Cooperation among rivals in pursuit of institutional change: Three essays on the antecedents, process, and outcome

This dissertation studies how firms, alone and in concert with rivals, influence the institutional environments that influence them. Through a set of one theoretical and two empirical papers, this dissertation investigates the interplay of firm-level interests, industry-level action, and institutional-level change. The first paper develops a framework to aid in understanding the dynamic organizational field-level conditions that provide firms with ever-changing incentives to cooperate with their rivals through trade associations and industry self-regulatory initiatives. The second paper measures the degree to which one firm's actions altered the institutional environment and so degraded the short-term economic performance of its rivals. Moreover, this paper measures the degree to which rivals, through collective action, were able to intentionally alter their institutional environment, and so improve their short-term economic performance. The third paper measures whether perceptions of the riskiness of a firm increased following a serious crisis at a rival firm and decreased following the implementation of an industry self-regulatory program. Based on a sample of 1,046 petrochemical firms across the period 1980 to 2000, findings indicate that firms do have influence over their institutional environment. Individually, firms may degrade the institutional environment they share with rivals, and collectively, they may improve it, as reflected in changes in short- and long-term economic performance.