Corporate political strategies: a contemporary literature review

Abstract

PurposeBy reviewing the overall concept of corporate political strategy (CPS), the purpose of this paper is to display a contemporary summary of issues of the diverse global CPSs. This study additionally aims to provide relevant corporate political behavioral concepts that surround a firm’s political actions when entering specific politico-economic markets as well as future work recommendations. This paper further provides a contemporary bibliographic analysis on CPS.Design/methodology/approachThrough a systematic ISI Web of KnowledgeTM All Databases literature review on “CPS,” the research was refined in relation to articles from “all year time-span,” “social science,” and “business economic” areas. After relevant papers were retrieved, sorted, and analyzed, a final bibliographic analysis on CPS was performed using HistCite reference graph maker.FindingsResults of this research provide a table with a conceptual summary of different CPS types, approaches to political strategy, participation levels, assessment of the political environments, research implications, as well as other related CPS factors.Research limitations/implicationsThere is still a lack of empirical research on how specific firm CPSs can help overcome the effect of foreignness within different host countries. This study provides an overview and list of CPSs that companies use when entering a particular politico-economic context as well as inner CPS research streams.Originality/valueThis contemporary conceptual taxonomy on CPS provides researchers as well as practitioners with insights into the global CPS evolution, in addition to a current picture of CPS within different contexts.