Asymmetric regulation, managerial discretion, and corporate political strategies

We study why managers engage in corporate political strategizing. Our rigorous data driven historical study of top management strategizing, of a state-owned telecommunications provider for a period of 18 years, exposes previously unattended links between top management’s managerial discretion and engagement in political strategizing. We find two managerial discretion dilemmas triggering political strategizing during market convergence: (1) resource discretion due to asymmetric regulation; and (2) market discretion due to unbalanced competitive preconditions. We contribute with a novel understanding of the contextual and managerial antecedents of political strategizing, and a dynamic view on managerial discretion. Furthermore, we advance a rigorous digital history approach, one that is historically cognizant and temporally and contextually grounded, to study top management strategizing.