3 - Country context and the protective policy process–business response relationship

Summary

In the previous chapter, the discussion was limited to the US context, known for its highly institutionalized pluralistic democratic traditions, high levels of wealth, predominant reliance on stringent command-and-control regulations, and strong government capacity to enforce the law (Hillman and Keim, 1995; Vasudeva, 2005; Vig and Kraft, 2006). Yet, companies operating in other countries experience different societal fields that significantly shape the local policy process dynamic and its associated business responses (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Giddens, 1984; Jennings and Zandbergen, 1995). Hence, this chapter seeks to conceptually explore how basic political and economic country characteristics may affect business responses to protective policy process demands.

Of course, country context characteristics are not the only factors affecting business political choices and behavior when responding to the pressures and demands exerted by the protective policy process stages. Among others, global trends, in-country regional conditions, and firm- and manager-level characteristics affect not only business agency but also how firms are socialized into distinct country's cultural, political, and economic traditions (George et al., 2006; Steinmo et al., 1992). As discussed in Chapter 2, holding these and other factors constant is, of course, the long-accepted, science-based approach to studying specific relationships of interest while acknowledging that other variables may have an effect on such relationships (Kuhn, 1962; Popper, 2002; Rowley, 1997). In Chapter 4, I discuss the effect of firm-level characteristics on the protective policy process–business response relationship.