Non‐market Social and Political Strategies – New Integrative Approaches and Interdisciplinary Borrowings

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate political activities are complementary, and the coordinated management of corporate social responsibility and corporate political activities may lead to better firm performance. However, corporate social responsibility and corporate political activities should be aligned carefully to utilize this complementarity. Strategic flexibility, which is the ability of a firm to adapt to changes in the external environment and make necessary organizational modifications quickly, can help firms to align their corporate social responsibility and corporate political activities. This paper empirically investigates the political dimension and the interactive dimension which describes interactions between corporate social responsibility and corporate political activities together with strategic flexibility and their effects on firm performance through a study of 142 firms in Turkey using moderated multiple regression methods. The results show that, while the political dimension had an inverted U‐shaped effect on firm performance, indicating that only a moderate level of corporate political activities may improve financial performance, the interactive dimension had positive but limited implications for performance. Finally, it was found strategic flexibility plays a positive moderating role on the relationships between the interactive dimension and firm performance. It is concluded that complementarity between corporate social responsibility and corporate political activities which may result in better performance is contingent on strategic flexibility.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The interplay of corporate social responsibility and corporate political activity in emerging markets: The role of strategic flexibility in non‐market strategies

Kamaşak

James

Yavuz

2019

“…In this article, we examine the impact of political and social strategies on firm performance in the context of emerging markets (EMs)—utilizing the context of one of the largest EM of India. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in understanding the drivers and outcomes of political and social strategies (e.g., Frynas, Child, & Tarba, ; Frynas & Stephens, ; Mellahi, Frynas, Sun, & Siegel, ). Political strategies consist of engagement with policymakers, targeting these stakeholders via constituency building, sharing information and financial resources (Hillman & Wan, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this article, we examine the impact of political and social strategies on firm performance in the context of emerging markets (EMs)utilizing the context of one of the largest EM of India. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in understanding the drivers and outcomes of political and social strategies (e.g., Frynas, Child, & Tarba, 2017;Frynas & Stephens, 2015;Mellahi, Frynas, Sun, & Siegel, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Though above and several other studies have provided important insights into the antecedents of political and social strategies (cf. Frynas et al, 2017;Mellahi et al, 2016), however, majority of the work has been conducted in developed markets and scholars have | 57 RAO-NICHOLSON et al called for more research in the context of EMs where formal institutions are still evolving (e.g., Doh, Lawton, & Rajwani, 2012;Hadani & Coombes, 2015;Jamali, Karam, Yin, & Soundararajan, 2017;Lawton et al, 2013). Besides this, studies are also rare which have simultaneously examined the political and social strategies undertaken by MNEs and domestic firms and the outcome of such strategies in EMs context (e.g., Liedong et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Balancing social and political strategies in emerging markets: Evidence from India

Rao‐Nicholson

Khan

Marinova

2018

This article explores the substitution and complementary effects between political and social strategies on firm performance in the context of an emerging market (EM). Using in‐depth, historical case‐study approach, the article investigates how companies integrate political and social resources in this market. Corporate performance includes traditional measures, such as accounting performance and nonfinancial measures like the ease of doing business. The study finds that social strategies are stronger enablers of firm long‐term performance than political strategies. The latter have a short‐term impact on performance, but their success over time is limited. The main drawback of reliance on political resources in EMs is the lack of political stability, fragmented polity, and weak political coalitions. We identify rather limited evidence of firms using these two strategies as complements. Thus, we suggest that firms should employ both these strategies in the EM.

“…Past research has underlined the need to expand our political understandings of corporations and their political social responsibilities (see, e.g., Anastasiadis, ; Frynas, Child, & Tarba, ; Frynas & Stephens, ; Mäkinen & Kourula, ; Scherer et al, ; Whelan, ). The literature thereby provides detailed insights into ways in which corporations may contribute to the “provision of public goods” when national governments are limited in reach, leaving potential corporate responsibilities regarding public goods in functioning states unaddressed (Scherer et al, , p. 276).…”

Section: Discussion and Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptualizing data‐deliberation: The starry sky beetle, environmental system risk, and Habermasian CSR in the digital age

Schultz

Seele

2019

Building on an illustrative case of a systemic environmental threat and its multi‐stakeholder response, this paper draws attention to the changing political impacts of corporations in the digital age. Political Corporate Social Responsibility (PCSR) theory suggests an expanded sense of politics and corporations, including impacts that may range from voluntary initiatives to overcome governance gaps, to avoiding state regulation via corporate political activity. Considering digitalization as a stimulus, we explore potential responsibilities of corporations toward public goods in contexts with functioning governments. We show that digitalization—in the form of transparency, surveillance, and data‐sharing—offers corporations’ scope for deliberative public participation. The starry sky beetle infestation endangering public and private goods is thereby used to illustrate the possibility of expanding the political role of corporations in the digital sphere. We offer a contribution by conceptualizing data‐deliberation as a Habermasian variation of PCSR, defined as the (a) voluntary disclosure of corporate data and its transparent, open sharing with the public sector (b) along with the cooperation with governmental institutions on data analytics methods for examining large‐scale datasets (c) thereby complying with existing national and international regulations on data protection, in particular with respect to privacy and personal data.