Lords of the Harvest: Third-Party Influence and Regulatory Approval of Genetically Modified Organisms

Little is known about the factors that influence regulatory agency decision making. We posit that regulatory agencies are influenced by the firms they regulate but not exclusively via dyadic exchanges, as is traditionally argued in the regulatory capture and business-government literatures. Instead, regulatory decisions are indirectly shaped via third-party actors who shield agencies from legitimacy threats. Focusing empirically on the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) approval of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we find that product assessments by powerful stakeholders and peer agencies influence product approval and that their effects vary under different threats. We also discuss the implications of these findings for businessgovernment relations, nonmarket strategy, and organization theory.

[1]  H. W. Dodds,et al.  Bureaucracy and Representative Government , 1937 .

[2]  J. Gaus,et al.  Public administration and the United States Department of Agriculture , 1940 .

[3]  Catherine Winston.  The Decline of Agrarian Democracy , 1955 .

[4]  M. Lipsky,et al.  Protest as a Political Resource , 1968, American Political Science Review.

[5]  G. Stigler.  The Theory of Economic Regulation , 2021, The Political Economy.

[6]  A note on administrative behavior and public policy , 1971 .

[7]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences , 1979 .

[8]  J. Pfeffer,et al.  The External Control of Organizations. , 1978 .

[9]  D. Mueller.  Public Choice III: What have we learned? , 1979 .

[10]  Daniel A. Mazmanian,et al.  THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PUBLIC POLICY: A FRAMEWORK OF ANALYSIS* , 1980 .

[11]  T. Skocpol,et al.  State Capacity and Economic Intervention in the Early New Deal , 1982 .

[12]  V. Clark,et al.  Computer-aided multivariate analysis , 1991 .

[13]  Keith T. Poole,et al.  Ideology, Party, and Voting in the U.S. Congress, 1959–1980 , 1985, American Political Science Review.

[14]  M. Tushman,et al.  Technological Discontinuities and Organizational Environments , 1986 .

[15]  M. Mizruchi.  Similarity of Political Behavior Among Large American Corporations , 1989, American Journal of Sociology.

[16]  Terry L. Amburgey,et al.  Interorganizational Linkages and Population Dynamics: Buffering and Transformational Shields. , 1990 .

[17]  D. North.  Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance: Economic performance , 1990 .

[18]  Gregory Hooks,et al.  From an Autonomous to a Captured State Agency: The Decline of the New Deal in Agriculture , 1990 .

[19]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of , 1990 .

[20]  C. Franklin.  Eschewing Obfuscation? Campaigns and the Perception of U.S. Senate Incumbents , 1991, American Political Science Review.

[21]  Douglas N. Jones.  The Structure of Corporate Political Action: Interfirm Relations and Their Consequences , 1993 .

[22]  Martin Gargiulo.  Two-step leverage: Managing constraint in organizational politics , 1993 .

[23]  N. Smelser,et al.  Handbook of Economic Sociology , 1994 .

[24]  Mark C. Suchman.  Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches , 1995 .

[25]  Jan E. Leighley,et al.  Lower-Class Mobilization and Policy Linkage in the U.S. States , 1995 .

[26]  A. Hillman,et al.  International Variation in the Business-Government Interface: Institutional and Organizational Considerations , 1995 .

[27]  Neil Fligstein,et al.  Markets as Politics: A Political‐Cultural Approach to Market Institutions , 1996 .

[28]  M. Olson.  Firm Characteristics and the Speed of FDA Approval , 1997 .

[29]  Tim Rowley.  Moving Beyond Dyadic Ties: A Network Theory of Stakeholder Influences , 1997 .

[30]  Mark C. Suchman,et al.  The Legal Environments of Organizations , 1997 .

[31]  Frank Dobbin,et al.  How Policy Shapes Competition: Early Railroad Foundings in Massachusetts , 1997 .

[32]  Ronald K. Mitchell,et al.  Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of who and What Really Counts , 1997 .

[33]  Stephen P. Hanna,et al.  The Liberal-Conservative Ideology of U.S. Senators: A New Measure , 1997 .

[34]  Paul M. Hirsch,et al.  Putting the Organization Back into Organization Theory , 1997 .

[35]  Toby E. Stuart.  Network Positions and Propensities to Collaborate: An Investigation of Strategic Alliance Formation in a High-Technology Industry , 1998 .

[36]  J. Koch.  Electoral Competitiveness and the Voting Decision Evidence from the Pooled Senate Election Study , 1998 .

[37]  M. Hitt,et al.  Corporate Political Strategy Formulation: A Model of Approach, Participation, and Strategy Decisions , 1999 .

[38]  David L. Deephouse,et al.  Media Reputation as a Strategic Resource: An Integration of Mass Communication and Resource-Based Theories , 1999 .

[39]  Amy J. Hillman,et al.  The development of business–government strategies by diversified firms , 2000 .

[40]  Policy and process: A game-theoretic framework for the design of non-market strategy , 2000 .

[41]  T. Besley,et al.  The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India , 2000 .

[42]  T. Hellström,et al.  Policy understanding of science, public trust and the BSE-CJD crisis. , 2000, Journal of hazardous materials.

[43]  Andrew Delios,et al.  Uncertainty, Imitation, and Plant Location: Japanese Multinational Corporations, 1990‐1996 , 2001 .

[44]  Daniel Carpenter,et al.  The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Networks, Reputations and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862- 1928 , 2001 .

[45]  Daniel Carpenter,et al.  The forging of bureaucratic autonomy : reputations, networks, and policy innovation in executive agencies, 1862-1928 , 2001 .

