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The purpose of this study is to shed light on the twin transition in China in the organization of innovation processes in artificial intelligence (AI) and green technology (GT) development and to understand the role of foreign multinationals in Chinese innovation systems.

A qualitative research approach is used by interviewing executives from German multinationals with expertise in AI and GT development and organization of innovation processes in China. In total, 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted with companies, and the data were analysed with a thematic qualitative text analysis.

The findings show that AI applications for GT are primarily developed in cross-company projects that are led by local and regional authorities through the organization of industrial districts and clusters. German multinationals are either being integrated, remaining autonomous or being excluded from these twin transition innovation processes.

This paper aims to fill the gap in the literature by providing one of the first qualitative approach towards twin transition innovation processes in China and exploring the integration of multinational enterprises in cluster organizations. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the first twin transition studies from this perspective in emerging economies.

This paper aims to elucidate the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, reverse innovation and international performance of emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs).

The authors analyze archival data of Chinese limited companies between 2010 and 2016, including 11,230 firm-year observations about 1708 firms. In order to test the study’s mediation hypotheses, the authors apply an ordinary least square (OLS) regression.

The authors find evidence that the entrepreneurial orientation of EMNEs has a positive effect on reverse innovations. Furthermore, the authors find positive effects of reverse innovation on the international performance of EMNEs. This pattern of results suggests that the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and international performance is partially mediated by reverse innovation.

The study’s findings help managers in EMNEs to promote reverse innovation by building and using their entrepreneurial orientation. It also helps them to set out and gauge the chances of success of their internationalization strategies. The findings also hold relevance for firms in developed economies as well, as they may understand which emerging economy competitors stand to threaten their positions.

The strategic role of reverse innovations – i.e. clean slate, super value and technologically advanced products originating from emerging markets – has generated considerable research attention. It is clear that reverse innovations impact the international performance of EMNEs. Yet how entrepreneurial orientation influences international performance is still underexplored. Thus, the current study clarifies the mechanism by examining and testing the mediating role of reverse innovation among the entrepreneurial orientation–international performance link.

This study aims to explore how the absorptive capacity of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) facilitates increased acquirer performance in industry exploration and technology exploration cross-border acquisitions (CBAs).

The research context for this study is Brazilian EMNEs and their CBAs. The final database contains 101 CBAs.

The authors find that industry exploration strategies negatively affect financial performance, but technology exploration strategies have a positive effect. The acquirer’s absorptive capacity can exacerbate the negative effects, except in instances of technology exploration strategies, where there is a demonstrable benefit from the acquirer’s absorptive capacity.

The study contributes first by providing a more nuanced understanding of the effects of absorptive capacity on postacquisition performance, depending on the type of knowledge explored. Second, by drawing on EMNE learning perspectives, the authors demonstrate the versatility of absorptive capacity in emerging markets.

We wanted to find out how infant multinationals originating from Poland enact opportunities in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.

We conducted a comparative case study of four Polish firms operating in SSA.

We found that when entering SSA, studied firms employed effectual decision-making logic. Thus, their internationalization was means-driven, serendipitous, partnership-oriented, based on the “affordable loss” principle and focused on shaping opportunities in SSA, rather than predicting, analyzing and planning any firm-specific assets or capabilities.

We illuminated the nature of the means employed in effectual internationalization and the role of partners (“effectual stakeholders”) in this process. Thus, we contribute to a deeper understanding of how infant multinationals navigate extreme uncertainty in the emerging SSA markets.

Contemporary entrepreneurial ecosystem models and frameworks advocate that culture is a criterion for entrepreneurial intention and central to entrepreneurship discourse. However, there is limited research from resource-constrained economies, such as sub-Saharan Africa and at a sub-national level. Responding to calls for bottom-up perspectives hinged on local context and heterogeneous nature, this paper aims to provide an in-depth understanding from multiple perspectives about the effect that culture and entrepreneurial intention have on the entrepreneurship process and performance in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa.

A mixed-method research design followed a sequential independent process consisting of two phases. Phase 1 included the dissemination of questionnaires to economically active participants, and 300 responses were statistically analysed. In Phase 2, 15 semi-structured interviews with influential economic development agents were conducted.

