Browsing by Author "Taussig, M"

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    How do firms feel about participation by their peers in the regulatory design process? An online survey experiment testing the substantive change and spillover mechanisms
    (Strategy Science, 2019-06-01) Malesky, E; Taussig, M
    This paper examines two concerns with calls for increased participation by firms in the government design of regulations in emerging markets. First, given the profit maximization goals of firms, can the benefits of business participation be realized without weakening the social protections that regulations are meant to offer? Second, can resource-constrained states realistically use consultation programs to influence the behavior of enough relevant firms to achieve a reasonable breadth of social protection? We explore these understudied questions through an online survey experiment involving 121 firm managers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We find that firms prompted to think about worker safety favored regulatory changes that arose from suggestions by other firms over those resulting from suggestions by chemical safety experts even when unaware of the involvement of either source in the design process. By contrast, firms prompted to focus on business success did not express significant support for revisions suggested by either firms or experts. Learning about the participation of fellow firms positively influenced views about the legitimacy of the state's regulatory authority but not of the focal regulation itself.
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    The Danger of Not Listening to Firms: Government Responsiveness and the Goal of Regulatory Compliance
    (Academy of Management Journal, 2017-10) Malesky, E; Taussig, M
    © Academy of Management Journal. Firms in emerging economies exhibit dangerously low rates of compliance with government regulations aimed at protecting society from the negative externalities of their operations. This study builds on individual-level theories from organizational behavior (procedural justice) and political science (deliberative democracy) to develop new firmlevel theory on the mechanism by which a firm is more likely to comply with a regulation after participating in its design by government. We hypothesize and find supporting evidence that such participation increases the likelihood of compliance by positively shaping the firm's view of government legitimacy, but only if the firm views government as responsive to its input. Without this responsiveness, regulatory compliance is even less likely than if the firm did not participate at all. Our empirical work is novel in its focus on the political activities of firms not only within the authoritarian-ruled emerging economy context of Vietnam, but also through study of a highly representative sample dominated by small and medium sized enterprises. We discuss how our work contributes to nonmarket strategy literatures on corporate social responsibility, self-regulation, and corporate political activity, as well as its implications for public policy.