RESEARCH

PUBLICATIONS/ADVANCED PROJECTS
[1] The Half-Life of Political Capital: An Examination of the Temporal Effects of Board Political Connections (Hawk, A; Lahiri, D; Pacheco de Almeida, G; all authors contributed equally): Forthcoming in Strategic Management Journal
Does corporate political activity (CPA) help sustain performance? Prior literature does not address this question, only whether CPA increases profits – with mixed results over short timescales. We theorize about how political capital affects the regression-to-the-mean of profits through firm and industry persistence mechanisms. Using data on over 6,000 firms from 14 democratic countries, we estimate time-varying, firm-specific performance persistence coefficients with random-coefficient models – and profit volatility measures. Triangulation over various identification methods suggests that the half-life of political capital is shorter than expected, and also compared with other strategy interventions. Political connections are marginally effective at sustaining performance and reducing volatility, delaying profit convergence by only 0.180 years – and with no effect beyond seven years. These modest CPA benefits are further curbed by legislative constraints and political stability.
[2] Incidence of Activist Actions on Politically Connected Companies: An Examination of a ‘Cost’ of Connection (Lahiri, D): Working paper, preparing for submission
Despite both politicians and activists residing in the non-market sphere, research at their interface has been scarce. Our understanding of the tradeoffs involved in the firms’ relationship with these stakeholders is inadequate. This study partly addresses this void by arguing that the presence of board political connections increases the susceptibility of the firm to activist actions. Two mechanisms are suggested: Firstly, the firm’s association with a politician is likely to raise suspicion in the eyes of the activist because there is an inherent conflict in the ultimate objectives of social movement organizations (activists) vis-à-vis politicians, so far their relationship with firms is concerned. Secondly, politically connected firms are perceived to have higher sensitivity to social expectations. A novel dataset covering activist actions from the years 2010 to 2016 is used for empirical analysis, and the context is restricted to United States. As hypothesized, I find evidence that politically connected firms are more susceptible to activist actions, on an average. Furthermore, using a simple analytical model I demonstrate that this effect is strongly contingent on the firms’ level of ESG adoption - such that, at higher levels of ESG adoption, the liability of connectedness dissipates (or diminishes considerably). This proposition also finds good support in the empirical analysis. Theoretically, by revealing a firm-specific determinant of activist actions, this study takes us a step closer towards defining the ‘corporate opportunity structure’ for activism, while also better characterizing the complex trade-offs involved in the firms’ relationship with various stakeholders.
[3] Firms’ CSR Strategies in the face of Institutional de-prioritization of Sustainability Policies (Lahiri, D):
Working paper
The study examines firms' response to sudden changes in the institutional environment, whereby the rules and regulations pertaining to the adoption of socially responsible practices is considerably muted. Using Trump's victory in the 2016 US Presidential Elections as an exogenous event that led to institutional de-prioritization’ of sustainability policies, this study reveals that US firms proactively improved their corporate social performance in response, in order to shield themselves against the potential consequences of the burden of de-legitimacy. This improvement was significantly lower for firms having no ideological predispositions since they are likely to be less constrained by socio-normative expectations. Theoretically, this study uses both the insurance-risk view and the corporate culture view to arrive at a nuanced understanding of firms' motivation for adopting CSR practices.

EARLY STAGE PROJECTS
[1] Forms of CPA and their differential impact on temporal performance metrics (Hawk, A; Lahiri, D; Pacheco de Almeida, G): Theorization and data cleaning.
[2] Shifts in firms’ Corporate Political Strategies in the face of Geo-political Tensions (Lahiri, D): Theorization and data cleaning.
[3] Firms’ Internationalization Strategies in response to forces of Deglobalization: The Role of Corporate Political Activity and Organizational Political Ideology (Lahiri, D): Theorization and data cleaning.
[4] The (Geo)politics of Accelerating Technology Transfer (equal contribution by, Hawk, A; Lahiri, D; Pacheco de Almeida, G): Theorization.

INVITED PRESENTATIONS
[1] Firms’ CSR Strategies in the face of Institutional De-prioritization of Sustainability Policies (Lahiri, D)
▪ Annual Meeting of the Strategic Management Society, London, 2022
▪ Sociology Colloquium, Texas A&M University, 2023 (Virtual)
▪ Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Boston, 2023
[2] Incidence of Activist Actions on Politically Connected Companies: Examining a ‘Cost’ of Connection (Lahiri, D)
▪ Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, 2021 (Virtual)
▪ Strategy seminar at Bocconi University, Milan, 2021 (Virtual)
▪ Strategy seminar at Nova School of Business and Economics, Lisbon, 2021
▪ Strategy seminar at IE Business School, Madrid, 2021
[3] The Half-Life of Political Capital: An Examination of the Temporal Effects of Political Connections
(Hawk, A; Lahiri, D; Pacheco de Almeida, G; all authors contributed equally)
▪ Strategy seminar at TUM School of Management, 2022 (Virtual; presented by co-author Pacheco de Almeida, G)
▪ Strategy seminar at INSEAD, 2021 (Virtual; presented by co-author Pacheco de Almeida, G)
▪ Strategy seminar at The Fuqua Business School, Duke University, 2021 (Virtual; presented by co-author Pacheco de Almeida, G)
▪ Annual Meeting of the Strategic Management Society, 2020 (Virtual)
▪ Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, 2020 (Virtual)
▪ Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Boston, 2019
[4] IPRs and Innovation Concentration: A look at the Granular Nature of the Institutional Landscape (Lahiri, D; Quelin, B)
▪ Annual Meeting of the Academy of International Business, Copenhagen, 2019

WORKSHOPS AND CONSORTIA
▪ Participant, STR Junior Faculty Teaching Consortium, AOM Annual Meeting, Boston, Aug 2023
▪ Participant, Formal Modelling Workshop, Bocconi University, Milan, Jan 2020
▪ Participant, SMS Research Methods Community Consortium Series (Virtual), Apr 2021
▪ Participant, AOM STR Dissertation Consortium (Virtual), Jul 2021
▪ Participant, SEI Doctoral Consortium, ESADE, Barcelona, Oct 2021