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Country institutions have become of heightened importance for firms’ international strategies in recent years. Herein, I review the reasons for the growing importance of institutional environments and examine how they influence the international strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs). There have been significant changes in the global, economic and competitive landscapes in recent years. These changes are examined.

Three critical and interrelated changes in the global competitive landscape are identified. They include (1) more interconnected (interdependent) national economies, (2) a significantly larger number of multinational firms and (3) growing importance of emerging economies (and their MNEs). These changes have increased the importance of countries institutional environments. Country institutions, both formal institutions (codified and explicit rules and standards that shape behavior) and informal institutions (Shared norms that guide cohesive behaviors) are examined. I explain the influences of institutional complexity, institutional distance and geographic regions on firms’ international strategies.

Research has shown that both culture (informal institution) and formal institutions are interrelated and affect firms’ strategies. And, while specific institutions such as intellectual property protection (law and enforcement) are important, the collective influence of institutions has a critical influence on firms’ international strategies. And, institutions are multilevel (national, regional and local-municipal). The institutional complexity (combined effects of multiple institutions and their diversity) is carefully considered in executives’ strategic decisions. When firms consider entering a new foreign market, they also consider the institutional distance between the home and host countries. The differences in culture and in formal institutions compose the institutional distance and affect whether and how firms enter these markets. Greater institutional distance contributes to the liabilities of foreignness the challenges of which must be managed effectively to succeed in the new market. And the effects of institutional distance are asymmetric depending on whether the firm’s home country institutions are stronger/more developed or weaker/less developed than the host country institutions. Finally, many firms follow regional international strategies in which they invest in selected regions of the world. Recent research suggests firms enter regions that have attractive institutional profiles and engage in institutional arbitrage across the countries in those regions.

This essay provides the base for additional research by identifying a number of important research questions on institutions and international strategy.

This essay highlights the importance of institutions for firms’ strategies. Understanding institutions and their influence contributes to more effective executives’ strategic decisions and more effective national and international policies.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) research and practice has expanded and evolved rapidly in recent years, little is known about how MNC subsidiaries develop their CSR strategies and how they reconcile global and local demands and pressures from both institutions and stakeholders. The paper aims to understand how institutions and stakeholder pressures interact at both national and international levels and how these interactions shape MNC subsidiaries' CSR in Bangladesh.

Multiple case studies were used to investigate the CSR practices of 10 MNC subsidiaries operating in Bangladesh. To collect data, twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted. For supplementing primary data, secondary data from annual reports and websites were collected.

The article demonstrates that the practice of CSR in Bangladesh is a result of pressures exerted by parent companies, international institutions and international stakeholders. The article reveals how lack of pressure from local stakeholders and institutions enables subsidiaries to gain traction and use their agency to apply globalised CSR conceptualisations not necessarily applicable to the localised context.

The study has synthesised existing approaches to develop a multilevel framework for understanding how the intricate interactions between institutions and stakeholders from different levels (i.e. national and international levels) determine the trajectory of CSR adopted by subsidiaries in developing countries. This interaction undoubtedly plays a key role in determining the types of CSR strategy being enacted, the potential agency of different actors to shape change and the extent to which such pressures are likely to lead to CSR strategies that actually reflect and respond to the needs of local stakeholders.

The performance analysis of top 50 management institutions of India is conducted to understand their efficiency in utilizing available resources. The importance of different indicators is investigated to identify most preferred strategies of top management institutions in the country in order to meet the expectations of all stakeholders. Artificial neural networks models are applied for pattern recognition and classification purpose using self-organized map algorithms. A huge reservoir of young generation is being trained every year to meet the demand of business in different sectors of economies. It becomes a matter of concern to know the performance of the management institutes to ensure the overall national progress, which can be done by enabling organizations to improve their efficiency and effectiveness, provided the right information and skills are served. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and self-organizing maps are utilized together to take advantages of optimization and prediction capabilities inherent in each method, and they may be beneficial to assess institution’s competitive position and design their own strategies in order to improve. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The DEA is used to understand the utilization of resources by institutions on the bases of efficiency scores. Due to a greater flexibility and adaptability, neural technique, i.e. self-organized map, which is an artificial intelligence-based technique, a popular unsupervised learning model with a capability to capture patterns from data sets, is used. In this study, various parameters like qualification of faculty, research output of faculty members, expenditure made for functioning of the institution, etc., are considered. These academic and operational indicators are investigated in relation to the rank score and the efficiency score of top management institutions, and different strategies as a combination of input as well as output indicators are identified.

