Multinational enterprises, sustainability and innovation in the digital age: Global, regional and local perspectives

Submit your paper here from 1 July 2026!​ 

Introduction

​​Achieving net-zero targets poses significant challenges for economies, governments, and societies worldwide. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are central actors in this transition, both as developers and adopters of renewable energy and low-carbon technologies. As primary boundary spanners, they manage global value chains and partnerships across diverse institutional contexts and consumer markets. MNEs increasingly navigate a complex landscape of incentives, sanctions, and regulatory barriers that vary by sector, technology platform, country, and region. Politically motivated disruptions—including shifting tariff and non-tariff barriers and uneven low-carbon policies—compound these challenges, placing premium value on managerial capabilities. 

Two emerging developments motivate this Special Issue. First, digital technologies offer new potential to enhance firm-level capabilities for coordinating and adapting cross-border networks, while reshaping competitive dynamics between incumbents, startups, and scale-ups. Second, China’s ascendancy as both innovator and regulator—particularly in new energy technologies—and its growing geopolitical influence demand renewed scholarly attention. 

While MNEs’ contributions to sustainable development goals have received growing research attention, significant gaps remain. Circular economy models require reverse logistics and integrated, cross-border collaboration, making their configuration highly dependent on regional policies, resource availability, and digital applications. Limited research examines how circular supply chains are configured globally or regionally, or what drives their development. 

This Special Issue invites papers examining both MNE responses to these challenges and their roles as producers and adopters of the technologies, processes, and practices that determine progress toward net-zero. We welcome contributions addressing questions including: How do MNEs navigate and shape the complex policy and stakeholder landscape accelerating net-zero goals? What roles do digital technologies play in advancing sustainability and circularity, and what new complexities do they introduce? How do governance differences and regulatory regimes affect firms, sectors, and stakeholders differently? Are international innovation races helpful or harmful, and to what extent are they regionally demarcated? Do MNEs customize practices locally or transfer superior practices across regions, and with what strategic implications? 

We are particularly interested in the microfoundations, routines, and recombinative capabilities underlying sustainability practices. We encourage international comparative studies examining how MNEs bridge institutional differences to establish circular business models and progress toward net-zero. Methodological innovation—including causal inference, longitudinal designs, and empirical approaches capturing complexity and measuring environmental outcomes—is also welcome.

Indicative references

Chabowski, B.R., Gabrielsson, P., Hult, G.T.M. and Morgeson, F.V. (2025), “Sustainable international business model innovations for a globalizing circular economy: a review and synthesis, integrative framework, and opportunities for future research”, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 56 No. 3, pp. 383–402.  
Ciulli, F., and Kolk, A. (2023). “International Business, digital technologies and sustainable development: Connecting the dots”, Journal of World Business, Vol. 58 No.4, 101445.  
Marano, V., Wilhelm, M., Kostova, T. Doh, J. and Beugelsdijk, S. (2024), “Multinational firms and sustainability in global supply chains: scope and boundaries of responsibility”, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 55, No.4, pp. 413–428.  
Sammartino, A., Merrett, D., van der Eng, P., and Ville, S. (2023), “Taking the long view of the multinational”, Multinational Business Review, Vol. 31 No.1, pp.1-18. ​

List of Topic Areas

• ​​​Multinational enterprises
• Sustainability
• Circular economy
• Global value chains
• Digitalization
• Geopolitics
• Institutions
• China
• Emerging industries​​

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: ​https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tmbr​ 
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: ​https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/mbr​#jlp_author_guidelines
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.  
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: ​01/07/2026​ 
Closing date for manuscripts submission: ​20/10/2026​