The Political Standardizer

Christian Frankel and Erik Højbjerg: The Political Standardizer

First published on April 27, 2009

Business & Society 2009

SAGE Journals Online

Our aim in this article is to demonstrate that corporate technical activity and corporate political activity can overlap substantially or intertwine in ways quite difficult to tease apart analytically. Theories of corporate political activity must therefore be modified to include technical standardization as potentially part of such activity. The article proposes a conceptual framework for studying such situations and argues for the existence of a "political standardizer," defined as a company that works for or through technical standardization as a political strategy. Such a firm pursues political objectives in its technical standardization practices. The article illustrates this argument with a case study of the toy producer LegO®. The case study provides support for existence of a political standardizer and illustrates concretely how technical and political activities are combined by a particular company.