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How much variance in firm performance can be attributed to firms’ corporate political activities (CPA)? Under what conditions does CPA contribute to firm performance? To theorize and empirically tackle these questions, we build on the resource-based view (RBV) to theorize how CPA might improve or hinder firm performance, and specifically examine the direct relationship between firms’ investments in lobbying activities and their performance. We also expect firm growth rate to moderate the relationship between lobbying and performance.

We empirically test our hypotheses using large-scale longitudinal panel data from publicly traded US firms from 2008 to 2018.

Our analyses support our predictions of the double-edged sword effect of lobbying on firm performance. Moreover, our results show that this effect is steeper for firms with higher growth rates.

Our study contributes meaningful insights to strategy scholarship on the influence of nonmarket strategies, highlighting the relevance of firm-specific conditions in shaping the performance outcomes of such strategies. In particular, we make a contribution by identifying a nonlinear relationship between lobbying and firm performance, which is amplified in fast-growing firms compared to stagnant ones.

This paper develops a typology of argumentation strategies used in lobbying. Unlike in other strategic communication functions such as crisis or risk communication, such typologies have not been proposed in the sub-field of public affairs.

The article synthesises the strategic communication, political communication and policy studies literature and employs exchange theory to explain the communicative-strategic exchange in public affairs. It showcases its explanatory potential with illustrative examples from Big Tech lobbying.

The paper describes that categories of argumentation strategies that a public affairs professional will choose are based on the contingency of the issue, policy objective and lobbying objective. The descriptive typology will require empirical testing to develop further.

The paper describes how public affairs professionals influence public policy through their argumentation strategies, which sheds light on the usually opaque activities of lobbying.

The proposed typology is the first of its kind for the field of public affairs. Beyond, it contributes communication-scientific insights from a rhetorical tradition to strategic communication research and other social science fields where lobbying is studied, e.g. policy studies.

Unlike other types of corporate disclosure, corporate political disclosure (CPD), which is the disclosure of corporate political contributions and the related governing policies and oversight mechanisms, does not provide completely new information to stakeholders. Some of the information disclosed in CPD is available from other public records (e.g. the Federal Election Committee website or OpenSecrets website). Given this unique feature of CPD, it is interesting to investigate the cost and benefit tradeoff for firms of altering their CPD practice in response to policy and political uncertainty.

This study employs recently developed indexes of aggregate economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and a novel dataset of CPD transparency to examine the impact of EPU on CPD transparency and how the proprietary cost of corporate political activities moderates this association. The sample consists of S&P 500 companies from the 2012 to 2019 period.

The authors document that firms mitigate the heightened information asymmetry associated with higher aggregate EPU by increasing CPD transparency. The positive association between EPU and CPD is less pronounced for firms that are more sensitive to EPU, for firms that more actively manage EPU through corporate political contributions or lobbying activities and for firms that are followed by more analysts. The authors also find that more transparent CPD helps to mitigate the information asymmetry caused by heightened EPU. This study’s results hold when the authors control for other types of voluntary corporate disclosure.

This study contributes to the emerging literature on the determinants of CPD transparency by identifying EPU's positive impact on CPD transparency. This study also provides empirical evidence that the proprietary costs arising from the controversial nature of corporate political activities dampen firms' incentives to provide transparent CPD in response to heightened EPU, and that information on corporate political activities gathered and processed by financial analysts seems to lower the marginal benefit to companies of publicizing CPD on their own website.

Although the outcomes arising from firms’ interaction with policymakers is a developed theme, family firms’ political credentials and lobbying remain unexplored. To ignite this discourse, the extent to which these factors influence family firms’ tax experience and perception of corruption obstacles is estimated, as well as the impact on sales performance.

Cross-sectional data from Turkish family firms are examined by a structural equation model. The sample is comprised of 588 family firms spanning 12 regions.

The paths revealed that family firms’ political credentials do not inherently yield a positive tax experience. Rather, membership of a business association provides a medium to engage in lobbying activity. In turn, this leads to a more positive tax experience but also a greater exposure to corruption. Likewise, informed lobbying increases sales performance while corruption has the reverse effect.

The significant influences of political credentials and lobbying make a novel contribution to organisational field theory. Practically, the study appeals to family firms seeking to ease their tax experience while increasing sales and bypassing corruption.

The objective of this paper is to extend the debate on audit quality in the less complex entity (LCE) context by analyzing comment letters submitted to the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB). The IAASB has drafted a new, stand-alone standard for audits of LCEs’ financial statements.

The Gioia method is utilized to conduct the qualitative analysis. This enables the material to shine and provide a comprehensive picture of the important aspects of the comment letters about the International Standard on Auditing (ISA) for LCEs. A content analysis of the 145 comment letters is conducted to identify the extent of the support for and the arguments against the new, stand-alone draft standard for audits of LCEs’ financial statements. In addition, this study considers how the comment letters describe the respondents’ views on audit quality in relation to the new standard. Finally, the tone of the comment letters and audit quality arguments is investigated.

