dissonance_ (difference) between corporate executives and policymakers. I also found that dissonance creates _liability of tribe_, which causes contestability problems in all four stages of the CPA process—i.e., _political planning_, _political access, political voice_, and _political influence_. Overall, this article extends the micro–macro link of political connections from performance to the ethics of political competition and contestability. It offers important contributions to the literature, advances insightful implications for practice, and outlines useful future research directions. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Although an important feature of firms’ corporate social responsibility, the strategic pressures behind firms’ corporate philanthropy are not well researched or understood. This research note argues that firms’ CP and firms’ corporate political activity may share common strategic antecedents; forces in firms’ political environment may shape both CP and CPA. Using S&P 500 data in a longitudinal analysis, the authors find evidence suggesting that industry-level political uncertainty increases firm propensity for engaging in both (...) CP and CPA, above and beyond the propensity to engage in either as a stand-alone strategy. The authors use this preliminary evidence to explore political marketplace contingencies for the relationship between CP and CPA. CSR literature indicates that CP can benefit firms by creating and enhancing their relational wealth and institutional legitimacy. Such benefits may also serve firm interactions with government policy makers—a dynamic largely ignored until recently. The authors’ findings may indicate that, due to its institutional signaling ability and impact on firms’ reputations, CP may allow firms to differentiate themselves or stand out from others when faced with political uncertainty, and that these outcomes should be considered when firms engage in CP. (shrink)

Two fundamental business ethics issues that repeatedly surface in the academic literature relate to business's role in the development of public policy [Suarez, S. L.: 2000, Does Business Learn? (The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI); Roberts, R. W. and D. D. Bobek: 2004, Accounting, Organizations and Society 29(5-6), 565-590] and its role in responsibly managing the natural environment [Newton, L.: 2005, Business Ethics and the Natural Environment (Blackwell Publishing, Oxford)]. When studied together, researchers often examine if, and how, (...) corporations influence environmental policy decisions. Drawing from literatures on corporate political activity, corporate social and environmental performance, and corporate environmental disclosure, we develop and empirically examine two research questions concerning the relations between corporate political expenditures, environmental performance, and environmental disclosure. The questions are: (1) Do corporations that are poorer environmental performers spend more on political activities than their better-performing counterparts? (2) Is there an association between corporations' spending on political activities and the extent of their financial report environmental disclosures? We investigated these questions through analyses of data we gathered on a sample consisting of 119 U.S. environmentally sensitive firms for the 2001-2002 election cycle. After controlling for firm size and specific industry effects, our tests reveal a significant, inverse relationship between firm environmental performance and political spending. This is consistent with the notion that U.S. firms with relatively poorer environmental performance records engage more intensely in corporate political activities as part of their overall strategic management of their relationship with the state. In addition, a significant and positive association between the amount of political spending and the extent of environmental disclosure suggests that environmental disclosure and political spending are both proactive, complementary tactics to strategically manage public policy pressure. If corporations' strategies are intentionally designed to unreasonably limit their environmental responsibilities or to misrepresent firm environmental performance, then we argue that these activities reflect a significant lapse in ethical conduct. (shrink)

This study investigates the pivotal policy question of whether a firm’s corporate governance influences its political spending disclosures. Using a sample of S&P 500 firms from 2011 to 2019, we find empirical evidence that a board of directors’ monitoring and resource provision roles affect a firm’s political spending disclosure. Extending agency theory-driven expectations, we provide evidence that measures of a board’s monitoring role such as female monitoring directors, shorter board tenure, audit committee size, audit committee meetings, and (...) audit committee education enhance a firm’s political spending disclosures. Second, drawing from resource dependence theory and examining a board’s resource provisions, we find evidence that female advisory directors, CEO duality, additional directorships, and audit committee characteristics (i.e., size, number of meetings, age, and education) promote political spending disclosures. The study contributes to corporate governance and corporate political activity literatures by outlining different types of governance that may drive a firm’s political spending disclosures, a key component of a firm’s political responsibility. (shrink)

