Scholars are increasingly investigating the implications of firms’ domestic corporate political activity (CPA) and political connections on their internationalisation prospects. In this paper, using insights from the resource dependence theory, we argue that domestic CPA and political connections developed within the home country have contrasting effects on firms’ international expansion, such that, while domestic CPAs (mainly, lobbying and campaign contributions) facilitate internationalisation, political connections deter internationalisation. We also argue that this relationship is moderated by firms’ international experience and product diversification. We test our hypotheses using a panel dataset comprising 38 retail Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) originating in the United States (US) whose activities we traced over the 16-year period 2003−2018. Our findings support our hypotheses.

学者们越来越多地研究公司的国内企业政治活动 (CPA) 和政治联系对其国际化前景的影响。在本文中，利用资源依赖理论的见解，我们认为国内 CPA 和在本国发展的政治联系对公司的国际扩张具有相反的影响，因此，虽然国内 CPA（主要是游说和竞选捐款）促进了国际化，政治联系阻碍了国际化。我们还认为，这种关系受到公司国际经验和产品多样化的影响。我们使用面板数据集测试我们的假设，该数据集包含 38 家源自美国 (US) 的零售跨国企业 (MNE)，我们在 2003 年至 2018 年的 16 年间追踪了这些企业的活动。我们的发现支持了我们的假设。