The findings provide a useful framework of the most frequently used arguments supporting and opposing the ISA for LCEs. Within the themes identified, a wide variety of issues and concerns are discussed. The results reveal that the arguments in the comment letters are contradictory. For instance, when discussing audit quality, those interest groups that perceived many positive opportunities in the adoption of the ISA for LCEs thought that the audit quality would increase. Conversely, those interest groups that were skeptical about the success of the ISA for LCEs argued that the audit quality could be compromised by the general prejudice that the ISA for LCEs might be perceived as a lower-quality audit with fewer procedures.

This paper is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first to examine the content of comment letters in the context of a new, stand-alone standard for audits of LCEs. The international audience can utilize the results in the context of the widely discussed issue of reducing LCEs’ auditing obligations. This study aims to contribute to the two streams of accounting literature concerning audit quality and political lobbying.

Drawing on Suchman’s conception of cognitive legitimacy and Boswell’s account of the political functions of expert knowledge, this paper aims to study the due process followed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) prior to the publication of the first version of the International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRF). Specifically, the author analyses the lobbying strategies used in the comment letters sent by a subset of lobbyists, “the experts”, represented by accounting bodies and firms, regulators and academics.

From both a form- and meaning-oriented analysis, this paper focuses on how the experts resorted to the functions of knowledge when they took part in the IIRF’s public consultation. The author first carries out a quantitative content analysis of the responses to the 2013 Consultation Draft submitted by those constituents considered as accounting expert lobbyists. Then, the author analyse how these actors framed their comments under expert knowledge to legitimise the IIRC, the IIRF and the accounting profession itself.

The findings suggest that the expert groups welcomed the opportunity, not simply to legitimise the IIRC through their democratic support, but to provide a technocratic settlement that ensures the due process is based on the mobilisation of expert knowledge as a legitimate source. By drawing on the cognitive legitimacy of expert lobbyists, the IIRC drew on the political functions of expert knowledge to reduce uncertainty and gain stability.

Analysis of the lobbying strategies used by the accounting experts whose position could make a difference and receive more attention from the IIRC makes this contribution of particular interest, especially since the first version of the IIRF sought to guide disclosure and sustainable business practices around the world.

Experts as political actors play a legitimising role since they are capable of producing relevant knowledge that, due to its nature and scope, certainly affects policymaking and sustainable development.

This research provides a sociopolitical perspective to comprehend how some lobbying strategies, in this case, of expert actors, contribute to legitimising a standard-setter body and its endeavours in the context of voluntary standards.

This study aims to clarify the influence of different CEO’s political orientation (liberal/conservative) and corporate political activity on ESG performance, considering contingencies related to CEO attributes and corporate governance mechanisms.

Using a sample of 131 companies from the Standard and Poor’s 500 index, this study employs fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA) to analyze combinations of conditions (i.e. configurations) that lead to greater ESG (i.e. environmental, social, and governance) performance.

Drawing on the upper echelon theory and the theory of social exchange, the findings show that different CEO’s political orientation (liberal/conservative) can contribute to ESG performance, depending on the combination of conditions. Furthermore, the results emphasize the importance of corporate political activity as a core condition to enhance ESG performance.

Taking a configurational approach, this study explores combinations of conditions that explain ESG performance, including CEO’s political orientation and corporate political activities as antecedent conditions. Unlike past research, this study examines possible complementarities between these two conditions and assumes that different CEO’s political orientation can have a positive influence on ESG performance, depending on the combination of conditions.

Thanks to a background of federal structures with varied jurisdictions, responsibilities and competencies, and a wide range of stakeholders active in tourism policy and the tourism industry, a high degree of complexity characterises tourism structures in Germany. These structures often present a great challenge in the sense of Head’s (2022) wicked problems, as policy success depends on identifying the relevant political level, the relevant tourism policy decision-makers and the relevant political institutions with whom to communicate and interact. One option for realising interests is tourism lobbying. In this context, the tourism lobbying model according to Pillmayer and Scherle (2014) serves as a starting point to visualise and ultimately implement the procedure.

This study examines the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and managers' ex ante strategic choice on firms’ fixed and variable costs structure, i.e. cost rigidity and the moderating effect of government contracts and political connections.

Using a sample of 4,162 US firms during 2003–2019 and EPU measure from Baker et al. (2016), the authors examine the association between EPU and cost rigidity using multivariate regression analysis. The authors also examine the moderating effects of government customers and political connections using the subsampling method.

This study finds that increases in EPU leads to higher cost rigidity, suggesting that managers tend to look ahead and make an ex ante commitment to invest more in fixed costs to avoid congestion costs in anticipation of future product demand during EPU. The study also finds that the presence of government customers and political connections moderates the need for adopting greater cost rigidity.

This study measures firms' cost rigidity based on archival data. Future studies could utilize managers' cost structure choices using firms' internal management cost structure forecasts data to measure cost rigidity to examine the relationship between cost rigidity and EPU.

This study demonstrates that managers tend to make a proactive commitment to invest in fixed inputs when facing demand uncertainty from EPU to avoid congestion costs. This study also highlights the value of having government contracts and political connections by demonstrating that managers are less concerned about the congestion costs, hence weakening the impact of EPU on cost rigidity when they have government as major customers and/or political connections.

This study extends the management accounting literature by documenting that cost rigidity is related to EPU and that the relationship between cost rigidity and EPU also depends on whether the firm has government as major customers and/or political connections or not.