Ekin Alakent, Mine Ozer and M. Sinan Goktan
The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of venture capital (VC) funding as a form of ownership on lobbying strategies of venture-backed companies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of venture capital (VC) funding as a form of ownership on lobbying strategies of venture-backed companies.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample consists of venture-backed IPO companies between 1999 and 2014. The authors collected IPO data from the Thompson Securities Data Company (SDC) database. The authors collected VC data from SDC VentureXpert database and lobbying data from the Center for Responsive Politics database (opensecrets.org).
Findings
Consistent with the hypotheses, the authors find that VC-backed companies spend less on lobbying compared to non-VC-backed counterparts. However, this relationship is moderated by companies’ R&D intensity. R&D intensive VC-backed companies choose to spend more on lobbying.
Research limitations/implications
The research indicates that although VC backing has a negative impact on lobbying efforts, R&D intensity creates an incentive for VC-backed companies to spend more on lobbying in order to shape public policy to their benefit. The study consists of VC-backed companies that are public. The authors believe that future research can explore political strategies of VC-backed companies during their pre-IPO stage.
Social implications
The authors believe that political strategies are powerful yet underutilized resources that VC-backed companies can rely on to shift industries and invest in innovative products that challenge norms and fight the status quo. Lobbying and other forms of political involvement can help them shape public policy.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study makes a unique contribution to the literature by exploring the political strategies of VC-backed companies.
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Mine Ozer, Irem Demirkan and Omer N. Gokalp
This study aims to investigate how corporate lobbying affects the relationship between collaboration networks and innovation.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how corporate lobbying affects the relationship between collaboration networks and innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
The study incorporates insights from the corporate political strategy perspective into the social network research to examine how firms utilize non‐market mechanisms as a way to manage uncertainty. In particular, using data from 291 US pharmaceutical firms, the authors study the moderating effects of corporate lobbying on the relationship between collaboration networks and firm innovativeness.
Findings
The results show that corporate lobbying moderates the relationship between network centrality, structural holes, and network size, and firm innovativeness.
Originality/value
The study integrates social network and corporate political strategy research in the case of collaboration networks. Integrating social network and corporate political strategy literatures provides us with new insights into what determines success of firm innovativeness. The study shows that in addition to network structures, firms must consider other variables such as government regulation in fostering their innovativeness.
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Drawing on the strategic choice and resource dependence perspectives, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate political strategy and…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the strategic choice and resource dependence perspectives, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate political strategy and innovation in the manufacturing industry in the USA.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper proposes two competing views on the relationship between corporate political strategy and innovation building on strategic choice and resource dependence perspectives.
Findings
The results show support for the resource dependence perspective, suggesting that corporate political strategy is complementary to innovation. The paper also tests for the moderating effects of firm characteristics such as firm size and financial resources, and industry characteristics such as industry concentration and growth on this relationship. The findings indicate that firms that invest heavily in innovation strategies may also want to consider investing in corporate political strategy to create favorable conditions for innovation.
Originality/value
The paper suggests that corporate political strategy can be viewed as alternative or complementary to innovation strategy. Firm characteristics such as firm size and financial resources, and industry characteristics such as industry concentration and growth, moderate the relationship between corporate political strategy and innovation.
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Organizational legitimacy is greatly influenced by firm corporate social responsibility (CSR) records. An organization with a poor CSR record can either try to improve its…
Abstract
Purpose
Organizational legitimacy is greatly influenced by firm corporate social responsibility (CSR) records. An organization with a poor CSR record can either try to improve its practices or attempt to manipulate institutional norms and belief systems in order to convince the society that its practices are acceptable. The authors argue that firms’ corporate political strategies (CPS) – attempts by firms to influence public policy outcomes in a favorable way – can be very effective in shaping legitimacy norms and offsetting negative public image. The purpose of this paper is to draw on institutional theory and propose that firms with negative CSR records consider investing in political strategies necessary in order to construct new legitimate standards in line with their strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors test the hypotheses on 348 manufacturing firms using data from “The Center for Responsive Politics.” MSCI (formerly known as KLD) and COMPUSTAT. Research methodology used to test hypotheses is hierarchical ordinary least square regression analysis.
