Previous research has shown that both structural and political/organizational factors affect growth promotion. Most of these studies have neither distinguished between policy adoption and growth effort nor considered the possibility that the processes contributing to policy adoption may be different from those influencing the level of incentives used to promote growth. Based on data from local government officials in Wisconsin cities and villages, we find that structural, or economic, and political organizational factors affect economic development activity adoption to a significantly different extent and in significantly different ways. Both the adoption of activities and the level of effort expended are influenced by a community's economic structure. Political/organizational factors are more likely to influence adoption of policies than is the effort communities make at promoting growth. The results suggest that growth effort is influenced strongly by economic factors, and that policy adoption has a symbolic value that addresses political concerns.