This contribution is a reaction to the striking fact that the political aspect of CSR has remained largely hidden in most of the scientific and practice-oriented management literature. This work intends to illuminate the political dimension of CSR in that the changing stance of the European Commission toward CSR between 2001 and 2006 is analyzed and interpreted as a result of political processes within an “issue arena”. For this case study written documents from the most important actors are used (EU Commission, EU Parliament, the Council, advocacy groups and lobbies for industry and civil society CSR platforms) as well as interviews with high ranking representatives of these institutions (conducted in the spring of 2008).

In this research we hypothesize that aggregate PAC behavior is conditional in nature. PACs in a specific issue sector donate more to a certain political party's candidates the more that political party controls the legislature. However, the more active the legislature is on a specific set of issues the more people/groups/PACs are mobilized in response to the issue. Thus, a conditional relationship emerges where aggregate PAC donations to a political party are a function of party control, agenda activity, and an interaction of the two. We test this conditional theory using data from the Institute on Money in State Politics database on PAC donations to state legislative candidates divided into issue sectors. Our results provide support for our hypotheses that aggregate PAC donations to a political party's candidates are conditional on the level of agenda activity on the issues that concern the PACs.

Processes of regional trade integration may have an important impact on firms' strategies and forms of organization. This article provides an empirical case study of the impact of regional trade integration in the Andean Pact in the 1990s on the strategies and organization of British American Tobacco (BAT), using internal tobacco industry documents. BAT conducted an integrated strategy by lobbying on tax and tariff rates and intellectual property regulations, whilst simultaneously adapting its market strategies and attempting to modify its internal organization. The company incorporated substantial sales in illicit markets into its strategy, and launched new legal export operations within the region, in part to assert ownership over contested trademarks. It attempted to significantly modify its internal organization by better integrating its national operating companies on a regional basis, but was only partially successful in this due to resistance from its powerful Brazilian subsidiary. Changes in intellectual property rules also intensified competition between BAT and its main competitor, Philip Morris, culminating in a legal dispute between the two firms and leading BAT to develop a more coherent strategy on trademark ownership. These findings raise implications for understanding, and regulating, tobacco industry activities worldwide.

Recent research has shown that alliances between policy makers and investors can be very effective in enhancing investment and growth. Drawing on the case of Egypt, this paper asks where such growth alliances come from, how they evolve over time, what their key features are, how they work, in what circumstances they do good rather than harm, and whether they can be constructed for policy purposes.