Study On Company Political Strategy:Concept、Influencing Factors And Performance

The effect of government on corporate is becoming increasingly extensive. On the one hand, the survival and development of corporate still rely on non-market system (such as government control and social network) for resources to some extent. On the other hand, in order to remedy market failures concerning public property, externalities, natural monopoly, incomplete competition and information asymmetry, the government diversified its regulation. Due to the government’s control on resources and increasingly tight regulation on corporate, corporate pay more and more attention to the influence of the change of external political environment on the corporate operation and management.The first chapter is an introduction. This chapter analyzed changes in companies’practical activities and reviews related study both at home and abroad, based on which, it introduces issues to study, identifies the purposes and implication of the study, introduce study methods and identifies technological route and structural framework.Chapter two reviews related study both at home and abroad. This chapter reviews domestic and foreign study respectively, including:(1) summarize foreign studies in terms of economics, management and sociology;(2) summarize and comment on domestic studies with study content as a clue. The purpose for review does not only lie in the identification of study topic and content but also in giving us a direction in choosing a convincing theoretical perspectives. Therefore, we point out that it is necessary to dissect related definitions and establish systematic theoretical framework and further identify the topic and content by reviewing related studies on companies’ political strategies. Meanwhile, we point out that related management theories have edge over economics and sociology in expounding individual company’s motives to adopt political strategies and analyzing companies’ competitive advantage and the impact of value. As a result, this study combines institution-based view and resource-based view, chooses institution theory, resource dependence theory, resource-based theory and dynamic capabilities perspective as the major theoretical foundation for the establishment of systematic theoretical framework.Chapter three is about model construction and proposal of hypothesis. This chapter, based on reviewing related studies, is attempt to integrate the formation mechanism and function mechanism of companies’ political strategies into a unified theoretical framework. Specifically, we are intended to construct one concept and two theoretical models. One concept refers to companies’political strategy while two models refers to theoretical model for the formation mechanism for companies’ political strategy and that for the function mechanism of companies’ political strategy in companies’ performance and legitimacy. This chapter includes the following three parts:1. We explore the inner structure of companies’ political strategy from the perspective of motive and reaction in line with resource-based view and institution theory so as to point out that companies’ political strategy is a multi-dimension concept.2. as the existent studies fails to explain the convergence companies’political strategy presents in some field, this chapter, on the basis of combing institution-based view and resource-based view, comprehensively explores factors that may influence companies’ political strategy from the macro perspective of region, medium perspective of industry and micro perspective of the company aiming to fresh the knowledge about the formation of companies’ political strategy and construct multi-layer theoretical framework in this basis.3. Although some existent studies have made theoretical contributions for understanding the function mechanism of companies’ political strategy, these studies tend to neglect the function of distinctive inner processes and capability related to the effectiveness of political strategy. Therefore, this chapter introduces dynamic capability perspective arising from resource-based view in an attempt to further reveal inner mechanism of political strategy in influencing performance and legitimacy.Chapter four is about the study design. This study reports the design process and major content of questionnaire, scale design basis, the source of measuring indicator, sample choice basis and the questionnaire collection process. We use SPSS software to conduct analysis of sample characteristics, and distribution, project analysis, analysis of reliability and validity on the questionnaire.Chapter five is about empirical test of the hypothesis. In this chapter we use such software as AMOS, HLM, SPSS, via confirmatory factor analysis, multi-layer linear regression and hierarchy regression and other statistic methods to test the hypothesis proposed in chapter three. First of all, with confirmatory factor analysis, it is confirmed that companies’political strategy is a concept of complex inner structure. Next with multi-layer linear regression, we comprehensively explore factors in terms of locality, industry and individual that may have impact on the formation of companies’political strategy. Then we gradually add control variable, independent variable, adjust variable (the later two is called main effect variable) in regression equation and interactive hierarchy regression composed of independent variable and adjust variable.Chapter six is about the study conclusion and prospects. We draw the following conclusion in this chapter.1. Companies’political strategy can be divided into reactive political strategy, expectant political strategy, defensive political strategy and prospective political strategy.2. Companies’nature, history, scale, asset structure, ownership structure, redundant resources and degree of diversity can influence political strategy; however, the relationship between those company features and political strategy varies to some extent which is mainly influenced by institutional environment of the industry; the institutional environment of the industry influences the relationship between company features and political strategy while local institutional environment in turn influences the role of the institutional environment in adjusting the relationship between company features and political strategy. This conclusion supports some views of resource-based theory and institution theory in a sense.3. Companies’ political strategy has a forecast role on their performance and legitimacy but their relations are influenced by dynamic capabilities. That is to say that it is finally relied on the adjustment of dynamic capabilities if companies want to secure competitive advantage and improve their economic performance by political strategy. This conclusion to some extent supports theories of resource-based view, namely, the application of political strategy is responsive to resource foundation. Meanwhile we point out the limitations of the study:the study of the formation mechanism of companies’political strategy fails to take into consideration the inner structure of political strategy.The innovation of this study is mainly embodied in following three aspects:Unlike previous study-proceeding from a certain visual angle solely, the concept of integrative visual angle of Resource-based View and Institution-based View always runs through this study. This study puts forward and verifies following point of views:The enterprise political strategy is a complex and multidimensional concept; The enterprise political strategy is not only influenced by resource base, but also is restricted by industrial system and geographical system. The effect of enterprise political strategy depends on enterprise dynamic capacity. In particular, the research progress of this study can be concluded as follows:1.This study breaks out the old research pattern of the visual angle of Resource-based View, and Atomism view only starting from enterprise interior; there is no consistent conclusion on the relationship between enterprise resource-based characteristics and enterprise political strategy, under this background, in combination with Resource-based View and Institution-based View, through introducing such two aspects of industry and system, this study establishes a multi-layer theoretical model to discuss the influences of enterprise political strategy at every point. It also adopts statistical analysis methods which is able to process complex nested relation, so as to realize the separation of individual effect、industrial group effect and geographical group effect on the basis of technology through HLM software.2. The previous studies mostly classifies the enterprise political strategy on the basis of degree changes of single dimension, this kind of classification did not completely grasp the essence of strategy. This study builds the multi-dimensional political strategy concept based on the integrative visual angle of Resource-based View and Institution-based View. On the basis of previous studies, this study chooses such two dimensions of motivation and response, the proposal of these two dimensions are separately on the basis of institutional theory and dynamic capabilities theory which is the development of resource-based theory. Among them, the explanation to the enterprise motivation in dynamic capacities theory is-Enterprises try to create value or maintain the existing value in order to obtain or maintain a competitive advantage, all content mentioned above are used as theoretical basis for this study finding the essence of enterprise political strategy in the dimension of motivation. The institutional theory suggests that the responses to external system of regulation changes from enterprises can be classified into obedience and impact, these two different kinds of behavior provides another theoretical basis for this study finding the essence of enterprise political strategy in the dimension of behavior response. The integration of these two visual angles builds a two-dimensional conceptual space.3. The previous studies under the guidance of such research idea "resource�'strategy�'performance" cannot give the answer to the problem "why the enterprises taking the same political strategy did not get the same result" and can not reveal the "Black Box" of the relationship between political strategy and performance. This study breaks out the international research idea, introduces the capacity view based on Resource-based View, makes a system construction and empirical test of a analysis model of "different dynamic capacity�'enterprise political strategy and performance、valid relationship" and makes a fusion analysis of the influence of capacity and strategy to performance, as well as provides a relatively new research ideas to analyze the relationship between political strategy and performance.