The contingent effects of political strategies on firm performance: A political network perspective

Research Summary: We examine the performance impact of corporate political strategies by analyzing the relationships among firms and various government institutions. While a firm's political connections to a focal government with decision‐making authority enhance performance, connections to a rival government competing with the focal government harm performance, particularly when the rivalry is intense. Firms can neutralize the negative effect from this political rivalry by using direct or indirect connections to a constraining government with power over the focal government. We find support for our conjectures based on an analysis of interactions among Chinese steel firms and the central and provincial governments in acquisition decisions during the industry's consolidation period of 1999–2010. Managerial Summary: Firms invest in political capital in order to influence public policies in their favor. However, the government is a not a monolithic entity and the relationships among various government institutions can alter and even reverse the effects of a firm's political strategy. This research shows that a firm's political connections can be both an asset and a liability. That is, although firms benefit from their connections to governments with decision‐making authority, they can be caught in the crossfire when there is a rivalry between governments. Furthermore, our research suggests that firms can cope with the negative impact from political rivalry by taking advantage of the structural relationships within the political system and influencing governments that have constraining power.     

我国企业经营活动中的政治关联性研究

随着企业经营活动中政治意识的加强,政治策略的运用越来越受到企业界的关注,并给企业带来政治利益和经济效益。因此,本文首先对政治策略与政治绩效两个概念的范畴进行界定,然后采取内容分析法对我国76家企业网站上与政府有关的新闻报道进行分类、频数统计、逐步回归、时间序列和相关性分析,其研究结果发现我国企业经营活动中的不同企业和不同时期的政治策略与政治绩效存在一定的关联性。     

Toward a legitimacy‐based view of political risk: The case of Google and Yahoo in China

Traditional political risk theories often focus on a developing host country government's ability to intervene in the activities of foreign multinationals in the extractive or infrastructure sectors. This results in inadequate understanding of (1) how a government's motivation to intervene is influenced by the broader societal context, (2) the importance of multinationals' political risk at home, and (3) the increasing political risk faced by high‐tech and service firms. We argue that there is a need to update the bargaining power and political institutions theories and further develop a legitimacy‐based view of political risk. Then, we examine the political risk experienced by Google and Yahoo at home and abroad due to their activities in China to illustrate the benefits of a holistic approach to political risk. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are collective political actions and private political actions substitutes or complements? Empirical evidence from China's private sector

This paper examines the circumstances under which collective and private corporate political actions are more likely to be substitutes or complements. Using data based on a series of nationwide surveys conducted on privately owned firms in China, I find that firms that are engaged in collective political actions are more likely to pursue private political actions. This positive relationship is stronger in less economically developed provinces and when there are greater opportunities for the state to redistribute economic resources in product and capital markets. Meanwhile, this relationship is weaker in the presence of heavier regulatory burdens and for firms in which the state has some equity or owned by individuals who had prior political careers. These findings contribute to the corporate political action literature. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

In search of El Dorado: The elusive financial returns on corporate political investments

Although many believe that companies' political activities improve their bottom line, empirical studies have not consistently borne this out. We investigate the relationship between corporate political activity (CPA) and financial returns on a set of 943 S&P 1500 firms between 1998 to 2008. We find that firms' political investments are negatively associated with market performance and cumulative political investments worsen both market and accounting performance. Firms placing former public officials on their boards experienced inferior market performance and similar accounting performance than firms without such board members. We find, however, that CPA is positively associated with market performance for firms in regulated industries. Our results challenge the profit‐maximizing assumptions underlying CPA research and focus on agency theory to better understand CPA. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Political hazards and firms' geographic concentration

Research summary : We examine the relationship between the geographic concentration of a firm's sales and the firm's vulnerability to expropriation hazards. Although expanding outside the home location can initially increase a firm's exposure to government expropriation, we find that this effect reverses when a firm's sales outside its home location have reached a point at which it has sufficient resources to better influence government actions and to pose a credible threat to exit the market in which it is being targeted. We supplement this main result by identifying two moderating factors: the firm's level of political capital and the effectiveness of institutional constraints on government behavior. We find support for these hypotheses from survey data on privately owned enterprises in China. Managerial summary : This research advises firm managers that certain market activities might knock their firms' economic interests out of alignment with the government's political interests, and thus, influence the political hazards they face, particularly in emerging markets such as China, which has attracted strong interest of many firms with respect to entering the market. Here, all else being equal, the firms' geographic concentration exposes them to different levels of state expropriation—but not in a simple linear fashion as suggested by the conventional wisdom of local protectionism or that of the bargaining advantage generated by the threat of relocation: Those who are “stuck in the middle” ended up paying twice or even three times as much unauthorized levies as the purely local or the most expansive firms. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Political capabilities,policy risk,and international investment strategy: evidence from the global electric power generation industry

