Opening up corporate political strategizing – An institutional work approach

Abstract

I apply an institutional lens to explore how strategists in a pharmaceuticals firm successfully include managers in the formulation and implementation of corporate political activity (CPA). I depict these strategists as institutional carriers who face mindset-, skills-, and commitment-related barriers when importing new industry norms favoring inclusive CPA processes into an organizational setting where exclusive strategic practices prevail. They reduce barriers resulting from this confrontation of institutional logics by enacting specific instances of institutional work. Strategists' ability to perform cultural and technical work aimed at shifting managers’ perceptions about CPA and empowering them to design and conduct new forms of political action is facilitated by their expertise and social capital. In the absence of hierarchical authority, they draw on personality traits – chiefly, their perseverance – to enact more challenging political work aimed at reconfiguring organizational rules and increasing commitment to CPA. I stretch understandings of open strategy by exploring the inclusion of managers in a complex and uncertain strategic activity previously overlooked, and providing new insights into how strategists manage individual-level constraints to open strategizing. I build on CPA literature by opening up the black box of corporate political strategizing and exposing political strategists as internal lobbyists who drive strategic change in firms.