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Realising the sustainable development goals (SDGs) will require substantial efforts from both governments, businesses, civil society and academic researchers. This paper aims to discuss the contributions that the international business (IB) discipline can make to promoting the SDGs.

The paper is conceptual.

The authors argue that IB can contribute to promoting the SDGs, given IB’s expertise on the multinational enterprise (MNE) and knowledge that is relevant to the international dimensions that most SDGs have. However, paradigmatic features of IB such as a focus on firm-level financial performance and on the MNE as an organisation, and dominance of quantitative methods, may presently restrict the discipline’s contributions to the SDGs.

The authors present a set of recommendations for IB research on the SDGs, many of which imply an extension of the boundaries of the current IB paradigm.

This paper contributes to laying a foundation for a research agenda in international business (IB) on multinational enterprises (MNEs) and economic inequality, through an extensive literature review and development of a conceptual framework.

The author conduct a systematic review of studies on economic inequality in IB literature, complemented by a broader selective review of studies in general management, economics, political science, sociology and other disciplines.

The review confirms that economic inequality has received little attention in IB research. Most contributions are recent conceptual studies, while empirical studies are scarce. Studies in economics and other disciplines provide further insights on the effects of MNEs on inequality, although specific findings are somewhat mixed.

The author develop a simple framework outlining channels of effects from MNEs activities on different forms of inequality, discuss challenges and opportunities for IB in addressing this topic and identify some avenues for future IB research on economic inequality.

This paper is the first comprehensive review of literature in IB on economic inequality. It also presents relevant literature on MNEs and economic inequality from various other disciplines and outlines the contributions that the IB discipline can make to the study of this topic.

This study aims to discuss an argument that the social value creation of multinational enterprises (MNEs), beyond creating economic value for the shareholders, could be the next “big question” for international business (IB) research. The authors also provide examples of promising research topics associated with this research agenda.

The paper is conceptual.

Although a new paradigmatic question for IB in terms of social value creation would lead IB outside familiar territory in terms of the previous focus on financial performance, IB scholars are well equipped to take on this broader question. IB scholars arguably have their key strengths in understanding the inner workings of firms, as well as in understanding the role of context for business. Moreover, to the extent that this new agenda requires IB scholars to acquire new capabilities and form new partnerships with relevant disciplines, this could contribute to revitalising the IB field. As illustrated by the suggested topics, such an agenda could both increase the relevance of IB research and contribute to theory development.

The paper is amongst the first to explore the notion that a broader view of the outcome of MNE activities, beyond MNEs’ own financial outcomes, should be a key goal of future IB research.

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically investigate the potential welfare effects of state-owned enterprises’ (SOEs) international operations.

The paper is conceptual, applying standard economics state ownership theory based on agency theory and incomplete contracts theory to different forms of SOE cross-border operations.

When private firms are risk averse or financially constrained, or when writing complete contracts and making credible commitments are not possible, state ownership can achieve objectives such as international operations supporting domestic industrial policy, addressing social objectives in another government’s territory and addressing transnational market failures. Welfare effects may, however, also depend on home-host country relationships.

This is the first application of standard economics state ownership theory to state-owned multinationals. The analysis shows that key conclusions from the state ownership literature in a domestic setting can be extended to international operations, and highlights new theoretical issues arising from SOEs going beyond their home jurisdiction to that of another government.

Emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) have consolidated their global presence recently, challenging existing international business (IB) theories. One of their most significant characteristics has been the prevalence of strategic asset-seeking (SAS) mergers and acquisitions (M&As) targeting firms in developed countries. Such SAS M&As have been ascribed to the aim of acquiring or augmenting firm-specific advantages, rather than exploiting existing advantages. A literature review is needed to synthesize the growing number of academic studies and to contribute to ongoing theoretical developments on EMNEs' catch-up strategies.

The authors follow a standard systematic literature review approach. The authors collate academic studies on EMNEs' SAS M&As in developed markets published between 2000 and mid-2020, structuring the analysis using the logic of antecedent, process and performance outcomes.

The authors present recent research trends in terms of year, journal, theories and methods. The authors synthesize and analyze existing knowledge on EMNEs' SAS M&As and identify remaining gaps to suggest future research directions.

The review contributes by focusing on the key argument of current EMNE research – SAS M&As. By providing the first focused review on this topic, it provides a basis for further research on EMNEs' SAS M&As.

Recent international business research finds that state-owned multinational enterprises (SOMNEs) invest relatively more in politically risky host countries than do privately-owned multinational enterprises (MNEs). This study aims to investigate theoretically and empirically whether state ownership mitigates the impact of host-country political risk on subsidiary economic risk.

The authors link theoretical arguments on state ownership to arguments from non-market strategy literature to outline mechanisms whereby state ownership can buffer subsidiaries from political risk, weakening the link between host-country political risk and earnings volatility in subsidiaries. Using a data set on Norwegian MNEs’ foreign subsidiaries across almost two decades, the authors test this prediction using both matching methods and panel regressions.

While standard panel regressions provide empirical support only for the infrastructure sector and for the highest political risk contexts, nearest-neighbour matching models – comparing only otherwise similar private- and SOMNE subsidiaries using the full sample – reveal more general support for the political risk mitigation hypothesis.

The study presents the first comprehensive analysis of whether state ownership can mitigate the effect of political risk on subsidiary economic risk.

The dialectics of liabilities of foreignness (LOF) and assets of foreignness (AOF) have led to further explorations of what it means for an organisation to be foreign. This paper reviews, synthesises and contextualises recent research on both the challenges and benefits of foreignness, to develop a balanced and integrated view of this international business concept.

This review aims at mapping the key concepts, theories, methods and contexts in the literature and organising the key findings in an antecedent-outcomes-strategy framework, explicitly comparing LOF and AOF to explore their interrelationships. Drawing on a sample of 126 journal articles, NVivo was used to code and identify key thematic areas.

The review confirms a shift in the literature towards acknowledging the notion of AOF. Using different theoretical lenses, it identifies, reviews and discusses antecedents, consequences and strategy implications of LOF and AOF. It argues that foreignness will continue to be a fundamental concept in international business research and suggests that AOF and LOF deserve an equally central place in an integrated analytical framework of foreignness in international business strategy.

The paper is the first systematic attempt to integrate the literature on LOF and AOF. The systematic comparison across drivers, outcomes and strategies allows for a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of foreignness and the underlying phenomenon of foreignness. The authors also explore the paradox perspective on foreignness.

Well-functioning institutions are repeatedly claimed to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) by reducing the costs and uncertainty of economic activity. Nonetheless, it has been argued that institutions may matter less for FDI in the primary sector. This study aims to theoretically and empirically investigate the role of institutions for attracting FDI in agricultural and in extractive activities.

This study uses worldwide country and sector-level data on inward FDI for the period 1996–2007. The key independent variables, property rights protection, corruption and democracy, are measured using World Bank Governance Indicators and Polity IV as data sources. Fixed effect panel regression, Tobit regression and generalized method of moments are used for data analysis.

The authors corroborate the importance of institutions for aggregate FDI. Disaggregating by primary subsector, the authors find that agricultural FDI, like aggregate FDI, is attracted by institutional features such as rule of law and property rights protection and democracy, whereas extractive FDI is not. The authors also find some evidence that corruption deters FDI in both primary subsectors.

The authors take a first step toward linking the largely empirical institutions-FDI literature more closely with the economics-based theoretical discussions of FDI risk grounded on a property rights approach, to discuss issues such as effective control rights over investments, which may vary between sectors. The authors also explore a novel idea that extractive activities may be less sensitive to institutions because the time horizon is limited by the depletion of the resource, resulting in an inherently relatively short-term commitment to a host-country location.

International business (IB) research is traditionally heavily reliant on economics. In this chapter, we review selected debates in the philosophy of science of economics and consider their relevance for economics-based IB research, given important characteristics of IB such as phenomenon-orientedness, concern with data and facts and limited use of formal mathematical models and unrealistic assumptions in the analysis. We argue that, like in the case of mainstream economics, Lakatos’ concept of scientific research programmes (SRPs) is more useful for understanding the philosophy of science of economics-based IB than Popper’s falsificationism. Following this, we discuss characteristics of two possible IB SRPs, internalization theory and Dunning’s Ownership-Location-Internalization paradigm. Finally, we discuss the approach to modelling in IB, finding it to reflect a relative commitment to scientific realism.