Open research questions in Political Influence and Corporate Strategies
56 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,798 Political Influence and Corporate Strategies papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.
What the literature leaves open
The data confirm the observation made elsewhere that ‘organizations vary widely in their inclination to litigate’ (Schlozman and Tierney 1986, p. common law system and to firms as understudied actors of legal mobi- lization.
Litigation: a strategy of advocacy? Evidence from a survey among organized interests in Germany · 2026 · DOIThe evidence is consistent with ISS managing its workload by both increasing the threshold that triggers further investigation of proposals and reducing the time its analysts spend on each proposal.
Abstract This article systematically examines how access of business groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to the executive branch of the European Union varies across political heads, civil servants, and an understudied yet critical intermediary figure of the executive branch: political advisers.
Lobbying the executive branch: Unpacking access to political heads, political advisers, and civil servants · 2022 · DOIThis new focus on Rockefeller's finances was notable to New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, who wrote in November 1974, "The curious thing is that the entanglements of wealth that may defeat [Rockefeller] were scarcely even mentioned when he sought the Presidential nomination in 1964 and 1968, or in his four campaigns for Governor of New York.
"Millionaires Are More Democratic Now": Nelson Rockefeller and the Politics of Wealth in New York · 2021 · DOIAbstract While the interest group literature suggests there is a consistent trend towards more corporate lobbying in various political systems, it remains unclear whether this also applies to EU lobbying.
It identifies six important limitations: the existence of multiple definitions of KB; a lack of theory-based empirical analysis; a neglect of knowledge brokering organisations; insufficient research on KB in social policy; limited analysis of impact and effectiveness; and a lack of attention to the role played by politics.
Does knowledge brokering facilitate evidence-based policy? A review of existing knowledge and an agenda for future research · 2019 · DOIThis article seeks explicitly to celebrate Milbrath’s outstanding research on lobbyists, more than 50 years after his book was published, and highlights some elements of Milbrath’s work which have not yet been fully explored by scholars.
We use the case of fracking policy in Switzerland and the UK as a key example, in which actors have begun to agree with each other, but where final policy outputs were not yet defined, and long‐term relationships not yet observable.
Drivers for Policy Agreement in Nascent Subsystems: An Application of the Advocacy Coalition Framework to Fracking Policy in Switzerland and the UK · 2016 · DOIIn addition to equivocal results concerning the impact of shareholder activism on corporate outcomes, the separation of prior research into financial and social activism has left unanswered questions critical for both the scholarly discourse on shareholder activism and the normative debate on shareholder empowerment.
Where robust political institutions are lacking, bureaucratic discretion acts as a source of unpredictability that deters investors; conversely, political institutions that share the cost of monitoring help to mitigate uncertainty about how bureaucrats will use discretion in applying regulatory rules.
Finally, we identify recurrent theoretical and methodological problems, including the compartmentalization of research within disciplines, an overreliance on studies of large national organizations, a disproportionate focus on recruitment and selective incentives, and limited research on the influence of advocacy organizations.
’* A number of themes seem to emerge from this necessaril brief therefore highly selective-review of public opinion po r 1s and -and surveys: themes which are here developed very much in a minor key, since this is a very under-explored area in Britain-where most 1s For a critical discussion of this whole issue, see D.
First, the question of how policymakers process and quality check lobbying information (at the pull side) is too rarely raised explicitly, and even more rarely studied empirically.
Public funding of interest organizations during the Covid-19 crisis: rewarding need or rent-seeking? · 2026 · DOIYet members of Congress (MCs) are insufficiently specialized to optimize lawmaking success (Volden and Wiseman 2020).
Access scarcity, legislative generalization, and the business-oriented shift of the congressional agenda · 2024 · DOIAlthough many studies have investigated advocacy coalitions of like‐minded actors in various political subsystems and policy fields around the globe, not much is known about the dynamics at the origin of joint belief or common preference building.
