This paper investigates how country-specific political institutions affect patterns of business political behavior. In particular, we focus on how firms developpolitical resources, what kinds of strategies they use and how the resources and strategies affect a firm’s performance in various country environments. Drawing on the institutional perspective, we posit that political institutional arrangements in a country are a central determinant for business political behavior. Survey data from two countries (the Netherlands and Finland) are utilized in order to test our hypotheses.

In this study, I seek to contribute to the existing literature on corporate political activity by providing insights into how the content of corporate political strategy evolves over time within a single firm. A basic premise of the study is that the evolution of corporate political strategy is embedded within a broader social context that influences its pace and direction. Empirical evidence is based on a historical single case study of a large scale Finnish industrial conglomerate, Tampella Ltd., covering the (...) time period of 1944–1991. The results of the study show how the contextual forces shape the patterns of corporate political strategy. Moreover, an evolutionary model of intra-firm political strategies is introduced. (shrink)

In this paper we integrate the concept of institutional entrepreneurship to the literature on corporate political activity by examining how the attempts of private actors to influence a public policy domain is fundamentally constrained by the prevailing institutional logics in the field. By examining the role of financial actor, i.e, investment bankers in the commercialization process of Finnish water sector, we show how the political strategies of these actors evolved during the process. Moreover, we identify several factors explaining why the (...) financial actors were able to adapt to the institutional logics of local government actors. (shrink)

In this paper we draw from the literatures on corporate nonmarket strategies, resource-based view of the firm, and industry life-cycle to investigate how the market and nonmarket strategic resources of a firm change in the emergence of an industry lifecycle. We do this by examining the outsourcing business in Finnish primary healthcare from its inception in 2004 to 2009. Theoretically, we aim to contribute to the discussion of the importance of strategic resources (both market and nonmarket) in the early phase (...) of an industry life cycle, and how these resources evolve over time. (shrink)

In the earlier literature the importance of public policies and regulatory changes to firm performance and competitive position has been well established (e.g., Bonardi, 2004). However, little research has been done on the dynamics of this relationship. In this paper, we examine how and why regulatory changes can affect on the evolution of market and nonmarket strategies of a firm. We use a longitudinal case study on Finnish retail industry to illustrate the interactions between regulatory change, strategic responses and firm (...) performance. (shrink)

In this paper we integrate the concept of institutional entrepreneurship to the literature on corporate political activity by examining how the attempts of private actors to influence a public policy domain is fundamentally constrained by the prevailing institutional logics in the field. By examining the role of financial actor, i.e, investment bankers in the commercialization process of Finnish water sector, we show how the political strategies of these actors evolved during the process. Moreover, we identify several factors explaining why the (...) financial actors were able to adapt to the institutional logics of local government actors. (shrink)