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Corporate Political Action: Rethinking the Economic and Organizational Influences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Douglas A. Schuler*
Affiliation:
Rice University
*
Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, MS-531, Houston, TX 77005–1892, USA. Tel: (713) 285–5472; Fax: (713) 285–5251; E-mail: schuler@rice.edu

Abstract

Although the influence of economic factors has long dominated the analysis of corporate political action, the role of organizational factors is increasingly seen as important in explaining the phenomenon. Building upon a recent study (Martin 1995) that emphasizes the prominence of organizational factors in political decision-making, we revisit a previously used literature, reconceptualize the relationship between economic and organizational factors and corporate political action as one of mediation, and employ new data and methods to test this relationship. Our findings demonstrate emphatically the importance of organizational factors in understanding corporate political action.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 1999 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press 

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References

Notes

Many thanks to Alfred Marcus, Cathie Jo Martin, Dennis Quinn, Gordon Silverstein, and Duane Windsor for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Robert Westbrook and Scott Baggett provided invaluable assistance with the PLS modeling, Anson Asoka with data analysis, and Geoffrey Carson with research assistance. I am also appreciative of the support from the Statistical Computing Lab at Rice University. Any remaining errors are solely mine.

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