The corporate political activity field has focused on the study of political
capabilities that allow firms to influence governments and regulators. Building on
previous studies, this thesis examines a set of capabilities that allow host firms to adapt
to rather than influence political environments. Specifically, this set of adaptive
political capabilities can be used by firms to confront host country political contexts in
emerging economies that share two characteristics: authoritarian regimes and weak
institutions. The findings of this thesis show that host firms can develop and use
adaptive political capabilities rather than political capabilities to start and sustain their
operations in this type of political contexts. This entails attuning firm processes,
structures, and practices to local norms and political behaviors, rather than attempting to
shape the host country political environment in its own likeness. Our results suggest
host firms can develop adaptive political capabilities to enhance their strategic
repertoire when starting or sustaining operations in emerging economies with such
characteristics. Our contribution is that by using mixed methods, we provide and test
several exploratory propositions that support the conceptualization of a framework to
guide the development of adaptive political capabilities by host firms and we make
explicit a taxonomy of corporate adaptive political strategies that can enable firms to
envision how they can adapt to host political contexts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CRANFIELD1/oai:dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk:1826/8575 |
| Date | 02 1900 |
| Creators | de Villa, Maria Andrea |
| Contributors | Rajwani, Tazeeb, Lawton, Thomas |
| Publisher | Cranfield University |
| Source Sets | CRANFIELD1 |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or dissertation, Doctoral, PhD |
| Rights | © Cranfield University 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the copyright owner. |
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