Sacred or strategic? The intersection of corporate political activities and religion in the Middle East

Drawing on a review of the literature on religion and political ties, we advance the argument that the intersection of politics and religious orientations is merely a reflection of the realities of doing business in the Middle East. Based on this review, a unified conceptual framework is proposed to address the gap in the current literature regarding the need to integrate religion into the discourse on political ties, particularly in the Middle East and, more broadly, in other emerging economies. We connect two dimensions of religiosity (i.e., low religiosity and high religiosity) and two dimensions of political ties (i.e., central political ties and local political ties). The unified conceptual framework captures the characteristics and various aspects of political ties and the role of religion in conducting business. In the literature on the mixing of politics and religion, a few common themes emerge: corporate decision-making that prioritizes environmental sustainability based on religious teachings, the leveraging of religion to build legitimacy, the effects of religion on advocacy, and the impact of religion on corporate political lobbying and advocacy. The practical and policy implications of these findings are also examined.