Corporate political activity and location-based advantage: MNE responses to institutional transformation in Uganda’s electricity industry

Charles Mbalyohere, Thomas Lawton, Roshan Boojihawon and Howard Viney

Journal of World Business, 2017, vol. 52, issue 6, 743-759

Abstract: We examine how multinational enterprises (MNEs) employ political strategies in response to location-based, institutional transformations in new frontier African markets. Specifically, we explore the heterogeneous corporate political activities of advanced and emerging market MNEs in Uganda’s electricity industry, as they respond to and influence locational advantage using diverse political capabilities. We argue that, in institutionally fragile, new frontier markets, Dunning’s OLI paradigm is more theoretically robust and managerially relevant when combined with a political perspective. Effective MNE political strategies in these markets rely on nonmarket capabilities in political stakeholder engagement, community embeddedness, regional understanding, and responsiveness to stages of institutionalization.

Keywords: Corporate political activity; Multinational enterprise; Location-based advantage; Electricity industry; Uganda (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090951617305011
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:worbus:v:52:y:2017:i:6:p:743-759

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/620401/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 620401/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.jwb.2017.06.006

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of World Business is currently edited by David Collings and Jonathan Doh

More articles in Journal of World Business from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().