Corporate Political Strategy in Contested Regulatory Environments
研究了企业如何通过向监管机构的上级政治家提供竞选捐款，来应对监管听证会中利益相关者的反对，尤其当监管者经验不足或临近连任时。
We examine how firms strategically manage opposition from organized stakeholders who participate in regulatory agency policy-making processes. As stakeholder opposition in regulatory agency hearings increases, we argue that firms invest more in developing counter-balancing support from elected politicians who oversee regulators, and more so when regulators are less experienced or are closer to reappointment dates. We find robust statistical support for our predictions in a statistical analysis of financial campaign contributions to state politicians by firms in the U.S. electric utility industry during the period 1999–2010. Our findings contribute to nonmarket strategy research by providing evidence that firms respond to contested regulatory environments by cultivating support from elected political institutions, contingent on the degree of regulator sensitivity to political and stakeholder pressures.