The purpose of the Chinese Environmental Information Disclosure System is to protect the environment through public participation and public opinion. This paper uses data from listed Chinese companies in heavily polluted industries from 2008 to 2013 to examine the influence that corporate political connection has on corporate environmental information disclosure level. The results show that firstly, while environmental disclosure level has improved over time, negative information that reflects the real status of environmental management has also been concealed. (...) Secondly, although corporate political connection can influence companies to more actively disclose environmental information, it can also mask political rent-seeking in the guise of protecting the environment. This is especially prevalent in state-owned enterprises where political connection has a significant positive impact on CEID in the eastern and western parts of China. If political connections influence CEID, it will be difficult to improve the quality of environmental disclosure and provide useful information for decision makers. There is an urgent need to standardize and strictly regulate listed companies’ system for environmental information disclosure. (shrink)

This article connects the previously isolated literatures on corporate citizenship and corporate political activity to explain how firms construct political influence in the public sphere. The public engagement of firms as political actors is explored empirically through a discursive analysis of a public debate between the mining industry and the Australian government over a proposed tax. The findings show how the mining industry acted as a corporate citizen concerned about the common good. This, (...) in turn, legitimized corporate political activity, which undermined deliberation about the common good. The findings explain how the public sphere is refeudalized through corporate manipulation of deliberative processes via what we term corporate citizenspeak—simultaneously speaking as corporate citizens and for individual citizens. Corporate citizenspeak illustrates the duplicitous engagement of firms as political actors, claiming political legitimacy while subverting deliberative norms. This contributes to the theoretical development of corporations as political actors by explaining how corporate interests are aggregated to represent the common good and how corporate political activity is employed to dominate the public sphere. This has important implications for understanding how corporations undermine democratic principles. (shrink)

There is a lack of research about the political strategies used by firms in emerging countries, mainly because the literature often assumes that Western-oriented corporate political activity has universal application. Drawing on resource-dependency logics, we explore why and how firms orchestrate CPA in the institutionally challenging context of Nigeria. Our findings show that firms deploy four context-fitting but ethically suspect political strategies: affective, financial, pseudo-attribution and kinship strategies. We leverage this understanding to contribute to CPA (...) in emerging countries by arguing that corporate political strategies are shaped by the reciprocity and duality of dependency relationships between firms and politicians, and also by advancing that these strategies reflect institutional weaknesses and unique industry-level opportunities. Importantly, we shed light on the muttered dark side of CPA. We develop a CPA framework and discuss the research, practical and policy implications of our findings. (shrink)

Motivated by contemporary debates concerning whether directors inappropriately deploy corporate funds for corporate political donations and the limited research into managerial influence on corporate political donations, we examine the impact of director influences from a network perspective. Using a sample of large listed Australian corporations and their political party donation activity during 2000–2007, we find that both the professional and non-professional networks of directors influence corporate political donations. We observe these influences (...) in relation to donations at the federal and state levels, and with respect to the choice of recipient political parties. (shrink)

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom concerning the impact of the Citizens United v. FEC decision by examining the flow of corporate money into the 2012 election. The decision, which is consistent with most prior case law and was not a radical departure, promoted the use of super PACs and 501-c committees for political money that were not widely used by corporations, and the super PACs and c-4 committees were largely ineffective in the 2012 election. They also did (...) not produce a marked advantage for the Republican Party, especially in the presidential election. The Citizens United decision did, however, lead to other legal and regulatory developments in an effort to promote greater disclosure, though those developments have not been successful. Investors have been somewhat more successful in promoting limits on corporate political spending through shareholder proposals. Some state laws and upcoming court cases maylimit other restrictions on political contributions. (shrink)

U.S. corporations have long tried to enact a favorable business environment via political activities such as lobbying and campaign contributions. This particular strategy is receiving increased attention due to the recent Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which establishes that corporations have the same rights with regard to political activities as individuals. In this work, we examine the nature of corporate political activity and the need for accountability; define transparency in the context (...) of corporate political activity; and examine the antecedents for corporate political disclosure. We then test our model on the S&P 100 using an index of corporate political disclosure that we developed. We find that opportunities to participate in political activities, dependence on government contracts and prior disclosure on other topics such as the environment lead to more disclosure. The intensity of the regulatory environment appears to have no influence. (shrink)

