Research in Corporate Political Action

1997/03/01 by Kathleen A. Getz · 303 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Action (physics) #Economics #Elite Sociology and Global Capitalism #Empirical research #Epistemology #Grounded theory #Law #Political Influence and Corporate Strategies #Political action #Political science #Politics #Positive economics #Public relations #Qualitative research #Social science #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1177/000765039703600103

published in Business & Society 36(1), 32-72 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 1997/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22

Abstract

This article reviews the literature on corporate political action (CPA), integrating the perspectives of nine basic social science theories. Theoretical and empirical research grounded in these nine theories have described the characteristics of firms that engage in CPA (who), their rationale (why), and their methods (how). To a much lesser extent, the literature has also addressed how CPA changes over time (when) and the settings in which CPA is done (where). Reexamining the CPA literature this way directs us toward fundamental research questions that have not yet been addressed.

Citations

• Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony
• The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach
• A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice
• Integrated Strategy: Market and Nonmarket Components
• The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields

Cited by

• Gender representation and lobbying in the European Union
• Corporate Political Activity: A Review and Research Agenda
• Tracing the connections between international business and communicable diseases. [europepmc]

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• Corporate Political Activity, Reimagined: Revisiting the Political Marketplace
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