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Implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) has proven a significant challenge for companies. While multinational enterprises (MNEs) have shown a real intention to contribute to these goals, they face major barriers in implementing the SDGs in their core business strategies. Extant academic studies on this phenomenon have primarily explored why companies “should” address the SDG agenda but have not (yet) explored what “works,” what does not “work,” and why. Therefore, evidence of a sizable gap between intention and realization is growing. Besides, there is a limited explanation for the existence of this gap and no validated implementation models that could help overcome it. Additionally, management research remains relatively fragmented. The diversity of existing theoretical and empirical frameworks makes it difficult to consolidate scientific and practical insights on “how” to guide companies to accelerate the global goals through their core operations.

This study is one of the first attempts to draw lessons from extant research on effective SDGs’ implementation strategies. For that, we upgrade the “SDG Compass,” which has been recognized as a leading framework for SDGs implementation in companies’ core activities. A critical assessment of the literature on the SDGs implementation has been conducted through a systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis. This has helped us identify gaps in the SDG implementation practice and accumulate relevant insights supporting a more integrated and upgraded implementation framework: the SDG Compass+. This framework can advance coordinated theoretical and practical research by identifying the antecedents and critical factors of impactful SDG implementation strategies.

A cascade of crises that materialized in particular over the 2019–2022 period, increases the relevance for international business (IB) scholarship to address the following question: whether, to what extent and under what circumstances can multinational enterprises (MNEs) rescue the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and make sure that nobody is left behind in a globalized world where the opposite seems to be the case? For many MNEs, slow progress in implementing the SDGs in a more strategic and transformational manner does not necessarily hint at a lack of interest with management, but also at a lack of solid knowledge and/or experience in how to implement general development ambitions like the SDGs. This introductory chapter defines the intellectual and managerial challenges ahead. It refers to relevant efforts already done in the IB community – with reference to IB journals that issued special editions on the topic – and explains why five angles have been chosen to cluster the contributions in this volume which are also aimed to enhance further progress in the study of MNEs and the SDGs: (1) general, (2) strategic, (3) operational, (4) contextual and (5) misbehavior.

Rob van Tulder is Professor of International Business-Society Management at the Rotterdam School of Management/Erasmus University Rotterdam. He holds a PhD degree (cum laude) in social sciences from the University of Amsterdam. He has been visiting professor at a number of universities and consultant to international organisations (such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union), multinational enterprises, non-governmental organisations and ministries around the world. He is co-founder of the department of Business-Society Management, one of the leading departments in the world studying and teaching about the contribution of business and society. He founded the SCOPE databank project, which in collaboration with UNCTAD compiles the listings of the world's largest multinational enterprises from developed and developing countries. Every year this list is published and referred as ‘UNCTAD/Erasmus University databank’. Dr. van Tulder is co-founder of the Expert Centre on Sustainable Business and Development Cooperation and rotating chair of the Department of Business-Society Management. Rob is presently also academic director of the Partnerships Resource Centre (http://www.partnershipsresourcecentre.org), which studies the cross-sector partnerships between firms, NGOs and government for sustainable development. The Resource Centre itself is organised as a partnership among business schools, multinational enterprises, governments and NGOs.

The purpose of this study is to reflect on the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework as a milestone for concerted efforts to tackle the underlying grand challenges.

This viewpoint is predominantly conceptual in nature. However, this study adapts the University of Auckland's SDG key words to broadly map existing international business research in each SDG category across nine journals.

The SDG framework offers a positive and inclusive way forward to integrate social and environmental with economic aspects in the field of international business.

The inclusive nature of the SDG framework may achieve what previous labels such as social value creation and corporate social responsibility could not. It offers a path where integrating social and environmental with economic perspectives does not need to threaten the identity of the field. The SDG mapping exercise across nine selected journals clearly demonstrates that mainstream, economically focused research can continue to make valuable contributions to the SDGs as long as the discipline allows more room for integrators.

Sustainable development requires businesses to improve their positive and reduce their negative impacts. This chapter discusses how the impact of business on sustainable development can be measured and managed using the sustainable development goals (SDGs). First, it introduces two complementary approaches for measuring impact: a top-down approach that departs from the economic activities that companies undertake; and a bottom-up approach that defines the impacts of individual companies. Second, it argues that companies can manage their impacts on the SDGs through a nexus approach. Instead of treating SDGs as isolated silos, a nexus approach aims to advance multiple SDGs simultaneously (creating co-benefits) while reducing the risk that contributions to one SDG undermine progress on another (avoiding trade-offs).