The results indicated that social legitimacy towards entrepreneurship existed and self-employment was viewed positively. However, self-employment endeavours were mainly necessity driven, and the systemic low levels of innovation, poor business competitiveness and the inability to scale were highlighted. The findings indicated that individuals venturing into business had a culture of being dependant on the government, lacking a risk appetite, fearing failure, with disparate groups suffering from a poor legacy of entrepreneurship.

Despite research done on the role of culture and entrepreneurial intention on entrepreneurial ecosystems, there are few case studies showing their influence at a sub-national level. This study responds to calls for studies on a sub-national level by exploring the influence that culture and entrepreneurial intention have on entrepreneurship in a resource-constrained metropole.

This study introduces a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the foreign direct investment (FDI) literature by multinational corporations (MNCs) focusing on emerging economies to identify the most influential authors, journals and articles in FDI research and reveals the fields' conceptual and intellectual structures. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

The study analyzed 533 articles published between 1974 and 2020 in 226 academic journals indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. We used the R language for statistical computing to map author collaboration, co-word and develop a conceptual and intellectual map of the field.

The results show that, although the FDI literature has many authors, few dominate the field. The International Business Review (IBR) and International Journal of Emerging Markets (IJoEM) are the main sources of the publications. Moreover, bibliometric laws show that our dataset follows the Lotka law of scientific productivity and Bradford law of scattering, identifying the core journals. Finally, FDI by MNCs in emerging economies research is divided into four sub-research themes related to (1) FDI determinants, (2) entry mode, (3) MNCs and FDI performance and (4) the internationalization process.

The current article provides several starting points for practitioners and researchers investigating FDI. It contributes to broadening the vision of the field and offers recommendations for future studies.

The paper aims to illuminate the platform created by a cluster organization to facilitate its internationalization and thereby enhance its regional innovation system partners' competitiveness by providing access to global value chains and boosting innovativeness.

The study draws upon the interaction approach, focusing on the interaction process, interaction partners, relationship atmosphere, and relationship environment. A qualitative study was conducted at Future Position X, a Swedish cluster organization. A total of 58 interviews were conducted, including 48 face-to-face in-depth interviews between 2017 and 2019 with six key informants at FPX, representatives from 28 SMEs, ten members of regional innovation systems to which FPX belongs, and four process leaders of regional and local networks, in addition to online interviews with ten members of the regional innovation systems conducted via Microsoft Teams in March 2021. The time span of the study provides a longitudinal perspective.

The FPX cluster collaborates with actors in the quadruple helix, maintaining a mindset that has led to a number of new partner agreements in the global arena to secure the resources and expertise necessary for cluster activities, and thereby ensuring firms in FPX networks access to platforms for international expansion. Internationalization thus expands the cluster's knowledge base beyond the traditional environment of its member firms.

Very few innovations arise from the isolated work of a lone genius. Instead, most innovation is achieved through complex, interactive, iterative and cumulative learning processes in which a variety of actors are involved. The FPX cluster organization's internationalization platform is therefore vital to the internationalization of its partners since cluster actors lack the time, resources, knowledge, experience, and networks required to break into international markets singlehandedly.

This study suggests that, for practitioners and researchers alike, the growing importance and relevance of the regional innovation system cannot be overemphasized. It also holds policy and societal implications in that FPX's global network helps regional SMEs to internationalize, in addition to inspiring international firms to establish operations in the Gävleborg region, thereby helping to strengthen the overall GIS environment. Internationalization also expands the FPX cluster's knowledge base beyond the traditional environment of its firms, an example of this being the construction start of a Microsoft data centre in the region in 2020.

FPX is financed through taxation and grant funding. By initiating projects, creating relationships and building collaborations, FPX thus contributes to collaboration between business, academia and the public sector. FPX also contributes to knowledge development of new technology by creating meeting places and networks around digital issues, such as GIS, AI, the IoT and blockchain technology.

While earlier research has concentrated on endogenous gaps critical to cluster dynamics, comparatively little attention has been paid to exogenous gaps, i.e. linkages between regional clusters and innovation partners elsewhere in the world. This study showcases the richness of interactions in the cluster against the background of wider, global innovation interactions. Future research should examine other vital questions that remain unanswered, e.g. by measuring and exploring the extent to which regional innovation systems can contribute to long-term economic growth for society.

Using intersectionality and introducing newer developments from critical cross-cultural management studies, this paper aims to discuss how diversity is applicable to changing cultural contexts.

