战略影响

In what he describes as his third career, Michael Greiner, Ph.D., is merging his lifelong passion for politics with expertise in finance law and government to advance understanding at the intersection of politics, 经济学与管理学.

As Assistant Professor of 管理 in OU’s 工商管理学院, Dr. Greiner draws on his diverse experience ranging from managing political campaigns across the country to serving as Deputy Mayor of Warren, to helping thousands of families and businesses restructure their debt as a bankruptcy lawyer.

Dr. 格雷纳在他的研究中探索了这个交叉点, the OU business courses he leads and the commentaries he publishes regularly on Medium. His research interests include corporate political activity (CPA), 企业社会责任(CSR), 管理理论, 代理理论. His research work focuses on practical insight that can help businesses large and small plan for success.

Dr. Greiner tapped into his expertise to offer business strategists guidance into navigating today’s economic crisis through an article published in Harvard Business Review titled, 避免在经济衰退时犯这种战略错误.” The article compares the cost leader and product differentiator approaches. In a macroeconomic crisis like the Great Recession or the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. 格林尼说 cost leaders usually fare better than differentiators.

“成本领先企业看到了一对一的变化，”他表示. "The people they used to have as customers drop out of the market, 或者有更少的钱可以花, and the customers of the differentiators kind of shift into their space."

However, he discourages differentiators from pivoting to a cost leadership strategy. Existing cost leaders have a "head start" and differentiators "are literally never able to catch up with them,他说. Dr. Greiner references his mother's antiques shop as an example. 作为高端特色商品的供应商, 她是一个与众不同的人, but she has focused on deepening her relationships with existing customers since the pandemic hit.

"You just have to hold on and try to survive through the uncertainty," Dr. 格林尼说. "Trying to shift all of a sudden because of the larger struggles the economy may be experiencing, you're going to lose customers and you're not going to pick up the new customers that you need."

Dr. Greiner’s research also deals heavily with ethical questions, 特别是关于他对注册会计师的研究兴趣. 定义为企业试图影响政府政策, many organizational leaders believe that CPA can provide a competitive advantage.

在最近的一篇论文中, "A supply-side approach to corporate political activity: Performance consequences of ideologically driven CPA," Dr. Greiner examines how the political ideologies that firms support through CPA can affect their financial outcomes. 本文对代理理论进行了深入研究, analyzing the degree to which corporate executives act in their own interest versus that of their shareholders.

Dr. Greiner found that managers who have greater control over funds for CPA tend to fund more ideologically extreme politicians aligning with their personal views. He also found that such behavior resulted in very little actual political influence for their firms, and correspondingly little impact on the firm's performance.

"Instead of money being given to politicians to convince them to vote one way or another, money is given to politicians who already support an issue,他说. In addition to expending funds on CPA without enjoying the performance benefits, “this can be an added driver of the increased polarization that we're seeing in our political system."

相反, firms that participated in more ideologically moderate CPA – and had less managerial discretion over their firms CPA funds – realized much greater performance benefits. 本质上, 论文指出, when managers view CPA as something that must be approached in an ideologically moderate fashion to forward the goals of the firm, 公司倾向于更好地为股东服务.

“This kind of CPA also benefits American society at large,” Dr. 格林尼说.