Publicly committing to a political strategy permanently narrows a firm’s freedom to change course.

Evidence

The inertial consequences which arise are multilayered. Short-winded PA and public relations campaigns can easily fall back on the company and impose long-lasting negative reputation among all stakeholders, including politicians. Strategic flexibility decreases dramatically once a certain strategy has been communicated among the stakeholders. Consequently, a company has to stick with old decisions, since a change of logic would impose a loss of trust and reputation. Overall, the degree of freedom to act and react decreases once political issues and actors need to be considered for managerial decisions on the market side. — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 412

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the Milgrom law-merchant point that reputation and continuing relationships function as forfeitable bonds against deviation.
• APHORISMS: Generalizable life advice: once a position is declared to others, backtracking costs you their trust, so the declaration itself is the lock.