Corporate Political Activities 2014 PDF Download

The interaction of business with politics is a 'big strategy' (Whittington, 2012) phenomenon. Political activities of firms have consequences not only for firms, but also for democratic systems. But little is known about impact of corporate political activity on either firms or society. The many studies which have studied business politics interaction are overall inconclusive. In this essay we argue that the lack of understanding stems from inappropriate conceptualization and incorrect usage of corporate political activity as a theoretical concept. In this essay we argue that the understanding of corporate political participation can be improved by distinguishing between two related but distinct concepts: corporate political activity, and corporate political strategy. Denoting a set of activities as political activities is not as useful for Strategic Organization research as it may be in Sociology or Political Science. We argue that corporate political strategy might be a more useful conceptualization making political actions of corporations amenable to study in ways King & Walker (2014) called for.