This article argues that whether and how a firm chooses to adopt Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives is conditional in part upon the domestic political institutional structures present in its home market. It demonstrates that economic globalization has increased the pressure applied to companies to develop CSR policies that might help overcome specific governance gaps associated with the globalization phenomenon. Drawing upon an examination of domestic institutions and overall political structure, it argues that the political conditions (...) and expectations present in a company’s home market will condition whether a firm might pursue CSR activity. For home markets, it is posited that perceived electoral salience will be filtered through government type and ideology, and state/societal structures will influence if and how firms will use CSR. Specific arguments are developed from these categorizations. The article concludes with a discussion of how researchers might further explore links between CSR, domestic political structures, and corporate political activity. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between an aspect of a firm’s corporate social responsibility, corporate community programs, and the effectiveness of its corporate political activity. Developing a conceptual model based on resource-based view of the firm, the authors argue that the mechanism linking a firm’s CCP to CPA mechanism is the effect of CCPs on the development of firm level resources. Specifically, the intensity of a firm’s CCPs enhances a firm’s human capital, organizational capital, and (...) geographic resources, which in turn improve the effectiveness of two key aspects of CPA: information and constituency-building political strategies. This linkage of CCPs to CPA effectiveness may be particularly relevant when the firm faces unfavorable political markets. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates the political perspective of corporate social responsibility disclosures and, drawing on Weber’s notion of traditionalism, seeks to explain what motivates companies to make such disclosures in a traditional setting. Annual reports of 23 banking companies in Bangladesh are analysed over the period 2009–2012. This is supplemented by a review of documentary evidence on the political and social activities of corporations and reports published in national and international newspapers. We found that, in the banking companies (...) over the period of study, apparently neutral, corporate, philanthropic activities disclosed and promoted in CSR reports are inextricably linked to powerful leaders’ personal projects and the ruling party’s agendas. We have demonstrated elements of traditional societies, including personal loyalty and the public display of loyalty, the master–servant relationship, and obedience to personal rather than formal authority, provide an understanding of why banks have employed politically charged CSR disclosure strategies. The paper contributes to disclosure studies where political motivations of corporate disclosure rarely discussed. The paper extends the debate on political CSR by demonstrating that the role of family and familial values at the organisational and national levels may be much more important when it comes to CSR disclosure and activities. (shrink)

Business and Society Review, Volume 126, Issue 1, Page 3-23, Spring 2021.

ABSTRACT:This article reviews four key orientations in environmental ethics that range from an instrumental understanding of sustainability to one that acknowledges the intrinsic value of sustainable behavior. It then shows that the current scholarly discourse around corporate sustainability management—as reflected in environment management, corporate social responsibility, and corporate political activity —mostly favors an instrumental perspective on sustainability. Sustainable business practices are viewed as anthropocentric and are conceptualized as a means to achieve competitive advantage. Based on (...) these observations, we speculate about what corporate sustainability management might look like if it applied ethical orientations that emphasize the intrinsic value of nature. This discussion also includes an introduction to two articles in this special section focused on the role of the environmental manager and sustainability standards, both of which offer paths for incorporating intrinsic valuation of the environment into sustainability management. (shrink)

This paper offers a neo-Aristotelian approach to PCSR aimed at enabling us to more systematically ascertain which sorts of corporate political activities, if any, might be politically acceptable. Part 1 sketches Aristotle’s account of the “political.” Aristotelian politics have at least four key dimensions. When we speak of PCSR, we should, from this Aristotelian perspective, evaluate how specific behaviors accord with or undermine these four aspects of political life. Part 2 of the paper explores which forms (...) of activity by corporations qualify as genuinely (and thus acceptably) political within a neo-Aristotelian framework. Part 3 highlights strengths and limitations of this approach to PCSR. (shrink)

Different perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR) exist, each with their own agenda. Some emphasise management responsibilities towards stakeholders, others argue that companies should actively contribute to social goals, and yet others reject a social responsibility of business beyond legal compliance. In addition, CSR initiatives relate to different issues, such as labour standards and corruption. This article analyses what types of CSR initiatives are supported by political and economic arguments. The distinction between different CSR perspectives and CSR issues (...) on the one hand and between political and economic arguments on the other could help to advance the debate on the justification and welfare impact of CSR. It is argued that ordinary boundary conditions for business behaviour in a market economy provide support for some, but not all, CSR initiatives. This has implications for policy priorities. Building on the analysis, it is proposed that more attention should be paid to the behaviour of large multinational enterprises in their normal business operations and to CSR issues with a potentially large impact on market functioning. (shrink)

