Corporate Political Strategy and the Case of ePrivacy Regulation

One of the most contentious pieces of legislation deliberated at the EU in recent years has been the ePrivacy Regulation (ePR). Despite its companion regulation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) being implemented in 2018, a final draft document has yet to be agreed upon by the European Commission, Parliament, and Council. Watchdogs report that the development of ePR has been subject to alarming levels of corporate political activity. This thesis seeks to understand how a diverse group of international firms develop their corporate political strategies (CPS) where the development of ePR is concerned, and whether the Hillman and Hitt (1999) model can explain how CPS was used by the international firms. The findings show that Hillman and Hitt’s model is unable to reliably predict how firms used CPS in the development of ePR. The model’s dichotomous conceptualizations of key concepts and poor integration of EU institutions in its propositions contribute to its explanatory weakness where the development of ePR is concerned.