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This paper aims to explore the ambiguity and limitations of measuring firm-level multinationality (FLM) using theoretical and empirical comparisons of existing methods. The paper puts forward a list of five key aspects that collectively serve as a tool for researchers to select the most appropriate method for future research and as a basis for the future development of methods.

Firstly, the author reviews existing methods of measuring FLM and consolidates findings into five key aspects. Secondly, the author uses the aspects to compare existing methods theoretically, and subsequently, the author groups them into three distinct streams. Thirdly, the author compares existing methods across a sample of the 35 largest European MNEs by sales in 2020 to identify and demonstrate the ambiguity and limitations of these methods.

The author identifies the five key aspects of measuring FLM: framework, aggregation, segmentation, metrics and indicators. Using empirical comparison, the author empirically confirms the limitations highlighted in the literature and shows the differences and inconsistencies among methods, which cause confusion rather than clarity in the extant literature. Additionally, the author emphasises that three distinct streams further drive the debate on the regional/global nature and present further limitations of methods not mentioned in the literature to date.

This paper provides the most comprehensive review of the existing literature on FLM, resulting in five novel aspects of measuring FLM. The analysis of a sample of 35 European firms demonstrates and identifies the ambiguity and limitations of FLM-measuring methods.

“First principles” of international business (IB) thinking should be applied systematically when assessing the functioning of internationally operating firms. The most important first principle is that entrepreneurially oriented firms seek to create, deliver and capture economic value through cross-border linkages. Such linkages invariably require complementary resources from a variety of parties with idiosyncratic vulnerabilities to be meshed. Starting from first principles allows bringing to light evidence-based insight. For instance, most companies are not global and even the world’s largest firms rarely change the location of key strategic functions. International new ventures (INVs), emerging economy multinational enterprises (MNEs) and family firms face unique vulnerabilities but also command resources that can be used to create value across borders. The quest for “optimal” international diversification appears to be a futile academic exercise, and in emerging economies with institutional voids, relational networks – and more broadly, informal institutions – are unlikely to function as scalable substitutes for formal institutions. In global value chains (GVCs), many lead firms and their partners have been able to craft governance mechanisms that reduce bounded rationality and bounded reliability challenges, and it is also critical for them to use governance as a tool to create entrepreneurial space. Finally, many of the world’s largest companies have been on successful trajectories toward reducing their climate change footprint for a few decades. But these firm-specific trajectories are fraught with challenges and cannot just be imposed via unilateral, macro-level targets decided upon by individuals and institutions lacking a clear understanding of innovation and capital expenditure processes in business.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) own and control technological resources and capabilities that make them critical actors in accelerating the transition toward net zero. Even beyond the energy sector, stakeholders are putting increasing pressure on MNEs to reduce the carbon intensity of their operations, that is, to improve their carbon performance. While there is unambiguous evidence that national climate policy is a critical catalyst for long-term carbon performance improvements, there is limited research on how MNEs’ carbon strategies react to climate policies. This chapter reviews the concepts, drivers, and strategies connected to carbon performance in the broader sustainability and management literature to clarify potential complementarities to international business (IB). The authors then highlight how MNEs will face increasing institutional complexity along two dimensions: (1) the structural diversity of institutional environments and (2) institutional dynamism, primarily reflected by public policy. The proposed conceptual framework maps these two dimensions to national and subnational levels, and the authors present two data sources that allow the quantitative analysis of country differences in the diversity and dynamism of national climate policy. The authors conclude that there are ample opportunities for IB researchers to explore MNEs’ strategic reactions to climate policy and to inform policymakers about the consequences of national climate policy in the global economy.

This chapter analyzes the efficiency levels of a circular economy (CE) with an emphasis on transaction costs. It examines the governance aspect of CE activities in comparison to the predominant linear value creation. Extant CE research in business studies tends to be descriptive and lacks a theoretical foundation, particularly in understanding CE management. Transaction cost theory explains efficiency in economic organizing, lending itself to the study of arrangements that maximize resource efficiency at continued economic virtue. The conceptualization proposes that CE transaction costs are greater than those within the linear economy (LE), primarily due to the uncertainties about reciprocal dependencies, looping material complexities, exchanging novel information, and increased contracting efforts. Geographically bounded and institutionally homogeneous CE initiatives may curb these rising costs. By bringing efficiency concerns into CE analysis, the chapter demonstrates the applicability of transaction cost theory and highlights CE relevance to international business by pointing out spatial choice implications.

It is important for an exporting manufacturer to motivate its foreign channel partners to sell and promote its products. An excellent way to motivate such foreign channel partners is to give them exclusive territories. Unfortunately, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the determinants of territorial exclusivity. This study aims to investigate the relationship between organizational culture and territorial exclusivity and the moderating role of firm size in this relationship.

Survey data were collected from manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Japan. To test the hypotheses, a regression analysis was conducted using the ordinary least squares technique.

Empirical evidence shows that the cultural values of collectivism and uncertainty avoidance influence territorial exclusivity; collectivist exporters are likely to use territorial exclusivity, whereas exporters with high uncertainty avoidance are not likely to use it. Furthermore, the larger the firm size, the smaller the impact of cultural values on territorial exclusivity; this suggests that large SMEs do not rely on their organizational culture to make decisions about exclusive territories.

The export marketing literature emphasizes the advantages of exclusive territories. By contrast, the channel management literature suggests that exclusive territories also have disadvantages. As exclusive territories have both advantages and disadvantages, it is crucial to answer the following question: What kinds of exporting manufacturers grant exclusive territories to their foreign channel partners? By addressing this question, this study contributes to a better understanding of export channel strategy.

This is a response to “Taming wicked problems”, a paper recently published in CPOIB in which modern slavery is framed as a wicked problem. The purpose of this study is to convey the author’s appraisal of its contribution to policymaking regarding modern slavery in global supply chains.

The author engages in a discursive review of “Taming wicked problems”, taking inspiration from its perceived strengths and weaknesses to expand on the problem of modern slavery as a challenge to international business (IB) researchers.

“Taming wicked problems” is welcomed as a provocative contribution to modern slavery research in IB, although it is perceived to give too little critical attention to the problem of modern slavery itself.

This is, by design, a subjective assessment of the treatment of modern slavery and policy from the perspective of an IB researcher who has previously studied the phenomenon without a wicked problem framing.

Modern slavery is a serious problem for IB scholars, as they have failed to extrapolate it from their analysis of international business strategy. This paper is intended to advance the disciplinary defence of vulnerable workers exploited to the ultimate benefit of MNEs.

IB must engage critically with international business strategies that heighten the risk of human rights violations. The persistence of modern slavery disadvantages all persons in employment.

This paper seeks to better define the offense implicit in modern slavery so to inform critical IB research into its causes and deterrence.

This study aims to examine the effect of exploratory innovation offshoring on the level of hierarchical control and how this effect is moderated by transnational and dynamic environments.

This study draws on a sample of 148 Taiwanese multinational enterprises to examine their governance decisions on foreign investments.

Findings show that the more innovation offshoring is exploratory, the higher the level of hierarchical control will be used by multinational enterprises (MNEs) and that transnational and dynamic environments have different moderation effects on the positive exploratory innovation offshoring-hierarchical control relationship.

This study has two theoretical implications. First, this study extends the concept of complexity from a transaction attribute level (problem) to an environmental level (transnational environment) and finds that exploratory innovation offshoring and transnational environments interactively impact governance choices. Second, this study distinguishes between two sources of technological uncertainty – uncertainty due to transaction-level attributes (exploratory innovation offshoring) and external environments (dynamic environments) and finds that exploratory innovation offshoring and dynamic environments interactively impact governance choices.

The practical implication of this study lies in the simultaneous consideration of exploratory innovation offshoring and transnational/dynamic environments, which will allow international decision-makers to adjust/select the governance forms most appropriate for speedy responding to and handling environmental changes.

This study employs the theoretical perspectives of transaction cost economics (TCE) and resource-based view (RBV) to analyze and discuss the impact of operational environments – transnational and dynamic environments – on MNEs’ decisions on the governance structure for a given innovation offshoring.

Research on the organizational ramifications of chief executive officer (CEO) greed remains scarce. This study intends to fill this gap by examining the impact of CEO greed on an important yet risky corporate strategy, corporate tax avoidance (CTA). Drawing on upper echelons theory, the authors argue that greedier CEOs tend to engage in more CTA. The relationship is weaker when CEOs experienced economic recessions in their early career and stronger when CEOs are endowed with equity ownership of their respective firms.

The authors test the hypotheses with data from US public firms from 1997 to 2008 and employ the ordinary least square regression analysis to analyze the hypothesized relationships. The authors also test the robustness of the results by performing the two-stage least square regression and propensity score matching analyses.

The findings lend broad support to all the hypotheses. The authors find that greedier CEOs tend to engage in more CTA by paying lower corporate taxes. The impact of greed on CTA is attenuated when CEOs are recession CEOs and is exacerbated when CEOs own large numbers of firm shares.

This paper contributes to the upper echelons research by investigating a novel executive personal characteristic, greed, and its negative impact on an important organizational outcome. This paper also contributes to the growing tax research that recognizes the important role executives play in shaping corporate tax strategies.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between geographic diversification (GD) and export performance (EP) by analysing a sample of small exporters in an emerging market.

The study sample comprised 96 small and medium-sized exporting enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. The data is analysed using multiple regression analysis (MRA), Hayes' process model and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results indicate that GD significantly negatively affects EP. In this dilemma, the export market orientation (EMO) and digital transformation positively moderated the relationship between GD and EP, such that the negative effect of GD on EP was weaker when EMO and digital were stronger.

This initial study contributes significantly to international business theories and practices, which reveal the role of GD via firm digital capacity and EMO in thriving SMEs’ EP. This study might grant new insight into international business and a critical approach to addressing the new insights small firms may face in a fragile but technologically advanced world.

The paper aims to measure the nature and extent of international diversification followed by Indian companies over the period 2009–10 to 2017–18. The study also aims to assess the pattern of transition of companies to various strategies of international diversification.

Jacquemin and Berry’s (1979) entropy approach has been applied to measure the extent and assess the nature of international diversification. Further, the study deploys two-dimensional categorical framework advocated by Vachani (1991) and categorizes the firms into four international diversification strategies.

Larger proportion of companies in internationally low diversification (ILD) strategy reveals low extent of international diversification of Indian companies. The pattern of diversification depicts that the trend of moving forward is speeding up sequentially toward higher strategies of growth. Both the extent and pattern depict that the nature of diversification is shifting from relatedness to un-relatedness with transitions from intra-regions to inter-regions. The study confirms the applicability of eclectic theory and psychic distance Uppsala model in determining the preference of international diversification strategies and process of internationalization respectively in Indian firms.

The paper is first of its kind on account of several reasons. First, such a comprehensive evaluation of preferences for international diversification strategies has never been taken up with reference to emerging economies, especially India. Second, the paper is not static and does not limit itself only to the identification of favored strategies of Indian companies but also gauges the transitional behavior of Indian companies across different strategies at different points of time. In fact it is the first study to statistically research the applicability of psychic distance model in firms in emerging economy. Third, the results not only measure the quantum of international diversification but also assess the extent of relatedness and un-relatedness followed by Indian companies.