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Public affairs, issues management and political strategy: methodological approaches that count
Author(s) -
Schuler Douglas A.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of public affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.221
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 1479-1854
pISSN - 1472-3891
DOI - 10.1002/pa.79
Subject(s) - politics , test (biology) , empiricism , public policy , public management , economics , political science , public administration , positive economics , accounting , public economics , public relations , sociology , law , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , biology
This essay reviews the primary methods that have been used to study corporate public affairs, issues management, and corporate political activity (PA/IM/CPA). We identify three tractable areas of research in these areas: (1) the determinants of PAM/IM/CPA; (2) the effects of PAM/IM/CPA on public policy outcomes; and (3) the effects of public policy outcomes on overall firm financial performance. Despite the considerable difficulties in gathering data to test these phenomena, we posit that scholars have made progress in understanding some aspects of these relationships. Still, we conclude that the greatest weakness for the advancement of methodological progress is the lack of a theoretical model describing the PAM/IM/CPA process, which ultimately hinders the ability of empiricists to seek the ‘proper’ data to test such relationships. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications