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4 - Firm-level characteristics and business responses to environmental/social protection demands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2011

Jorge E. Rivera
Affiliation:
George Washington University, Washington DC
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Summary

The predominant tendency among firms sharing a similar external context and policy demands is to adopt similar strategies and structures (Hoffman, 1997). However, firm-level characteristics, such as ownership, profitability, and industry, to name a few, can contribute to produce heterogeneous business responses to the political interaction observed during the different stages of the protective policy process (Issac and Griffin, 1989; Makino et al., 2004; Sutton and Dobbin, 1996; Tolbert and Zucker, 1983). Indeed, there is an extensive literature on corporate political strategy that has identified how firms' characteristics are associated with differences in corporate political activity (Cavazos, 2005). In general, this research suggests that firms that are larger (Boddewyn and Brewer, 1994; Keim and Baysinger, 1988; Schuler, 1996), more diversified (Hillman and Hitt, 1999), have more slack resources (Schuler, 1996; Schuler et al., 2002), and are older (Hillman, 2003) tend to show higher levels of political activity and a greater desire to exert influence on the public policy process. Similarly, a growing number of empirical studies implemented mostly in the US and Europe have identified an array of firm-level characteristics associated with higher levels of corporate environmental and social performance (Berchicci and King, 2007). However, most of these empirical studies have focused on identifying a link between different measures of profitability and indicators of corporate environmental and/or social performance (Margolis and Walsh, 2003).

Type
Chapter
Information
Business and Public Policy
Responses to Environmental and Social Protection Processes
, pp. 69 - 85
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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