To explore the motivations underpinning corporate social responsibility (CSR) decisions in China, a country characterized by extensive government intervention, this paper investigates whether building a good relationship with the government is a political incentive that is driving firms to conduct CSR by examining the effects of political connections on the latter. Our results indicate that politically connected firms exhibit better CSR. However, the effect is considerably more significant for firms with existing political relationships. Additionally, findings show (...) that the effect is more prominent in firms for which political connections are more valuable, namely, non‐state‐owned enterprises, small firms, and firms operating in less market‐oriented cities, indicating that CSR can serve as a differentiation strategy to compete against other bidders. Dividing CSR activities into economic, environmental and social aspects, we find that the social‐based activities are more likely to be driven by political motivations. By categorizing CSR and political connections, this paper not only expands the scope of political CSR and renders the generated results that have been mixed together more distinguishable, but also provides a more precise understanding of the fundamental drivers of CSR in China from the perspective of resource exchange. (shrink)

Since scholarly interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has primarily focused on the synergies between social and economic performance, our understanding of how (and the conditions under which) companies use CSR to produce policy outcomes that work against public welfare has remained comparatively underdeveloped. In particular, little is known about how corporate decision-makers privately reconcile the conflicts between public and private interests, even though this is likely to be relevant to understanding the limitations of CSR as a means (...) of aligning business activity with the broader public interest . This study addresses this issue using internal tobacco industry documents to explore British-American Tobacco’s (BAT) thinking on CSR and its effects on the company’s CSR Programme. The article presents a three-stage model of CSR development, based on Sykes and Matza’s theory of techniques of neutralization, which links together: how BAT managers made sense of the company’s declining political authority in the mid-1990s; how they subsequently justified the use of CSR as a tool of stakeholder management aimed at diffusing the political impact of public health advocates by breaking up political constituencies working towards evidence-based tobacco regulation; and how CSR works ideologically to shape stakeholders’ perceptions of the relative merits of competing approaches to tobacco control. Our analysis has three implications for research and practice. First, it underlines the importance of approaching corporate managers’ public comments on CSR critically and situating them in their economic, political and historical contexts. Second, it illustrates the importance of focusing on the political aims and effects of CSR. Third, by showing how CSR practices are used to stymie evidence-based government regulation, the article underlines the importance of highlighting and developing matrices to assess the negative social impacts of CSR. (shrink)

Businesses increasingly assume political roles, despite issues of legitimacy. The presented two case studies illustrate how businesses harness their political influence in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices through collaboration and dialog with stakeholders and civil society actors. These cases are set around issues arising in global supply chains in sourcing activities where the core problem is associated with businesses managing extended responsibilities under conflicting institutional conditions. The article seeks to provide empirical examples of Political CSR and (...) illustrates the role of deliberative democracy in contemporary business behavior. It adopts a Western business perspective, more specifically from an end-producer and retailer’s standpoint. Findings suggest that civil society is influential in driving these businesses to act responsibly. Joint collaboration is understood as key to strive toward holistic solutions. Political CSR theory remains an ideal, but offers fruitful grounds for speculating on what the political role of business is or could be and how this translates into pragmatic implications for businesses. (shrink)

In 2016 the Chinese government initiated a nationwide campaign aiming to eliminate poverty in China by 2020. Over 20% of listed firms in China have made significant contributions to the campaign. Using hand-collected data on listed firms’ contributions to the campaign and multivariate analyses, we examine whether managers’ and politicians’ personal incentives play an important role in firms’ contributions to the campaign. The results show that firms are more likely to contribute if they are state-owned and managers are appointed by (...) governments, if managers have a higher risk of being targeted in a concurrent anti-corruption campaign, if the political leaders in their province are new or intend to seek promotion, and if managers or directors have experienced poverty in their early life. The results suggest that it is important to consider managers’ and politicians’ personal incentives in CSR activities that could have a grand social impact. (shrink)

