Organizational responses to political sanctions

Voluntary state co-optation and strategic acquiescence in China’s futures market

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9890897
AutoresWei Hua (0000-0001-6009-6145, University of Manchester, autor de correspondencia), Hua Wei (0000-0003-4341-8290, University of Manchester), John Hassard (0000-0003-0468-4609, University of Manchester, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen76
Número6
Páginas833-870
Fecha de publicación2023-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHuman Relations (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0018-7267 • E-ISSN: 1741-282X
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00187267221077995
OpenAlexW4205531463
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas102

What can an organization do to survive when its existence is a problem for political institutions? Drawing information from China’s futures market, we address this question through analysing forms of corporate political activity (CPA) among the nation’s ‘red capitalists’, notably using CPA concepts to decode power dynamics between Chinese financial organizations and the state. Deploying a multi-method, longitudinal and reflexive case approach, we explain how a ‘rogue’ futures exchange was targeted by a major regulatory crackdown, yet ostensibly survived; principally by negotiating new forms of institutional control. This saw the enrolling of state actors and resources to shape politically acceptable forms of corporate behaviour, a process framed theoretically through the concept of voluntary co-optation ; or the strategic steps the focal organization took to yield power to the state in return for enhanced corporate legitimacy. Constructing a two-phase empirical account, including detailed diagrammatic explanations, the article assesses how a range of lobbying-oriented and guanxi -related practices influenced the organization in repositioning and reconstructing itself through progressive strategic acquiescence, as forces of political capital (‘whom you know’) and intellectual capital (‘what you know’) combined to shape the firm’s decision responses and bolster its functional credibility amid a hostile institutional climate

Acquiescence · Contentious politics · Corporatism · Economic system · Economics · Futures contract · Legitimacy · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social movement · Corporate Finance and Governance · Elite Sociology and Global Capitalism · Finance · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies