Lobbying as Legitimate Aspect of Corporate Behavior Essay

Lobbying as Legitimate Aspect of Corporate Behavior - Essay Example It is a deliberate attempt on part of the lobbyists with the motive of influencing political decisions using various forms of advocacy and it is directed at the ones who form up these policies on behalf of another person, organization and/or group(s). There are clients who are either individual beings or organized interests such as businesses organizations, labour unions, organizations who work as not-for-profit and trade associations who hire lobbyists who do their work for them. In the organization, the lobbyist is hired in the Government Relations function or they can even be outside individuals or firms (Wood, 2002). The main purpose of the lobbyist is to develop various strategies and tactics so as to gain access, inform, influence and pressurize. These methods and strategies can be developed by designing a lobbying campaign. Lastly, it should be known that these lobbying campaigns are directed towards policy makers whose job is to make policies which affect the well being of th e client, the European Union public, all sorts of communities which exist on local, national and international levels plus the president and the future generations to come. Since their decisions affect a whole variety of people, lobbying is playing a very important role in this process. There can be many methods in which lobbyists do this. For example, they can do this by using their personal reputation, out of professional obligation or the rapport that they have cultivated overtime. These means are used to achieve political goals such as gaining the trust of the authorities so as to gain access so that the lobbyists can share his opinions and viewpoints which will influence their decisions in the making of the public policy (Wood, 2002). There can be other types of influences as well such as positional influence which depends on the place that a lobbyist has in the public realm in which he is expressing his viewpoint. (Karen, 1978) Moreover, it is a term which is highly controversial and is always regulated by the Government and specifically defined so that organized group lobbying does not take a negative aspect and misuse this term. The term lobbying has originated from the concept of everyone sitting in the lobbies and having a discussion before and after parliamentary debates in the Houses of Parliament. These discussions usually gave way to the fact that certain legislators could manipulate or influence others without even them knowing that they are getting influenced by the discussion. Lobbying is a very subliminal process. Clever and ethical lobbying results in winning a lot of thing for the organization, such as better strategies, efficient resources, fruitful recommendations for the company and helps in the compliance which is ongoing. Lobbying has always been a controversial term in the sense that people tend to think it leads to corruption and this is not false. Lobbying can change the mind set of an individual to a mind set that the individual himself does not want to adapt to. Therefore, many jurisdictions have been created which require that men who are playing the role of lobbyists get themselves formally registered with the authorities before they come in contact with the Government representations that they