Contingent Political Capital and International Alliances: Evidence from South Korea
研究了韩国企业精英政治网络对跨国战略联盟的影响，发现与当权派结盟促进联盟形成，而与反对派结盟则降低联盟率，且政权更迭可能将政治负债转为资产。
Though prior research has suggested that a company's ties to political networks have only a positive value or no value, this study examines whether political network ties can also be a significant liability for companies. Analyzing South Korea as a representative emerging economy, I find that being tied through elite sociopolitical networks to the regime in power significantly increased the rate at which South Korean companies formed cross-border strategic alliances, but also that being tied through elite sociopolitical networks to the political enemies of the regime in power significantly decreased that rate. Results show that an unexpected change in political regime could quickly change a political liability into an asset and that network ties continued to be important determinants of cross-border alliance activity as South Korea proceeded with liberalization. The present study sheds further light on the so-called dark side of embeddedness by focusing on who is negatively targeted by having the “wrong friends” at the wrong time. Just as positive ties can lead to favor exchange and other benefits for companies, negative ties can lead companies to be the victims of discrimination, resource exclusion, and even occasional expropriation and sabotage between rival sociopolitical networks.