Whereas conventional wisdom holds that multinational enterprises (MNEs) invest less in host countries that pose greater policy risk—the risk that a government will opportunistically alter policies to expropriate an investing firm's profits or assets—we argue that MNEs vary in their response to host‐country policy risk as a result of differences in organizational capabilities for assessing such risk and managing the policy‐making process. We hypothesize that firms from home countries characterized by weaker institutional constraints on policy makers or greater redistributive pressures associated with political rent seeking will be less sensitive to host‐country policy risk in their international expansion strategies. Moreover, firms from home countries characterized by sufficiently weak institutional constraints or sufficiently strong redistributive pressures will seek out riskier host countries for their international investments to leverage their political capabilities, which permit them to attain and defend attractive positions or industry structures. We find support for our hypotheses in a statistical analysis of the foreign direct investment location choices of MNEs in the electric power generation industry during the period 1990–1999, the industry's first decade of internationalization. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

浅谈中国古代衣领

本文以中国古代衣领为研究对象,在研究大量文献资料的基础上,分析衣领在不同时期的款式、特点、穿着者,及其具有的文化内涵,得出衣领具有政治性、文化性和民族性,以及装饰性和流行性的特点。     

Red and Blue: the relationship between the institutional context and the performance of leveraged buyout investments

This paper advances the debate concerning the relationship between politics and business conduct by investigating the influence of the institutional context on leveraged buyout investments. We propose that the formal and informal institution context in ‘red’ states (those dominated by the U.S. Republican Party) is more aligned with the principal strategies through which leveraged buyout investors create value than such a context is in ‘blue’ states (those dominated by the Democratic Party). Therefore, according to institutional theory, one would expect, ceteris paribus, a higher likelihood of buyout transactions in red states and vice versa. We analyze a sample of 10,746 U.S. buyout investments in 4,633 distinct target companies made by 2,396 different funds managed by 1,300 private equity firms from 1980 to 2003. The results indicate strong evidence of a positive association between a more aligned institutional context and both the volume of buyout activity and different measures of performance for these buyouts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于制度理论视角的企业政治贿赂问题研究

在政治领域的利益角逐中,由于相关制度的不完善,企业政治贿赂行为常有发生。文章从制度理论的视角分析了我国企业政治贿赂行为的产生,认为强制性制度规范、社会伦理道德规范和文化一认知规范的失范是企业政治贿赂行为产生的重要原因。对此,从制度建设的角度提出了治理企业政治贿赂行为的政策建议。     

推动我国小额贷款公司可持续发展的政策取向

自2005年中国人民银行开展＂只贷不存＂商业性小额贷款公司试点,尤其是2006年银监会出台农村金融新政允许村镇银行等新型农村金融机构准入以来,小额贷款公司试点迅速推广到全国。在数量迅速增加的同时,对缓解＂三农＂和中小企业融资难题发挥了积极作用。然而,由于在制度设计、法律监管等方面的缺陷,小额贷款公司往往陷入＂无钱可贷＂或＂难以盈利＂等困境,面临严峻的可持续发展难题。在分析小额贷款公司发展的现状的基础上,剖析了其可持续发展面临的问题,并针对性地提出了政策建议。     

中国新能源企业海外上市的政治经济学分析

随着资本市场国际化的深入,中国有越来越多的企业开始选择到海外上市。选取其中的新能源类企业作为研究的对象,从国际政治经济学的角度,分析其海外上市的动因以及海外上市过程中所遭遇的问题和困境,并给出了相关政策建议。     

全球金融危机环境中我国国际投资战略分析

起源于美国的全球金融危机正在深刻影响世界的经济政治格局。我国拥有全世界最多的外汇储备,受到国际金融形势波动的影响非常大。同时,出口的急剧下降导致我国沿海地区的很多工厂倒闭,大批农民工失业返乡,给我国的国内经济增长带来巨大的压力。如何利用我国比较充足的外汇储备。有效化解当前金融危机带给我们的不利影响,是一个急需我们解决的重大理论和现实问题。从国际经济和国际政治的双重角度研究我国的国际投资战略,面对当前国际经济政治大环境中的严峻挑战,具有很现实的指导意义。     