In the analysis, three types of strategies are identified. At present, the focus on salary packages of graduates seems the most utilized strategy. It is also observed that the strategy of having good performance, in terms of consultancy, peer and employer perception, has the highest success rate (in terms of score used for ranking). Results obtained using both techniques shows that due to high deviation and less explored research publications and sponsored research project is an opportunity that institutions can work upon to have maximum output. But to maintain consistency in terms of the high rank score and efficiency score, management institutions need to focus on consultancy, peer and employer perception.

This research identifies the different parameters categorized into various inputs and outputs for the management institutions in India for the benchmarking. It studies the importance of identified parameters in terms of success (rank score and efficiency score). Further investigation of relationship between parameters and success is conducted. Different strategies as a combination of parameters are identified. The current choice of top management institutions is revealed in terms of their preference and effectiveness of strategy. This research also provides some insight about long-term and short-term strategies, which may be beneficial to education managers or decision makers.

It is one of the rare papers in terms of performance measurement through data envelopment method and identification of strategy using artificial intelligence. This paper utilized a hybrid methodology that integrates these two data analytic methods to capture an innovative performance and strategies prediction in education system.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the effects of market-based and nonmarket-based strategies on firm performance in African countries. This study also investigates host country institutions' effect on the relationship between firm strategies and performance in these countries.

Data of 1,276 firms in five African countries were obtained from two different sources: The World Bank Enterprise Database and The Global Competitiveness Report. Two-stage least squares regression was applied.

Both market-based strategies and corporate political activity (CPA)improve firm performance in the African countries included in the analysis. Institutional development also has a direct positive impact on firm performance. However, the effect of CPA weakens as the host country shifts towards more efficient, market-oriented institutions. Furthermore, the results show that local African firms benefit more from institutional development than foreign firms.

The paper confirms and extends our understanding of the dynamic fit between institutions and strategy by highlighting the moderating role of institutional development on CPA and market-based strategies in enhancing firm performance.

The extant research highlights the importance of understanding the micro-level mechanisms for the development of firm-level international business theories. One of them is institution-based view on strategy in emerging markets that highlights the importance of institutional factors for local actors' decision-making. It attracted significant attention of international business scholars, and it is timely to assess existing body of knowledge about how and why managers and entrepreneur respond to institutional forces. I argue that in this context, a better understanding of microfoundations of these responses is extremely useful for unveiling the complexity associated with institutional influence on emerging market firms' strategy. I undertake a problematizing review to critically examine the current state of research in this field. In doing this, I shed light on the role of managers and entrepreneurs from different national, generational and social backgrounds in shaping institution-based strategies and inform the talent management research about the capabilities and strategies that EM managers and entrepreneurs mobilize to address institutional pressures.

Higher education institutions around the world compete with one another in the internationalization zone. One of the biggest competitions centers on the mobility of students fighting for the share from the student market pie. The Turkish higher education system, as an emerging competitor, also participates in this competition. While many studies focus on international students in Turkish higher education institutions, the literature lacks information about why Turkish institutions participate in this game, and what tools and strategies they use in this endeavor. This study examined the rationales and strategies of higher education institutions using a semistructured online survey data collected from international offices at participating institutions. Findings revealed that Turkish higher education institutions attract international students to create a multicultural environment by increasing diversity at the campus and to increase the quality of the institution. In contrast to the findings in the literature, seeing international students as institutional revenue source was not among the rationales mentioned by the participant institutions. Besides the rationales, findings also revealed the strategies institutions use for their international student recruitment. Paralleling with the trending mechanisms used worldwide, Turkish institutions use similar strategies such as participating in fairs and events, advertisement through technology, web and social media, and using agents; however, there are also unique mechanisms created by Turkish institutions including visiting parents of current international students, high school visits, and summer camps as effective strategies. Additional research, with broader scope and depth is needed to better understand the internationalization of Turkish higher education.

The purpose of this study is to understand the role institutions play in driving the internationalization of firms in an emerging country through promotion of coopetition. Investigating the relationships between coopetition, institutions and internationalization, especially among firms in emerging countries, is an important approach that has received little attention.

This study has used a single case study interviewing managers of Brazilian wineries and representatives of formal institutions in an emerging economy. A research framework taking an institutions-based view of strategy and applying it to study coopetition and internationalization is proposed.