Findings
The authors find that firms with high CSR concerns invest more in CPSs. In addition, the results indicate that organizational visibility and organizational slack positively moderate this relationship. In other words, visible firms and firms with high organizational slack invest more in CPSs if they are facing CSR concerns compared to firms that are less visible and with less organizational slack.
Research limitations/implications
In this paper, the authors focus on the corporate governance dimension of CSR. Although focussing on the negative corporate governance practices gives us an opportunity to have a more focused approach, there are other important aspects of CSR such as environmental practices, employment issues, and accounting practices that are not addressed in this study.
Practical implications
This paper can serve as a testament to the value of investing in political strategies to the practitioners. The results indicate that firms can manage their image and reputation through political spending and this is especially true for firms that are more visible and have more organizational slack.
Originality/value
Much of the previous literature explores the relationship between market factors such as financial status of the firm and political strategies. This paper contributes to the literature by showing that other non-market forces such as poor social standing can also motivate companies to invest in political strategies.
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Suzana B. Rodrigues and Marleen Dieleman
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the role of the home country government in the internationalization of multinationals from emerging markets. This is an important topic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the role of the home country government in the internationalization of multinationals from emerging markets. This is an important topic because governments play a greater role in BRIC countries. We build upon the literature on non-market strategy, extending this to emerging market multinationals.
Methodology/approach
We ground our arguments based on a multimethod case study of Vale, a Brazilian mining multinational.
Findings
Our study suggests that the role of home country governments is crucial for internationalization of firms from emerging markets, but also that it changes over time, is complex, and context-specific. We suggest that non-market strategy development is a process of co-evolution that is intricately linked to both external and internal factors.
Practical Implications
These findings are of relevance to emerging markets where governments are less constrained and perhaps more inclined to intervene in the private sector due to a legacy of state-led growth.
Originality/value
We tease out unique links between market shifts, government tactics, and firm strategies. Our study shows the need to shift our attention to home country non-market pressures as an explanatory factor for internationalization trajectories.
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Wilson Wai Kwan Yeh, Gang Hao and Muammer Ozer
Although real estate investment decisions are among the most important managerial decisions, such decisions are usually made in an ad hoc fashion in Southeast Asia. The purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
Although real estate investment decisions are among the most important managerial decisions, such decisions are usually made in an ad hoc fashion in Southeast Asia. The purpose of this study is to present a two-tier multi-criteria decision-making model for real estate investment decisions across three rapidly growing but significantly understudied Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Design/methodology/approach
Using three data sources (secondary data, two surveys and nearly 100 experts and senior executives), the authors applied a combination of the Analytic Hierarchy Process and the Simple Additive Weighting (or weighted sum) methods as two special cases of multi-criteria decision-making to assess nine real estate investment projects across Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Findings
The results of this study indicated that Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar were the first, second and third most preferred countries for real estate investments, respectively. Moreover, the results clearly show a trade-off between perceived country risk and financial returns, indicating that a higher perceived country risk can be compensated for with higher financial returns.
Originality/value
Real estate investment decisions are usually made in an ad hoc manner in Southeast Asia. This study helps investors make more informed decisions when investing in real estate projects across three rapidly growing but significantly understudied Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
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Mohammad Hossein Askariazad and Nazila Babakhani
– This paper aims to examine the most important antecedents of customer loyalty in business-to-business (B2B) context using European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) model.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the most important antecedents of customer loyalty in business-to-business (B2B) context using European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) model.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire is designed consisting of measures of customer loyalty gathered mainly from previous related studies. A survey of business customers in construction and mining equipment industry in Iran is conducted, and a total of 90 responses are obtained. The collected data are analyzed according to the structural equation modeling technique using partial least square path modeling software.
