Corporate Political Strategies for Widely Salient Issues

Abstract

Firms use political strategies when attempting to influence public policy decisions. One common assumption is that firms' political strategies will be less effective if the public policy issue has widespread interest among a large segment of likely voters—a “widely salient” issue. We explore how information and reputation cascades, driven by activists or nongovernmental organizations, cause public policy issues to become widely salient. We then discuss how firms can prevent the occurrence of such widespread salience and how they can respond once an issue has become widely salient.