Formal institutions are the most important players in the promotion of coopetition between firms in the Brazilian wine industry. Coopetition enables firms to access new resources and capabilities, promoting and facilitating internationalization, while also increasing firms’ competitiveness in the domestic market. The study also found evidence of certain limiting factors within these relationships, caused by the heterogeneous nature of the firms involved and by the asymmetries in their perceptions of the gains achieved.

As a consequence of the methodology adopted, the results of this study are limited to the Brazilian wine industry. Future research should extend the approach to data collected in different countries and industries. Another promising avenue for research is to explore how decisions of a political nature influence the institutions that coordinate an industry, which would provide a new perspective on the internationalization of the firms involved.

The results offer governments and institutions an opportunity to better understand, and therefore to better manage, their actions in relation to their role in the promotion of the competitiveness of firms and industries, both in international and domestic markets. For firms, the results offer insights into the possible gains and the limitations of coopetition strategies, contributing to their decision-making on involvement. The study also contributes to understanding the competitiveness of the industry investigated.

This study approaches coopetition from the institutional perspective. It also focuses on internationalization of firms from an emerging country, which is characterized by a lack of firm-specific resources. The proposed framework seems promising for future research investigating coopetition and institutions within an integrated analytical framework.

This research aims to identify the most suitable intergenerational learning strategies for the private higher education institutions, using the analytic network process.

In order to achieve this goal, two private higher education institutions from Curacao and Spain are analyzed. Data are collected based on a systematic literature review and Delphi studies and processed using the analytic network process.

The results show that teachers also learn at the workplace not only through the formal educational system but also through volunteering activities, mixed-aged teams, and mentoring, which are the most appropriate strategies for fostering intergenerational learning in the private higher education institutions. Besides, their selection is strongly influenced by institution's structural capital (namely, institutional policy, organizational culture, organizational memory) and by employees' psychological profile (such as interpersonal trust, knowledge self-efficiency, motivation).

This research helps the policymakers to prepare for the upcoming aging society by providing them with a viable tool for selecting the most suitable IGL strategy. Furthermore, it supports strategic thinking and scenario development by emphasizing how the situation could change if the importance of the individual and organizational factors varies.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the network strategies of academic libraries and presents an approach to the evaluation of strategic plans and their implementation.

The balanced scorecard approach is used as a framework for organisations to communicate and implement their strategic plans.

It is shown in this study that the balanced scorecard also provides a general framework for the evaluation of the strategy and performance from different perspectives.

The concept of the strategy map is used to illustrate the objectives of the strategic plans of the consortium of libraries.

This study contributes to the knowledge and practice of the strategic planning of libraries. The findings of the study are useful for those who seek to achieve cost‐efficiency with the increased and networked cooperation of libraries.

This study reviews the literature on institutional theory in international business and examines the institutional factors behind the success or failure of multinational corporations (MNCs) in emerging markets.

This systematic literature review analysed 116 peer-reviewed articles published in leading journals between 2005 and 2022. The R package Bibliometrix and VOSviewer visualization software were used for analysis. A hybrid methodology combining bibliometric and content analyses was utilized to obtain a descriptive evaluation of the publication impact along with a keyword co-occurrence map, context-specific institutional effects and subsidiary strategies.

The Journal of International Business Studies, along with influential authors such as Mike W. Peng, Klaus Meyer, and Mehmet Demirbag, have taken the lead in advancing institutional theories for MNC internationalization in emerging markets. The clusters from the co-word analysis revealed dominant MNC entry modes, institutional distances and MNC localization strategies. The content analysis highlights how the institutional environment is operationalized across the macro-, micro- and meso-institutional contexts and how the MNC subsidiary responds in emerging markets. Meso-level interactions emphasize the relational aspects of business strategies in emerging markets.

Contextualizing subsidiary strategies and institutional forms can help managers align their strategic responses to the dynamic relationship between subsidiaries and the institutional environment. The review findings will enable policymakers to simplify regulatory policies and encourage MNC subsidiary networks with local stakeholders in emerging markets.

Legitimacy strategies such as corporate community involvement in emerging markets are crucial for enhancing societal support and removing stakeholders' scepticism for MNC business operations in emerging markets. Moral legitimacy should be implemented by managers, such as lending support to disaster management efforts and humanitarian crises, as they expand to new business environments of emerging markets.

This study is the first to explore institutional diversity and subsidiary strategic responses in a three-layered institutional context. The findings highlight the relevance of contextualizing institutional perspectives for international business scholars and practitioners as they help build context-specific theoretical frameworks and business strategies. Future research recommendations are suggested in the macro-, micro- and meso-institutional contexts.