Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society

Volume 11, 2000

Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting

Corporate Political Involvement
Does It Buy Political Access?

This research focuses on which U.S. manufacturing firms are able to gain access to the political process. In an exploratory effort, we draw from the resource based view of the firm and collective action theory to develop testable propositions about a firm's extemal environment and firm specific characteristics, that enable firms to gain political access. We find that firms which invest in a political strategy, using lobbyists and/or funding political campaigns are much more likely to succeed in achieving political access.