What is the relationship between government corruption and firm performance? To address this question, I conduct a review of articles published in the leading management journals on government-business interactions pertaining to rent-seeking activities and integrate findings from the fields of international business, social issues in management, public organization, institutional change, and corporate political activity. I find that while much empirical work corroborates the earlier findings suggesting a corrosive impact of government corruption on firm performance in general, management research also points to the heterogeneous impact of government corruption on individual firm performance, driven by the strategic activities conducted by firms in response to corruption. I propose an integrative model of firm strategy vis-à-vis corruption that predicts the activity choice of the firm as predicated by its organizational structure, political resources, industry regulation, and surrounding political and social institutions.

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Extending research on the institution-based view of international business strategy, this paper posits that the international adoption of technology among firms is distinct from its intra-national counterpart because this process is influenced by the efficiency of the government institutions where each firm is located. Low government efficiency delays investment in unknown technologies by increasing contracting hazards, environmental uncertainty and the difficulty of allocating potential returns; thus requiring greater experience on the part of firms when undertaking investment decisions. Furthermore, government inefficiency accentuates the relative significance of firm-specific drivers of technology adoption, but reverses the positive effect of industry competition in promoting technology adoption. I empirically investigate this phenomenon through hazard models analyzing the factors that affect the timing of the adoption of electronic ticketing by close to 180 airlines operating in 110 different countries. The results imply that government inefficiency in certain countries not only leads to slower technology penetration rates compared with their counterparts, but also exacerbates the technology gaps within countries by providing unwarranted advantages to firms that are already well entrenched.

Through a rhetoric analysis of 776 projects from firms located in 22 Asian countries, the authors argue that companies are looking for new forms of legitimacy that cannot be completely explained using traditional management theories. The authors introduce political theory into the debate. First, this study proposes a three-approach model of legitimation: The first approach is based on the strategic rhetoric as a mechanism for achieving pragmatic legitimacy, the second one uses the institutional rhetoric for gaining cognitive legitimacy, and the third, the political approach, is one through which firms seek to obtain moral legitimacy. The political strategy is aimed at improving the discursive quality between corporations and their stakeholders. Second, since the motivation for differing legitimacy strategies should be understood within their institutional environment, the authors look for patterns within each strategy dependent on national, industry, and firm-specific characteristics.

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