Many corporations actively engage in political activities to enhance their relationships with politicians, facilitating access to scarce resources and creating competitive advantages. We investigate corporate donations to explore how they initiate interactions between firms and new local leaders in China. Specifically, we propose that political turnover creates unique opportunities for firms to win over new officials via corporate donations, especially in competitive markets. Moreover, we find that firms that make generous donations at the beginning of a (...) new city secretary’s tenure receive more attention from representatives of new local leaders, especially firms that were politically disadvantaged under a predecessor’s governance. Empirical studies on the turnover of city secretaries between 2001 and 2012 in China strongly support our hypotheses. Consequently, this study improves our understanding of how corporate donations initiate social exchanges between firms and politicians. (shrink)

This study aims to enrich our understanding of the relationship between political connections and the adoption of environmental corporate socially responsible investments. In addition to the individual-level political connections, i.e., entrepreneurs’ personal ties to government officials, we propose in China the creation of Communist Party of China branches in privately owned firms serve as organizational and institutionalized dimensions of political connection building. Drawing on the social exchange theory, this paper details how CPC branches function in privately (...) owned firms and how entrepreneurs are motivated by the reciprocal logic to engage in ECSR. We also supplement this main effect by examining the boundary conditions of it at the firm and regional level. Using a dataset with 17,690 firm observations in China, we find that the existence of CPC branches gives rise to the ECSR investments and the firm-level contingencies such as centralized governance and financial constraints, and the regional-level contingencies such as the development of the market system, are important moderators that shape the association of political links and ECSR investments. These findings have ample implications to understand the ECSR activities and extend social exchange theory beyond the individual level on which it is typically applied. (shrink)

This paper argues that the literature examining the role that MNCs play in ‘political CSR’—an emerging area of management research concern—can be enhanced by more a fulsome examination of the ‘varieties of capitalism’ that currently exist in the global economy. We argue that the willingness and capacity of a particular MNC to participate in governance activity—which we broadly equate to political CSR—are contingent, at least in part, upon the national systems of government-business relations present in its home (...) market. We argue that the decisions MNCs make in terms of whether and how to participate in governance are predicated in part on the domestic system of business-government relations out of which they emerge. The paper then asserts that our current conceptions of political CSR are limited, because they do not take fully into account the increasingly important corporate form of statism, in which home governments maintain a large ownership position in the country’s MNCs, even as they expand abroad. We posit that a key question this reality poses is whether such companies will reinforce established patterns of ‘political CSR’, whether they will challenge those established patterns, or whether some mutual adaptation will occur. We conclude the article with some suggestions for how this question might be explored in future work by interested scholars. (shrink)

The academy is in a mess. The cultural theorist Bill Readings claimed that it is in ruins, while the political scientist Michael Oakeshott suggested that it has all but ceased to exist. At the very least, we might argue that the current financial squeeze has distorted the University into a shape that would be all but unrecognizable to Oakeshott and others writing in the 1950s and 1960s. I will begin this paper by tracing the development of the modern Enlightenment (...) University over the past 200 years from its roots in late 18th century Berlin to its current predicament. I will then turn my attention to the introduction during the 1990s of nursing education into the University, and examine the particular difficulties and tensions encountered at the interface between a professional practice and an academic discipline. Finally, I will propose philosophy as a way of dwelling in the ruins of the Enlightenment University and of reconciling the corporate demands of the University with the obligations of the nursing profession. (shrink)

This study examines whether religious belief influences an entrepreneur’s political involvement and further explores the moderating role of corporate philanthropy. Using the data from the 2008 national survey of Chinese family firms, my study provides strong evidence to show that the likelihood of political involvement is significantly higher for entrepreneurs with religious beliefs than for their counterparts, suggesting that religious entrepreneurs in Chinese family firms are more likely to participate in political affairs. This finding echoes the (...) view that religious believers acquire civic skills through their associational memberships or experience in involving religious activities. In addition, corporate philanthropy attenuates the positive association between religious belief and political involvement. The above findings are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests and are still valid after controlling for the potential endogeneity between political involvement and religious belief. (shrink)