The paper is a conceptual paper built upon relevant empirical research findings from critical cross-cultural management studies.

By applying intersectionality as a conceptual lens, this paper underscores the practical and conceptual limitations of the business case for diversity, in particular in a culturally diverse international business (IB) setting. Introducing newer developments from critical cross-cultural management studies, the authors identify the need to investigate and manage diversity across distinct categories, and as intersecting with culture, context and power.

This paper builds on previous empirical research in critical cross-cultural management studies using intersectionality as a conceptual lens and draws implications for diversity management in an IB setting from there. The authors add to the critique of the business case by showing its failures of identifying and, consequently, managing diversity, equality/equity and inclusion (DEI) in IB settings.

Organizations (e.g. MNEs) are enabled to clearly see the limitations of the business case and provided with a conceptual lens for addressing DEI issues in a more contextualized and intersectional manner.

This paper introduces intersectionality, as discussed and applied in critical cross-cultural management studies, as a conceptual lens for outlining the limitations of the business case for diversity and for promoting DEI in an IB setting in more complicated, realistic and relevant ways.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) research has focused on high-growth scale-up entrepreneurship, whereas the role of EEs in nurturing the ventures of marginalised groups like migrant women entrepreneurs (MWEs) has often been elided from extant discussions. This research explores how the EE's structure, policies and programmes advance diversity, equity and inclusion to foster MWEs, and MWEs' contribution to the dynamics and sustainability of the host country's EE based on EE actors' perspectives. We contribute to EEs' diversity, equity and inclusion, which are important but neglected social aspects of sustainable EEs.

The qualitative data was collected through thematic interviews with EE actors, including NGOs and entrepreneurial support-providing organizations based in Finland. The collected data was complemented by interviews with MWEs, archival data and published supplementary materials on ecosystem actors.

EE structure, policies, programmes and individual agency, coupled with MWEs' proactivity in lobbying the necessary actors in the required places for their interests, enhance their businesses' development. There were both impeding and fostering dynamics, which may have idiographic and contextual features. Evidently, by being occupied in various sectors, from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to socially beneficial niche service sectors, MWEs contribute to the host country's EE dynamics not only through their productive entrepreneurship but by enriching the ecosystem's resource endowments and institutional arrangements.

We argue that exploring the gender and inclusivity aspects of EEs as the accommodating context is particularly relevant, given that the United Nation's sustainable development goals 5, 8 and 10 aim to improve women's empowerment at all levels, promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, and ensuring equal opportunities and reduced inequalities within the population. Inclusion and embeddedness in EEs positively affect diversity and sustainability in the host country. Theoretically, our contribution is twofold. First, by exploring female migrants' entrepreneurial experiences within the EE based on EE actors' perspectives, we broaden the research on inclusivity in EEs and gender aspects and enrich the research on their societal impact, which has received scant attention from scholars. More specifically, we contribute to EE research with (1) a novel understanding of MWEs and EE elements, their interconnections and dynamism, (2) identifying previously ignored elements shaping MWE and (3) providing EE actor insights into the co-creation of EE for MWE. Second, by analysing the impact of MWEs' businesses on the host country's EE, we contribute to calls for research on MWE contributions to its economic environment.

This study aims to examine how external and internal conditions drive the impact of circular economy mechanism by decomposing into three policy networks in terms of reduce, reuse and recycle, to better understand the contingency model of climate change and effect of firm size on subsequent performance.

Drawing on circular economy network and resource-based view (RBV)-network-resilience strategy framework, a pooled longitudinal cross-sectional data model is developed using a sample of 4,050 Taiwanese manufacturing multinational corporations (MNCs) making foreign direct investment between 2013 and 2018. Structural equation modeling analysis is used to comprehensively examine and investigate each circular economy policy network in the context of climate change and firm size. Post hoc multigroup analysis (MGA) is also conducted.

MGA shows that the reduce policy network is positively and negatively related to manufacturing know-how and production size, respectively. The impact of reuse policy network can enhance the competence of large firms. The recycle policy network is more prominent in terms of competence enhancement of climate change.

MNCs are seeking to build circular economy policy networks to a greater extent, given climate change pressure and guidelines.

This study adds to the circular economy and RBV-network-related literature on climate change and interactions to enhance performance, echoing the recent call on the sustainability of the circular economy of MNCs.