Findings
The ECSI model shows sufficient explanatory power in explaining loyalty in the B2B context. Adding trust to the original model leads to a better explanation of loyalty in the proposed model. In this model, corporate image is the main route to predict loyalty, while satisfaction, complaint handling and trust also are important. Although there is no direct effect of perceived quality, perceived value and expectation on loyalty, their total impact is considerable which is mediated through satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
The research should be expanded to other B2B sectors to validate its findings in different industries. Future research can also assess the impact of moderating variables.
Originality/value
Most previous customer loyalty models concern business-to-consumer (B2C) rather than the B2B context. Moreover, research examining the suitability of the ECSI model in B2B is scarce. This paper addresses these shortcomings by examining a holistic customer loyalty model which incorporates some overlooked constructs as corporate image, expectation and complaint handling from the ECSI model. The proposed model, also adds trust which is not incorporated in national indices despite its importance in predicting loyalty.
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Sandra Maria Correia Loureiro, Ricardo Godinho Bilro and Arnold Japutra
This paper aims to explore the relationships between website quality – through consumer-generated media stimuli-, emotions and consumer-brand engagement in online environments.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationships between website quality – through consumer-generated media stimuli-, emotions and consumer-brand engagement in online environments.
Design/methodology/approach
Two independent studies are conducted to examine these relationships. Study 1, based on a sample of 366 respondents, uses a structural equation modelling approach to test the research hypotheses. Study 2, based on 1,454 online consumer reviews, uses text-mining technique to examine further the relationship between emotions and consumer-brand engagement.
Findings
The findings show that all the consumer-generated media stimuli are positively related to the dimensions of emotions. However, only pleasure and arousal are positively related to the three variables of consumer-brand engagement. The findings also show cognitive processing as the strongest dimension of consumer-brand engagement providing positive sentiments towards brands.
Practical implications
The findings provide marketers with an understanding of how valid, useful and relevant content (i.e. information/content) creates a greater emotional connection and drive consumer-brand engagement. Marketers should be aware that consumer-generated media stimuli influence consumers’ emotions and their reaction.
Originality/value
This study is one of the firsts to adapt and apply the S-O-R framework in explaining online consumer-brand engagement. This study also adds to the brand engagement literature as the first study that combines PLS-SEM approach with text-mining analysis to provide a better understanding of these relationships.
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Enes Eryarsoy, Alev Özer Torgalöz, Mehmet Fatih Acar and Selim Zaim
The aim of this article is to shed light on the impact of intangible resources, such as organizational learning (OL), organizational agility (OA) and organizational innovativeness…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this article is to shed light on the impact of intangible resources, such as organizational learning (OL), organizational agility (OA) and organizational innovativeness (OI), on supply chain resilience (SCR). For this, a theoretical model is developed to analyze the development of relationships between chosen resource variables.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a cross-sectional questionnaire. Survey data were collected from 180 businesses including only medium to senior level managers to ensure a thorough understanding about the company's inner workings and supply chain (SC). The validity of the model is determined using structural equation modeling (SEM) and tested using lavaan package in R.
Findings
The findings indicate a statistically significant relationship between OL and SCR. Two organizational resource constructs, OI and OA, are found to have a strong mediating effect on this relationship. OL ability mediated by OA and OI results in increased SCR.
Research limitations/implications
The data cover multiple sectors but are collected from one country. The dataset is also limited in that it is collected from mid- to high-level managers working on manufacturing and supply chain-related departments.
Practical implications
The authors believe that the results of this study will guide both managers and academics in developing effective measures to avoid SC disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic or other comparable risks.
Originality/value
This is the first study that examines the relationship between OL and SCR. Prior studies have examined the relationship between OA and SCR. However, OL and OI, in particular, have not featured frequently in SCR-related studies. In this regard, this research is also unique in that it examines the mediating role of OA and OI in the relationship between OL and SCR.