政治资源、经济资源与收入差距

在制衡机制缺位的前提下，政治资源和经济资源的扭曲结合恶化了资源分配的不平等，它是居民收入差距和地区收入差距扩大的重要原因。文章认为，解决政治资源分配不均以及由其导致的经济资源分配不均，即实现政治资源和经济资源的合理结合，对缩小收入差距有积极作用，也是进一步值得研究的重要课题。     

中国石油企业跨国经营若干风险及对策分析

政治风险是影响石油企业实施跨国经营的重要因素之一,它包括:地区战争与军事冲突,所在国政局动荡、纷争不断,以及政策法规不连续等,都会加大海外投资的风险变数。文章从我国政府和石油企业两个层面,提出建立石油企业跨国经营的保障机制,构建石油企业海外投资的政策支持体系,加强政治风险的评估、识别和预警管理,实施本地化战略等措施,以最大限度规避石油企业跨国经营风险的对策。     

Entrepreneurship,innovation, and political competition: How the public sector helps the sharing economy create value

Research Summary: With the recent growth of the sharing economy, regulators must frequently strike the right balance between private and public interests to maximize value creation. In this article, we argue that political competition is a critical ingredient that explains whether cities accommodate or ban ridesharing platforms and that this relationship is moderated in more populous cities and in cities with higher unemployment rates. We test our arguments using archival data covering ridesharing bans in various U.S. cities during the 2011–2015 period. We supplement these data with semistructured interviews. We find broad support for our arguments while mitigating potential endogeneity concerns. Our study has important implications for nonmarket strategy, entrepreneurship and innovation, and public-private partnership literatures. In addition, our findings inform policy debates on the sharing economy. Managerial Summary: Entrepreneurs and businesses oftentimes face severe regulatory barriers when commercializing innovative products and services even if the innovations are generally beneficial for consumers and the broader society. This research focuses on the political determinants of regulation to provide a better understanding of why some markets are more receptive to innovative products while other markets are more hostile to them. Using the banning of ridesharing companies (e.g., Uber and Lyft) in various U.S. cities during the 2011–2015 period, we find that elected politicians facing less political competition (i.e., not easily replaceable, serving multiple terms, longer tenure in office) were more likely to ban ridesharing companies and favor, potentially displaceable, local taxicab companies. Our research has implications for navigating the political barriers to entry.     

政治联系、政治联系方式与民营上市公司的会计稳健性

本文明确区分了民营上市公司具有的政府官员类政治联系和代表委员类政治联系,将政治联系等相关因素纳入Basu(1997)的模型,在检验和控制了政治联系潜在的内生性的基础上,系统研究了政治联系及不同方式的政治联系对民营上市公司会计稳健性的影响。研究表明,总体上民营上市公司具有的政治联系降低了会计稳健性;进一步区分政治联系的方式,代表委员类政治联系降低了会计稳健性,政府官员类政治联系对会计稳健性的影响不显著。     

政治关联能改善民营企业的经营绩效吗

本文以我国2002—2006年上市民营企业的数据为样本,实证分析了政治关联与企业经营绩效的关系。在控制了政治关联与企业经营绩效存在的内生性关系后,研究发现民营企业的政治关联程度越高,企业的经营效率越差;实际控制者的政治关联程度越高,企业的经营效率也越差。进一步的研究发现,制度环境的不同对政治关联与企业经营绩效之间的关系产生不同影响,随着政府干预程度的减弱和法律保护程度的提高,企业的政治关联程度对于经营绩效的负面影响也在减轻。     

独立董事的政治关联与公司绩效

以2006年～2007年间我国A股上市公司为研究对象,实证检验了我国上市公司中独立董事的政治关联是否具有业绩后果。研究发现,独立董事政治关联程度与企业以托宾Q值度量的业绩存在显著的正相关关系,该正相关关系在第一大股东为国有股的上市公司中表现尤为明显。该结果表明,我国上市公司独立董事的政治关联是一种有利于增加企业价值和提升企业业绩的至关重要的政治资源,对于第一大股东为国有股的上市公司,该政治资源的业绩后果更明显。