Dear friends and colleagues,
We are delighted to share the first issue of Global Strategy Journal for 2026. It is available at
https://sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/20425805/current.
This issue contains papers accepted through the regular process and grouped around the topic of Governance, sustainability and international expansion.
Stefano Franco, Alfredo Valentino, Valentina Marano and Matteo Caroli introduce the concept of sustainability-specific strategic alignment, that is, the pre-implementation degree of similarity in importance assigned by HQ and subunits to sustainability issues, clarifying why early attention alignment can stall sustainability diffusion even without implementation frictions. Jae Chul Jung, Yoonjeoung Heo, Unjung Whang study investigates MNEs' commitment to CSR affects intra-firm trade in international subsidiaries. Hongbin Tan, Zhaowei Chen, Bin Hao and Andrew Delios introduce the concept of ownership discrimination to better understand the outward FDI of privately owned enterprises from transition economies. Aleksi Eerola, Arjen H. L. Slangen and Rene Belderbos examine whether Peer firms engage in location choice imitation when undertaking rare, high-stakes foreign ventures in the form of tax-motivated relocations of headquarters.
The papers are open access, and you can get them by clicking on their titles.
If you are interested in reading forthcoming papers accepted but not yet published in an issue, you can find them at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/20425805/0/0.
We look forward to receiving your best work for consideration for publication.
Best wishes,
Ilya Cuyper, Stewart Miller and Grazia Santangelo
Co-editors of Global Strategy Journal
Governing sustainability in multinational companies: Headquarter-subunit strategic alignment and control mechanisms
Stefano Franco, Alfredo Valentino, Valentina Marano, Matteo Caroli
We contribute to extant research on subunit sustainability governance by introducing the concept of sustainability-specific strategic alignment, that is, the pre-implementation degree of similarity in importance assigned by headquarters (HQ) and subunits to sustainability issues. We theorize and find that subunit-perceived divergence between HQ's and local stakeholders' priorities undermines alignment, clarifying why early attention alignment can stall sustainability diffusion even without implementation frictions. We furthermore examine the moderating effect of three HQ's control mechanisms (i.e., monitoring, direct management, and resource control), and find that direct management attenuates alignment loss even in high divergence contexts, whereas monitoring and resource control often fall short or backfire. Findings show that control mechanisms are not uniformly effective and must be tailored to subunits' agency problems and local contexts.
Protecting CSR-based reputation abroad: Intra-firm trade as a governance mechanism
Jae Chul Jung, Yoonjeoung Heo, Unjung Whang
This study investigates how multinational enterprises' (MNEs') commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects intra-firm trade in international subsidiaries. While CSR-committed MNEs need to protect their reputation, intra-firm trade can facilitate monitoring and coordinating the behavior of MNEs' international subsidiaries. Such governance functions help these MNEs mitigate challenges related to bounded rationality and reliability, ultimately reducing governance costs. Thus, we expect CSR-committed MNEs to be more likely to engage in intra-firm trade in their international subsidiaries. We further predict that the positive relationship is contingent upon host country corruption and MNE alliance experience, which may amplify or mitigate the levels of bounded rationality and reliability, respectively. We tested our theories using Korean MNE data during the 2006–2013 period and found empirical support.
Ownership discrimination and outward FDI by China's privately-owned enterprises
Hongbin Tan, Zhaowei Chen, Bin Hao, Andrew Delios
We introduce the concept of ownership discrimination to better understand the outward FDI (OFDI) of privately owned enterprises (POEs) from transition economies. In a transition economy, POEs may perceive ownership-based discrimination and thus suffer disadvantages in domestic market competition. Such perceived ownership-based discrimination could motivate POEs to engage in OFDI as a strategic response to the resulting disadvantages. We test this idea using a sample of POEs from 31 provinces in China. We find a positive relationship between perceived ownership discrimination and POEs' engagement in OFDI. This relationship is weaker for POEs with membership in political organizations that help them obtain benefits that counter the negative impact of ownership discrimination.
Imitation of location choices for rare foreign ventures: Tax-motivated relocations of headquarters
Aleksi Eerola, Arjen H. L. Slangen, Rene Belderbos
Peer firms tend to imitate each other's location choices for foreign subsidiaries. We examine whether they also engage in location choice imitation when undertaking rare, high-stakes foreign ventures in the form of tax-motivated relocations of headquarters. Although location choices for such relocations will likely be made meticulously, we propose that these choices are nevertheless subject to imitation among compatriots, and particularly among domestic rivals. Applying organizational institutionalism, we argue that by imitating these peers, relocating firms reduce the uncertainty they perceive and partly legitimize their relocation. We also predict moderating effects of relocating firms' presence in a location and of their subnational home region's cultural tightness. We find support for these ideas studying the location choices announced by US relocating firms between 1996 and 2017. Our study extends global strategy research on location choice imitation to the corporate level, revealing that such imitation even occurs among firms undergoing international transformations.
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Grazia Santangelo
Professor
Copenhagen Business School
Copenhagen
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