Political strategies of regulated organizations as functions of context and fear

Data from representative privately owned profit-making, privately owned non-profit and publicly owned non-profit organizations are used to determine differences in influence strategy and whether organizational context (e.g. size, dependence) and fear are significant explanatory variables for variation in influence strategies across industries. Extending ‘power-dependence theory’ to conditions of vertical interdependence between regulated organizations and regulatory agencies, the present study finds support for the hypotheses that context has a significant positive effect on information based influence strategies, but no significant effect on pressure strategies of influence. Further, fear of government retaliation is found to be related negatively to information based influence strategies and related positively to pressure strategies. Implications for further theoretical development and private and public policy are drawn.