[46]  Andrew King,et al.  Are aliens green? Assessing foreign establishments' environmental conduct in the United states , 2001 .

[47]  Daniel Carpenter,et al.  Groups, the Media, Agency Waiting Costs, and FDA Drug Approval , 2002 .

[48]  Andrew Delios,et al.  Uncertainty, Imitation, and Plant Location: Japanese Multinational Corporations, 1990-1996 , 2002 .

[49]  Michael Strauss.  :Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food , 2002 .

[50]  Keith T. Poole,et al.  Ideology, Party, and Voting in the I , 2002 .

[51]  J. Nap,et al.  Part II. Overview of ecological risk assessment , 2003 .

[52]  Michelle Gittelman,et al.  Does Good Science Lead to Valuable Knowledge? Biotechnology Firms and the Evolutionary Logic of Citation Patterns , 2003, Manag. Sci..

[53]  Timothy G. Pollock,et al.  Media Legitimation Effects in the Market for Initial Public Offerings , 2003 .

[54]  Jan-Peter Nap,et al.  The release of genetically modified crops into the environment. Part I. Overview of current status and regulations. , 2003, The Plant journal : for cell and molecular biology.

[55]  Sarah A. Soule,et al.  When Do Movements Matter? The Politics of Contingency and the Equal Rights Amendment , 2004 .

[56]  M. Toffel,et al.  Stakeholders and Environmental Management Practices: An Institutional Framework , 2004 .

[57]  Timothy G. Pollock,et al.  EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL AND POWER ON SURVIVING TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE: THE CASE OF INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERINGS , 2004 .

[58]  D. Carpenter.  Protection without Capture: Product Approval by a Politically Responsive, Learning Regulator , 2004, American Political Science Review.

[59]  Heather A. Haveman,et al.  Risky Business? Entrepreneurship in the New Independent-Power Sector , 2005 .

[60]  Amy J. Hillman,et al.  The Attractiveness of Political Markets: Implications for Firm Strategy , 2005 .

[61]  R. Hails,et al.  Genes invading new populations: a risk assessment perspective. , 2005, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[62]  Michael J. Lenox,et al.  FIRM RESPONSES TO SECONDARY STAKEHOLDER ACTION. , 2005 .

[63]  David A. Whetten,et al.  Albert and Whetten Revisited: Strengthening the Concept of Organizational Identity , 2006 .

[64]  Brayden G. King,et al.  The Stages of the Policy Process and the Equal Rights Amendment, 1972–19821 , 2006, American Journal of Sociology.

[65]  Brayden G. King,et al.  Social Movements as Extra-Institutional Entrepreneurs: The Effect of Protests on Stock Price Returns , 2007 .

[66]  T. Knowles,et al.  European food scares and their impact on EU food policy , 2007 .

[67]  Patrick G. Maggitti,et al.  Market Watch: Information and Availability Cascades Among the Media and Investors in the U.S. IPO Market , 2008 .

[68]  Brayden G. King,et al.  A Political Mediation Model of Corporate Response to Social Movement Activism , 2008 .

[69]  Patricia H. Thornton,et al.  Institutional Logics , 2008 .

[70]  Mauro F. Guillén,et al.  Risk and the strategy of foreign location choice in regulated industries , 2008 .

[71]  Hayagreeva Rao,et al.  From Streets to Suites: How the Anti- Biotech Movement Affected German Pharmaceutical Firms , 2009 .

[72]  Brandon H. Lee.  The Infrastructure of Collective Action and Policy Content Diffusion in the Organic Food Industry , 2009 .

[73]  Shon R. Hiatt,et al.  From Pabst to Pepsi: The Deinstitutionalization of Social Practices and the Creation of Entrepreneurial Opportunities , 2009 .

[74]  Michael W. Toffel,et al.  Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies , 2009 .

[75]  Zhi Huang,et al.  The Contingent Nature of Public Policy and the Growth of US Commercial Banking , 2009 .

[76]  Mark C. Suchman,et al.  Legitimacy in Organizational Institutionalism , 2009 .

[77]  Brayden G. King,et al.  The Contentiousness of Markets: Politics, Social Movements, and Institutional Change in Markets , 2010 .

[78]  Michael D. Pfarrer,et al.  A Tale of Two Assets: The Effects of Firm Reputation and Celebrity on Earnings Surprises and Investors' Reactions , 2010 .

[79]  Teppo Felin,et al.  Perspective - Finding the Organization in Organizational Theory: A Meta-Theory of the Organization as a Social Actor , 2010, Organ. Sci..

[80]  T. Snijders.  Statistical Models for Social Networks , 2011 .

[81]  Michael K. Bednar.  Watchdog or Lapdog? A Behavioral View of the Media as a Corporate Governance Mechanism , 2012 .

[82]  Francisco Polidoro,et al.  Getting Competition Down to a Science: The Effects of Technological Competition on Firms' Scientific Publications , 2012, Organ. Sci..

[83]  A. Hoffman,et al.  The Oxford Handbook of Business and the Natural Environment , 2012 .

[84]  Brayden G. King,et al.  Social Movements, Risk Perceptions, and Economic Outcomes , 2012 .

[85]  Nan Jia.  Are Collective and Private Political Actions Substitutes or Complements? Empirical Evidence from China's Private Sector , 2013 .

[86]  Shon R. Hiatt,et al.  Clear and Present Danger: Planning and New Venture Survival Amid Political and Civil Violence , 2014 .

[87]  Nan Jia.  Are collective political actions and private political actions substitutes or complements? Empirical evidence from China's private sector , 2014 .

[88]  BÓ Ernestodal.  REGULATORY CAPTURE : A REVIEW , 2022 .