Corporate political connections in global strategy

Research Summary: The role of corporate political connections (CPC) in global strategy has been examined in a variety of institutional contexts and analyzed from different theoretical perspectives. This literature, along with the articles in this special issue, demonstrate the importance of contextualization in understanding the motivations, processes, and outcomes of firms developing and utilizing CPC in global strategy. We argue that context-specific aspects of CPC, such as the political system in which the firm is operating, need to be incorporated more systematically to advance theory development globally. Future studies on CPC can advance this agenda through cross-country comparative research, deeper engagement with political science literature, linking CPC with other nonmarket strategies, and configurational analysis of the multidimensional context of CPC. Managerial Summary: Multinational companies not only compete in a market environment, they engage with political actors in both their home and host societies. This special issue brings together research that explores how companies use their corporate political connections (CPC) to achieve firm objectives. Each study takes a different approach to studying the phenomenon, informed by the national context of their empirical data. Together, these studies highlight the importance of CPC around the world. However, the variation in research approaches also highlights that the “how and why” of companies' development and utilization of CPC vary across cultures and political systems. In consequence, the development of managerial recommendations always needs to carefully consider the pertinent political context of the available empirical evidence.