Corporate Political Strategy in the Chinese Football Industry

This chapter outlines the Corporate Political Strategy typology for China that structures the book's empirical analysis. The typology identifies six strategies through which private firms aim to influence the Party-state: port in a storm (crisis-driven exchange), opportunist encounter (one-off advantage-seeking), committed relationship (long-term reciprocity), teacher's pet (visible loyalty and policy alignment), all on red (institutionalised partnership with the state) and concerned counsel (constructive policy feedback). The chapter then introduces the empirical study that applies this typology to the football sector, explaining the rationale for its methodology, research design and case selection.