Abstract With the increasing prominence of special interest group activity in the organizational external environment, we build on the stakeholder literature on strategic management to explain how organizations respond to pressures from such groups. Using a model integrating institutional, resource dependence, resource‐based, and cognitive theoretical perspectives, we examine the restaurant industry's response to the fat reduction pressure campaign run by a nutritional interest group, the National Heart Saver's Association (NHSA) in the early 1990s. Our findings indicate that susceptibility to institutional pressures partially affected accommodation to NHSA's demands, and more strongly affected organizational cognitions of those pressures. Our measure of resource dependence did not directly affect accommodation, but was significantly related to managerial cognitions. Resource‐based factors had a strong direct effect on the extent of accommodation to the pressures of NHSA, and partially influenced measures of cognition. Further, our findings indicate that managerial cognition strongly influenced an organization's response to NHSA pressure. From these results we suggest strategies for managers as they try to make sense of and respond to interest group pressures. We also point to future avenues of inquiries for researchers. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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