Corporate Political Activity and Regulatory Capture: How Some Companies Blunt the Knife of Socially Oriented Investor Activism
SMC Affiliated Work
1
Status
Faculty
School
School of Economics and Business Administration
Department
Management and Entrepreneurship
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Publication / Conference / Sponsorship
Journal of Management
Description/Abstract
Socially oriented shareholder activism is an increasingly important mechanism through which social movement organizations seek to influence the private sector by exerting pressure on corporate activities in areas such as human rights, environmental protection, and labor policies. This activism challenges the status quo of targeted firms and potentially their institutional field, disrupting “business as usual” and often drawing negative attention to the firms. We theorize that some firms might use corporate political activity (CPA) as an indirect, nonmarket strategy aimed at regulatory capture to reduce the impact of such disruptions. We focus on one popular avenue of shareholder activism—the proxy proposal mechanism—and the role the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plays in allowing omission of socially oriented shareholder proposals from the proxy ballot. Using two distinct data sources, we find evidence that for S&P 500 firms, the SEC allows for the omission of the proposals from proxy ballots more frequently for those firms more active in CPA. These findings inform the growing scholarship on socially oriented activism as well as suggest the indirect influence of CPA on government agency decision making.
Keywords
corporate political activity, social movement organizations, regulatory capture, SEC
Scholarly
yes
Peer Reviewed
1
DOI
10.1177/0149206316638162
Disciplines
Business | Economics
Original Citation
Hadani, M, Doh, J & Schneider M. (2016). Corporate political activity and regulatory capture: How some companies blunt the knife of socially oriented investor activism. Journal of Management. doi:10.1177/0149206316638162
Repository Citation
Hadani, Michael; Doh, Jonathan P.; and Schneider, Marguerite A.. Corporate Political Activity and Regulatory Capture: How Some Companies Blunt the Knife of Socially Oriented Investor Activism (2016). Journal of Management. 10.1177/0149206316638162 [article]. https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/school-economics-business-faculty-works/113
