Using Political Connections to Raise Rivals’ Costs: Evidence from an Emerging Market
研究了政治关联企业如何通过影响竞争对手与政府的资源依赖关系来提高对手成本，并分析了竞争对手的战略灵活性和社会合法性如何削弱这种影响。
Abstract In this paper, we leverage resource dependency theory to examine the impact of political connections on rivals’ costs and how this impact is affected by rival‐side and politician‐side contingencies. Using a panel dataset of Pakistani firms, our system generalized method of moments estimates show that politically connected firms can increase their rivals’ costs by influencing their rivals’ dependency relationship with the government. This impact is attenuated by the rivals’ strategic flexibility and social legitimacy, which provide some protection or insulation from political attacks in resource markets. Together, our findings extend the contingent dynamics of resource dependency in political markets from focal firms to competitors and offer significant contributions to the corporate political activity literature and resource dependency theory.