Coopting Academics "by the book"

The following excerpt is from the Introduction (p.7) of the book The Regulation Game: Strategic Use of the Administrative Process by Professors Bruce M. Owen and Ronald Braeutigam . It's a textbook that describes strategies for companies in a regulated industry. This section was pointed out in the book Leasing the Ivory Tower by Prof. Lawrence Soley.

Coopt the Experts. Regulatory policy is increasingly made with the participation of experts, especially academics. A regulated firm or industry should be prepared whenever possible to coopt these experts. This is most effectively done by identifying the leading experts in each relevant field and hiring them as consultants or advisors, or giving them research grants and the like. This activity requires a modicum of finesse; it must not be too blatant, for the experts themselves must not recognize that they have lost their objectivity and freedom of action. At a minimum, a program of this kind reduces the threat that the leading experts will be available to testify or write against the interests of the regulated firms. AT&T has made a major investment, for instance, in very high grade economic talent over the past decade. It is not entirely accidental that this group of economists has produced a formidable new theory of multiproduct natural monopoly that may serve as a powerful argument in favor of barriers to entry and the exclusion of competitors in AT&T markets. The only other apparent beneficiary of the normative implication of this theory is the postal service.