D o political connections buffer firms from or bind firms to the government? To examine this theoretical puzzle, we distinguish two types of managerial political connections, ascribed and achieved, and theorize that these different types of ties either buffer firms from or bind firms to government demands. Furthermore, we propose that these effects are contingent on both industrial and regional institutional conditions. We test our framework with a unique panel data set of privately controlled listed firms' charitable donations in China from 2001 to 2012. We find that firms whose executives have ascribed bureaucratic connections are more likely to use their connections as a buffer from governmental donation pressure, particularly in competitive industries and less market-oriented regions, whereas in state-monopolized industries this buffering effect is reduced. In contrast, achieved political connections are more likely to serve a binding function that facilitates donation, particularly in state-monopolized industries and more market-oriented regions, but in less marketoriented regions, they buffer firms from the pressure to donate. Our research contributes to the literatures on the effects of political connections, the institutional contingencies of political connections, and the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate political activities (CPA).Keywords: political connections; corporate charitable donation; resource dependence; institutional environment History: Published online in Articles in Advance September 29, 2016. IntroductionAs institutional linkages that span firms and governmental authorities, firms' political connections are a key component of corporate political strategy in both developed and emerging economies (Hillman 2005, Hillman et al. 1999, Peng and Luo 2000. However, the effects of political connections on firm behavior and outcomes are not clear (Sun et al. 2012). Many studies focus on the benefits from such linkages and indicate that political connections have a "buffering" effect; that is, they provide a buffer for the organization from competitive and regulatory forces via access to information, influence, and legitimacy (Hillman 2005, Hillman et al. 1999, Lester et al. 2008, Peng and Luo 2000. Research has shown that firms can employ their political capital to shield themselves from unwanted political interference, unfavorable regulations, and/or various forms of government rent expropriation (Mellahi et al. 2016). Even in the United States, political connections have been shown to help firms when they deal with regulators (Correia 2014, Yu andYu 2011). In emerging markets, such a buffering effect is seen as an effective mechanism to protect firms from government rent-seeking behavior (Chen et al. 2011, Dieleman andBoddewyn 2012).In contrast, other studies consider these connections from the perspective of the government and emphasize the necessary costs of such linkages for the firm. From this perspective, political connections have a "binding" effect, ...

We theorize how an ideological imprint—ideology formed through past events—serves as an information filter that persistently affects individuals’ decision making and how subsequent behaviors of the imprinter—the entity that established the imprint—may alter it. We test our model with a longitudinal dataset of Chinese private entrepreneurs from 1993 to 2012, investigating the influence of a founder’s communist ideological imprint, which characterizes foreign capitalism as evil, and subsequent dynamics introduced by the imprinter—the Communist Party–led government of China—on two internationalization strategies that deal with foreign investors and markets: firms’ efforts to attract foreign capital and to expand globally. Our findings show that Chinese entrepreneurs’ communist ideological imprint negatively affects the internationalization of their ventures, while available and credible information contradicting communism—coming from the government directly, government-created industry social networks for entrepreneurs, or observing governmental support of internationalization—weakens the influence of the imprint. Our study contributes to a better understanding of imprinting and its decay, the effects of corporate decision makers’ political ideology, and the internationalization of firms.

Managerial networking with political actors has long been recognized as a crucial co-option strategy to navigate the challenging institutional environment in emerging economies. However, we know much less about what drives the variation of political networking investment by private ventures. Drawing on resource dependence theory, we unpack the dyadic business-government relations and identify the key organizational and environmental factors that shape the power dependence relationships between private ventures and the government. By examining power imbalance and mutual dependence in this dyadic relationship and considering both the necessity and the capability of political networking, we develop hypotheses regarding the ways in which size-, connection-, and location-based dependencies affect firms’ political networking intensity. These hypotheses are tested through a unique survey of Chinese private ventures. Our study finds that political networking intensity (1) has an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm size, (2) is negatively associated with the presence of embedded political ties while positively associated with that of achieved political connections, and (3) is smaller when the focal firm is located in business development zones. This research bears rich implications for our understanding of corporate political activity in emerging economies from a resource dependence lens.

Purpose – The paper aims to identify the relationship between institutional logics and corporate finance in the context of China. It models the institutional logics and outlines why and how they impact the capital structure. The study aims to expand the domain of corporate finance by introducing the institutional effects. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs the ownership and region to proxy institutional logics, and a time dummy for their evolution and tests how they shape firms' capital structure through panel data regression. Findings – The paper finds that capital structures in firms dominated by state logic are less heterogeneous but the heterogeneities of all firms' increase over time and the capital structures in firms dominated by state logic deviate more from the optimality but those of all firms approach the optimality as time goes by. I also document that the institutional logics affect the corporate financing decisions through the selection of chief executive officers (CEOs). Research limitations/implications – The paper demonstrates how state and market institutions are embodied in firms and how their evolution requires firms to adapt, and it proposes a brand-new insight into the marketization process of China. Practical implications – The paper finds that the firms are unable to acquire optimal capital structure because of the institutional pressure and derive some implications on managerial practice of Chinese firms. Originality/value – The paper analyses and examines the impacts of the institutional logics on corporate financing decisions as well as the potential channel, enhancing the understanding of the institutions and firms' responses.

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