Abstract Through a case study of the government affairs (GA) activities of a large UK-based manufacturing firm, we explore how the differentiation and integration of boundary-spanning GA units may affect their ability to capture external political information and share it with the rest of the business. Mobilising insights from organisational design theory, we demonstrate that changes in the autonomy, specialisation and formal coordination of the firm's UK-based GA unit have over time positively affected its information processing activities. The unit has been able to source political information more proactively as its specialisation and autonomy have increased. Its ability to share this information inside the firm has improved as it has become more integrated in the business through formal coordination mechanisms. Our study contributes to CPA research by deepening our understandings of the internal management and organisation of firms' political actions, which are overlooked in extant strategy management literature. It provides senior executives with practical guidance on how to configure their political units in ways that add value to firms.

中文翻译：

---

探索如何组织公司的战略政治行动以获取和共享外部信息——Alpha Plc 的案例

摘要 通过对英国一家大型制造企业的政府事务 (GA) 活动的案例研究，我们探讨了跨界 GA 单位的差异化和整合如何影响其获取外部政治信息并与其他企业共享的能力。的业务。运用组织设计理论的见解，我们证明了公司位于英国的 GA 部门的自主性、专业化和正式协调的变化随着时间的推移对其信息处理活动产生了积极影响。随着专业化和自主性的提高，该部门能够更主动地获取政治信息。随着它通过正式的协调机制更加融入企业，它在公司内部共享这些信息的能力得到了提高。我们的研究通过加深我们对公司政治行为的内部管理和组织的理解，为 CPA 研究做出了贡献，这些在现存的战略管理文献中被忽视了。它为高级管理人员提供了有关如何以为公司增值的方式配置其政治单位的实用指导。