Firms’ strategic orientation toward entrepreneurship exposes them to regulatory uncertainties. Prior research suggests that addressing these uncertainties through corporate political activities (CPA) may require costly trade-offs, such as the loss of strategic flexibility. We argue that some of these trade-offs can be mitigated by the way firms structure their investments in CPA. We extend insights from real options reasoning (ROR) to offer a framework for how firms may circumvent some of these trade-offs through greater CPA breadth, which allows firms to retain their strategic flexibility while reaping some of the benefits of CPA. Our theoretical model and empirical tests help us contribute to the literature on firms’ use of CPA as well as the literature on ROR.