Building coalitions in a nascent subsystem: Investigating beliefs and policy preferences in Ugandan pesticide policy · 2023 · DOIIt has always been assumed that Johnson’s flaws at the former would undercut his skill at the latter, but the last year of political turmoil at least leaves it as an open question whether that will prove to be the case.
In spite of the growing relevance of employee advocacy, there is limited empirical and theoretical research on this topic and a universal definition and clear understanding of its exact meaning is lacking.
Internal communicators’ understanding of the definition and importance of employee advocacy · 2020 · DOIDespite the rise of BITs as unique knowledge brokers mediating the use of behavioral insights for policymaking, they remain underexplored in the growing literature on policy advice and advisory systems.
Behavioural Insights Teams (BITs) and Policy Change: An Exploration of Impact, Location, and Temporality of Policy Advice · 2020 · DOIIf we want the corporations that remain to behave themselves, the surest path is more democracy: greater worker control from below, and more effective state regulation from above.
Abstract Although political scientists have increasingly focused on the role of gender in the policy process and the characteristics of individual lobbyists, little is known about the gender politics of the government relations profession.
Interest groups fearing that they are insufficiently influential, and whose very existence as an organisation is at risk, are more likely to coalesce.
An alternative strategy of bridging structural holes in the host country stakeholder network also faces theoretical limits as access to scarce information and resources is likely to engender conflict with other stakeholders.
An exploratory study of interest representation in government formation Lobbying by interest groups and the formation of governments both are established themes of empirical research, but not much is known about their linkage.
What is the role of interest groups in the transmission of issues between the public and government policy? While government responsiveness to voters has received widespread scholarly attention, little is known about the role of interest groups in the transmission of public opinion to government.
The framing of issues is part of the tool kit used by lobbyists in modern policy making, yet the ways in which framing works to affect lobbying success across issues remain underexplored.
Most-cited papers in Political Influence and Corporate Strategies
- THE INFLUENCE OF ACTIVISM BY INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS ON R&D. · Academy of Management Journal · 2001 · 406 citations
- Shareholder Activism · Journal of Management · 2013 · 361 citations
- The Determinants of Industry Political Activity, 1978–1986 · American Political Science Review · 1994 · 343 citations
- Advocacy Organizations in the U.S. Political Process · Annual Review of Sociology · 2004 · 313 citations
- Research in Corporate Political Action · Business & Society · 1997 · 253 citations
- The Antecedents of Institutional Investor Activism · Academy of Management Review · 2002 · 248 citations
- Information Control as a Power Resource · Sociology · 1972 · 241 citations
- The Activist Company: Examining a Company’s Pursuit of Societal Change Through Corporate Activism Using an Institutional Theoretical Lens · Journal of Public Policy & Marketing · 2020 · 167 citations
- Corporate Politics, Governance, and Value Before and After <i><scp>C</scp>itizens <scp>U</scp>nited</i> · Journal of Empirical Legal Studies · 2012 · 137 citations
- Political beliefs affect compliance with government mandates · Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization · 2021 · 120 citations
Most recent work
- Lobbying and rotating leadership · Public Choice · 2026
- Political conservatism and investor risk tolerance: implications for suitability, profiling, and segmentation · Journal of Financial Services Marketing · 2026
- Regulating lobbying in India: lessons to be learnt from the USA experience · Cogent Social Sciences · 2026
- An empirical analysis of digital strategies and behaviours in Korea’s public sector think tanks: an institutional organizational theory perspective · Public Management Review · 2026
- Litigation: a strategy of advocacy? Evidence from a survey among organized interests in Germany · Interest Groups & Advocacy · 2026
- Shareholder Activism and Corporate Political Activity: A Governance Systems Perspective · Organization Science · 2026
- Think tanks' role in polarization politics · Interest Groups & Advocacy · 2026
- Platform Politics: Corporate Power, Grassroots Movements, and the Sharing Economy · Housing Theory and Society · 2026
- Can interest groups shape public opinion? Experimental evidence from Germany and the UK · Business and Politics · 2026
- Public funding of interest organizations during the Covid-19 crisis: rewarding need or rent-seeking? · Business and Politics · 2026
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