Multinational Enterprises, Sustainability and Innovation

Dear Colleagues,

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) have undertaken foreign direct investments across the globe, so they have to face diverse and differential sustainability agendas since they have to deal with homogeneous and heterogeneous sustainability issues and policies from both home and host countries. In this vein, MNEs need to find better ways of sustainable development and innovation-based solutions in both sides of home and host countries. Furthermore, there have been a rapidly increasing number of studies on sustainable international business and innovative practices by MNEs in developed markets, providing shareholder values, environmental agendas, and managing macroeconomic instability. There has even been a stream of literature on sustainability-oriented innovation relating to both the environmental as well as social aspects of sustainability. Of these two, especially the environmental aspect has been driven by market demand for cleaner products and increasing environmental regulations and cost savings. Nevertheless, unfortunately, there has been lack of studies on sustainable international business and innovative practices by MNEs in emerging and frontier markets, although Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) have obviously progressed in terms of sustainable development and innovation-based solutions from the MNEs in and out of their home countries. Additionally, innovation has assumed a rather different form in the case of emerging market MNEs (EMNEs). As research and development possibilities are limited, learning by doing and using and organizational capabilities have a greater weight in EMNEs. The innovation of these firms is scientifically less refined than those of developed countries and has not generally involved frontier technologies. The different type of innovation pursued by EMNEs, especially considering sustainability issues, thus requires a deeper investigation that looks at technology creation more broadly than the sphere of research and patenting activity. Thus, the goal of this Special Issue is to overcome the limitations of existing studies, which have mostly focused on developed markets, and to expand our relevant themes to international business sustainability and innovative solutions by emerging and frontier market MNEs.

We invite both conceptual and (qualitative and quantitative) empirical articles, as well as literature review and meta-analysis articles from various fields, including not only business and management but also sociology, political science, psychology, economics, economic geography, and so on. Examples of relevant topics include but are not limited to:

• How do EMNEs shape sustainable development and related innovations in home and host countries through sustainability and innovative solutions? What are their similarities and/or differences from advanced market MNEs?
• What are the challenges versus opportunities of these EMNEs to deal with the unique political, cultural, religious, and commercial environments in their home and host countries for achieving their sustainability and innovation goals?
• What are the repercussions for the contextual effects on these EMNEs’ sustainability and innovative solutions, especially for country of origin and domicile pressures in home and host countries?
• How do recent environmental disruptions, such as the global financial crisis in 2008 and the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis, affect sustainable international business practices and innovative solutions based on corporate social and environmental responsibility in emerging and advanced markets?
• How do developed versus emerging/frontier market MNEs enhance their sustainability and innovation based on their human resources, transnational, or virtual teams when they face the challenges for the enhancement of their sustainability and innovative solutions?
• Can high-level internationalization of EMNEs lead to superior corporate sustainability, which encompasses various social issues such as stakeholder wellbeing and environmental protection?
• The legal guarantee for the sustainable development of green economy;
• MNEs, political stability, and the risk of emerging capital markets;

• Foreign executives, R&D innovation, and corporate social responsibility;
• Green innovation efficiency;
• Path innovation of labor security of flexible employment.

Prof. Dr. Jeoung Yul Lee
Prof. Dr. Dilek Zamantili Nayir
Prof. Dr. Charles Chen
Guest Editors

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