Corporate political performance: approaches and theories
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework of corporate political performance (CPP) in corporate political activity. In fact, CPP refers to political benefits obtained by firms when they formulate and implement political strategies to influence the public policy process though the investment of political resources. This paper focuses on answering what is perhaps the most fundamental question to strategy researchers: “How do firms engage in political strategies to improve their performance?”
Design/methodology/approach
In building a theoretical framework, this paper, first, provides a historical analysis of political efficiency and effectiveness. Then, this paper attempts to illustrate conceptually our understanding of political performance process by a generalized and contingent approach. Finally, this paper discusses the framework, its theoretical contribution and practical implications for Chinese management, and comments on limitations for future research.
Findings
The paper presents a conceptual CPP model that integrates political efficiency and effectiveness approach. In the conceptual framework, three phases of CPP include sources of political advantage, political competitive advantage and political performance outcome, and three dimensions are identified as political efficiency, effectiveness and adaptiveness. CPP approach is not a “generalized” nature of political performance measurement, as the difference among firms and industries in this area may be significant, which reflects the effect of context, reaction and outcome factors.
Research limitations/implications
While it provides a strong theoretical foundation, this paper still has almost little empirical evidence concerning CPP process. However, how to measure CPP has increasingly begun to focus on an important research domain in corporate political strategy literature. This paper believes that this model has a need for future research to test its feasibility by using the measurement scales in Chinese context.
Originality/value
This paper is original in its attempt to measure CPP to help the business practice in corporate of political activity, and broaden corporate political strategy research in mainstream strategic management.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 71272231 and 71172090, Major Project of National Social Science Foundation of China under Grant 10&ZD136 “The Development of China’s Management Research Since its Reform and Opening-up ”, Post- 1970’s Scholars Academic Development Program of Wuhan University “The International Competitiveness Improving of China’s Enterprises”.
Citation
Wei, W., Li, Y. and Zhang, P. (2014), "Corporate political performance: approaches and theories", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 418-437. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-06-2013-0097
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited