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Purpose – We seek explanation for the existence of international activity in industries whose characteristics provide conflicting rationales for international expansion. In such industries, the competitive value of some industrial characteristics is magnified by international expansion, whereas the value of others is undermined by these moves. The tension is amplified in the presence of sustainability concerns and the quest for meeting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals.Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on case studies of the world's largest multinational enterprise (MNE) producers of hydropower plant equipment, which provide representative examples of MNEs in renewable energy industries. We examine the strategic balances that these MNEs strike to deal with the conflicting pressure of international strategy and their performance outcomes.Findings – The insights we generate from the case studies suggest that there might be plural ways to successfully address such tensions, and firms’ histories and competitive advantages shape the choices they make in the face of these conflicts.Implications – Our contribution is of notable merits in the contemporary world whereby the pressure for international expansion extends to industries whose characteristics both favour and inhibit international activity. We outline the distinctive impact that sustainability concerns have in this tension.Originality/value of chapter – Our study serves to deepen the understanding of international activity in the renewable energy sector, a relatively understudied sector, whose significance in the world economy and in international business is growing rapidly. It is novel in extending the tension of international activity to include sustainability and CSR concerns.

Access to affordable and sustainable energy is crucial for the improvement of the well-being of modern societies. Most energy technologies require comparatively high up-front investment, which adds to the challenge of electrification, despite the recognized multiple benefits. Partnership with multinational enterprises (MNEs) can provide necessary investment in infrastructure, finance, and technology for renewable energy and contribute to improving development indicators. However, remote areas with poor infrastructure do not have access to MNEs that are profit seekers. The Brazil experience with MNEs and “Light for All” (LfA) program shows that people gaining access to electricity invest more in businesses, education, health, and women reduce their drudgery at household chores. However, areas having a poor infrastructure in the north remain out of electricity, and attempts to create universal access were failed until a regulatory incentive framework and particular attention from the government was established. This is a great learning for the developing countries aiming to achieve sustainable development goals. A host country can gain development cooperation from MNEs with rightly formulated and implemented policies and regulatory conditions.

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 aims to analyze the roles that African suppliers play in global value chains and the strategies that foreign firms adopt to integrate African firms into their supply chains.

The empirical research of this paper is based on a multiple case study and on interview data of foreign buyers and their entry into African supply markets: five Finnish companies and five Chinese companies were interviewed in 2014-2015.

The authors find that Finnish firms make relatively small investments and start sourcing operations on a small scale, whereas Chinese firms are running large infrastructural projects, relying on local sourcing. African firms typically only play modest roles with little value capture in the chain, supplying raw materials and simple products. The African infrastructural and cultural context makes it challenging for foreign firms to provide local suppliers with more strategic roles in their chains, thus hindering integration of local firms into global value chains.

This paper is one of the first to offer a comparison of Finnish (Western) and Chinese (other emerging economy) firms’ sourcing from Africa and provides understanding of the role of African suppliers in current value chains. The authors offer a qualitative exploration of why companies invest in African suppliers and of the scope of African presence in global value chains.

This study aims to examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) with the opportunity- and innovation-based view of multinational subsidiaries (MNSs) in Vietnam. While CSR has traditionally been investigated in the developed market, this paper demonstrates how MNSs can take advantage of their CSR practises and create business opportunities and innovation activities for themselves and local society in Vietnam.

This is an exploratory qualitative research-based on four MNSs that have practised CSR in Vietnam. Data were collected from 18 individual interviews with managers and business leaders in four case firms.

This study finds that CSR activities in the studied firms potentially drive new business opportunities and innovation in the form of product, process, idea and management practises. In addition, both opportunities and innovation also benefit MNSs and the local community in Vietnam.

The paper makes clear that CSR literature varies depending on the different countries or areas where the studies take place and these studies tend to focus on a specific area that was appropriate within a particular socio-economic and political context. Given that the business context in Vietnam is characterised by opportunities and incentives for innovation from the socio-economic of the context of a South East Asian developing market, the research provides an important first step in the integration and consolidation of CSR practises, opportunities and innovation. In light of the findings presented above, the study provides an important contribution to the CSR literature, particularly the CSR practises of multinational corporations (MNCs) in developing countries.

The study suggests that CSR practitioners in Asian emerging countries should ground themselves in an understanding of the local society and try to gain an understanding of the priorities of local stakeholders. MNCs should develop an appreciation of the context in which CSR is initiated, as addressing such issues often inspires firms to bring in social innovations in the form of products, services and processes and discover or create opportunities based on the emergent social problems through business solutions that overall benefit their business and local stakeholders.

This is one of the first studies to explore the interaction between MNSs undertaking CSR and business opportunities and innovation in the context of a developing country – Vietnam.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for evaluating the relationship between China and Peru, drawing on dependency theory, against the backdrop of China’s explicit policies towards foreign direct investment. It seeks to transcend traditional interpretations of this relationship in the literature that focuses on China as either hegemon or a South–South partner to Latin American countries to highlight a more nuanced relationship.

The paper adopts a case study approach, focusing on China in Peru. The authors examine three areas of traditional, strategic and emerging industries drawing from Chinese national policies, reviewing these against characteristics of dependency: control of production, heterogeneity of actors, transfer of knowledge and delinking.

The authors find that Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Peru demonstrates mixed motives and collectively operates as an ambiguous player. Chinese firms appear to be willing to work with various actors, but this engagement does not translate into a decolonial development alternative in the absence of a Peruvian political will to delink and Chinese willingness to actively transfer control of production and knowledge.

This paper contributes to existing literature on China in Latin America by evaluating Chinese outward FDI in Peru against China’s strategic aims in terms of a re-evaluation of dependency theory.

Taking the deadliest mine accident in Turkey’s history as a case of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI), this study aims to examine the adequacy of Campbell’s (2007) model to explain firms’ CSI behaviour.

The authors applied a case study research method and collected secondary data in both English and Turkish from multiple sources between 2010 and 2017.

The authors found seven of the eight propositions in Campbell’s framework applicable. The only condition that did not fit the authors’ case was financial pressure. The authors concluded that top management’s greed and lack of conscience significantly contributed to their gross negligence of safety measures and employee welfare. Their exploitative human resource practices, supported by low employee voice culture, added to the vulnerability of the mining workers.

The authors depended on secondary data in developing and analysing the case. The authors had no primary data collected directly from the participants involved in the accident. Moreover, relying on a single case to challenge an established framework may not achieve the necessary rigour, although an in-depth case study is likely to produce a good story.

To prevent mining accidents from happening, Turkey needs to strengthen all three types of institutions (legal and regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive) related to mining safety. As coal mining is harmful to the environment and public health, regulators and policymakers need to consider their dependence on coal mining as a source of energy and actively seek to adopt other clean energy alternatives.

This study contributes to the under-researched field of CSI by applying a dual economic and institutional perspective and refining it with the authors’ data.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the evolution, characteristics, motivations, entry patterns, organizational structure and effectiveness of the internationalization of Chinese research institutions in the past 40 years of reform and opening-up.

This paper describes the evolution and practice of Chinese research institutions “going out” by constructing a theoretical framework diagram and uses official statistics and existing research to explain the authors’ points.

The research results show that the internationalization of research institutions has undergone four phases: sprout period, starting period, adjustment period and accelerating period. It shows a rapid growth of investment scale, diversification of investment entities, rich and varied forms, and transition to major countries along the “One Belt and One Road.” Expanding the international market, tracking and acquiring technological frontiers, nurturing domestic R&D talents, and evading the risks of political, economic, cultural and scientific differences between home and host countries are the main motivations for Chinese research institutions to “go global.” Multinational corporations have entered the host country with modes such as M&A, greenfield investment and joint R&D alliances in their own strengths and also presented a variety of organizational structures such as integrated R&D networks.

This paper systematically summarizes the internationalized experience model of research institutions with Chinese characteristics since the reform and opening-up. From the perspective of internationalization model transformation, policy integration and cooperation among emerging economies, it presents the opportunities and challenges faced by the research institutions in the process of internationalization and provides a theoretical basis for improving the internationalization ability of research institutions.

In this exploratory multiple case study, we aim to compare the internationalization of two state-owned enterprises (SOEs) owned by subnational governments with three owned by central governments in Latin America. This study provides a contextualized answer to the question: What are the differences in the internationalization of subnationally owned SOEs compared to central SOEs? This study finds that the speed and diversification of these two types of SOEs’ internationalization differ because they have a different expansion logic. Subnationally owned SOEs have a gradual and diversified expansion following market rules. Central government’s SOEs are specialized and take more drastic steps in their internationalization, which relates to non-market factors.

This study builds an exploratory qualitative comparative case analysis that uses multiple sources of data and information to develop a comprehensive understanding of SOEs through process tracing.

The study posits some assumptions that are confirmed in the case analysis. This study finds relevant differences between sub-national (SSOEs) and central authority (CSOEs’) strategies. SSOEs’ fewer resources and needs to increase income push them to follow a gradual market-driven internationalization and to diversify abroad. CSOEs non-gradual growth is justified by non-market factors (i.e. national politics). CSOEs do not diversify abroad due to the broader set of constituencies they have to face.

Given the exploratory comparative case study of this research, the findings are bounded by the particularities of the cases and their region (Latin America). This paper and its findings can be useful for theory building but it does not claim any generalization capacity.

This study adds complexity into the SOEs phenomenon by distinguishing between different types of SOEs. This paper contributes to the study of subnational phenomena and its effect in SOEs’ internationalization process, which is an understudied topic. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is among the first studies that explore subnational SOEs in Latin America.