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Sustainability and resilience challenges persist globally due to the lack of coordinated action among firms and community stakeholders. This is even more challenging for multinational corporations (MNCs) interacting across multiple, and often diverse, institutional environments. To be effective, MNCs’ sustainability efforts must respond to interdependent functions and systems in communities and rely on adaptive governance frameworks targeting long-term initiatives. The authors highlight the importance of public–private interconnections to promote resilience and enable the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The authors introduce a methodology to analyze community resilience and present an in-depth, single case study of New Orleans. Findings provide important insights for the international business (IB) literature, but also critical implications for policymakers and practitioners.

We analyzed the global historical change between 2007 and 2014, mainly emanating from economic and political games played between the USA and European countries starting with the Great Crisis and ending with Arab Spring, from the perspective of contemporary philosophy, and found that it not only growth reducing effect but also devastating effects on Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region due to the deterioration of governance. This chapter, by conducting empirical analysis, brings new definitions to existing concepts such as rules of the game, homosapien and sage. The Great Crisis is not a global crisis, but a trans-Atlantic financial crisis initiated by the incapable corporate governance of US-based financial multinational corporations (MNCs). The crisis faced by MENA countries that are exposed to Arab Spring as of 2012 is not the economic spillover effect of the Great Crisis but a consequence of political destabilization as a result of deteriorating governance structures in the region by developed countries under the name of Arab Spring. Not the entire-region, but only the countries exposed to Arab Spring, have experienced negative growth.

This research explores how subsidiary embeddedness in different networks, both internal and external to the firm, contributes to the innovation of the service multinational corporation (MNC). Specifically, the authors analyze the different effects of networks on MNC’s subsidiaries performing competence-creating or competence-exploiting innovation activities, in the context of the service industry. The present study analyzes the data of 178 foreign-owned subsidiaries in the service sector performing innovation in Spain. The results of data analysis at two points in time show that external and internal embeddedness have a positive impact on the subsidiary innovation. Moreover, external embeddedness has a major positive influence on the competence-creating rather than on the competence-exploiting activities, while the internal embeddedness is equally important for both types of innovation. Therefore, this study contributes to further our understanding of how subsidiaries’ linkages affect innovation of the service MNC.

This empirical chapter contributes to international business (IB) research on the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) by opening a new research trajectory on sustainable headquarters (HQ) buildings. This multidisciplinary study conceptualizes the notion of a sustainable HQ based on a case study and three streams of literature – research on HQs, sustainable office design and the SDGs in IB. It offers a novel angle to prior research on HQs that has largely focused on their functional roles. While IB scholars are increasingly embracing the SDGs, limited attention has been devoted to SDG 11, “sustainable cities and communities.” This chapter draws on a real-time, longitudinal, single case study of a Nordic multinational in renewable products. The authors adopt a future-facing, phenomenon-based approach to envision and reimagine the modern wooden corporate HQ building on a culturally sensitive site in the heart of Helsinki, Finland. The findings emphasize the environmental, social, economic and cultural considerations of HQ buildings. By combining HQ premises with commercial spaces, and by opening the building to citizens, sustainable HQ buildings create a lively city space and increase urban social cohesion. The use of wood as a construction material and the application of design principles that promote human–nature relationships, have a positive impact on climate and human health. By focusing on the physical building, the authors aim to change the way IB scholars understand and study the role of HQ as a part of sustainable cities.

Building industrial clusters is getting much more political attention and strategic orientation in all developing countries. This study started by revising the conceptual and theoretical frameworks for industrial clusters, followed by some insights and contributions about empirical bases for clusters' dynamics and processes. The study focused on the case of Agadir Agreement between four Arab countries (Egypt, Jordon, Morocco, and Tunisia), which was initiated after the Euro-Mediterranean partnerships, and the rationale of the agreement was based on the concept of cumulative value-added origin. The study based its methodology on analyzing the international and bilateral trade flows of six industrial goods from the automotive sector among the four countries and with the EU countries to detect the degree of industrial collaboration and the achieved success of each country in this sector. The study indicated that the four countries used the concept of industrial clusters for economic development, but the results of the analysis showed that till now Agadir Agreement only achieved a shallow integration, while failed to deeply integrate as one big collaborative industrial cluster.

This chapter deals with the issue of the role of imitation and innovation in explaining economic growth in the context of the Polish economy, taking the endogenous growth theory and the technology catch-up theory as guidelines. This issue is extremely important as Poland faces the urgent need to reduce productivity gap through investments in R&D and/or the absorption of foreign technologies.

The aim of this chapter is to find the effects of innovation and imitation on economic performance of Poland and shed light on possible outcome differences between these two kinds of activities.

The empirical analysis uses data on innovation, imitation and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Polish economy between 2005 and 2021, collected from a few statistical sources. We apply the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to find the impact of innovation and imitation on economic growth.

The results suggest that R&D investments positively affect economic performance of the Polish economy, whereas the impact of imitation activities on GDP appears to be insignificant.

This chapter describes the business goals, purpose, and strategy of public diplomatic services. It reinforces diplomatic organizations’ fundamental bureaucratic administrative culture (Tier 1). The bureaucratic culture of diplomacy is deconstructed, and each of the five layers is described in detail. The authors also explain why focusing on the artifacts and behavior layers are the dominant and essential starting points for analysis in diplomatic cultures. The public service culture (Tier 2) overlays and mediates the bureaucratic culture.

Additionally, the authors describe the influence that political appointees as leaders may play in shaping public service cultures. Next, the authors explain how diplomatic cultures reflect the core values of a state’s culture. Next, the chapter outlines the landscape of external influencing cultures (Tier 3) in diplomacy. Finally, the knowledge, learning, and collaboration (KLC) culture of diplomacy is considered, with opportunities for future growth.