Multinational Enterprises, Sustainability and Innovation in the Digital Age: Global, Regional and Local Perspectives

CALL FOR PAPERS

Journal: Multinational Business Review

Publisher: Emerald Publishing

Submission Opens: 1 July 2026

Submission Deadline: 20 October 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.

Scope & Significance

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.

Key questions this Special Issue seeks to address include:

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?

The editors are particularly interested in the microfoundations, routines, and recombinative capabilities underlying sustainability practices, and 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.

List of Topic Areas

Manuscripts are invited on themes including, but not limited to:

Multinational enterprises and net-zero transition strategies
Sustainability and circular economy models in global value chains
Digital technologies and their role in advancing MNE sustainability
Cross-border circular supply chain configuration and governance
China as innovator and regulator in new energy technologies
Geopolitics, trade barriers, and low-carbon policy implications for MNEs
Institutional differences and regulatory regimes across countries and regions
International innovation races — cooperative or competitive dynamics
MNE localization versus standardization of sustainability practices
Emerging industries and technology platforms in the sustainability transition
Microfoundations and dynamic capabilities for sustainable MNE management
Stakeholder engagement and ESG governance in multinational contexts
Digital transformation and competitive dynamics among incumbents, startups, and scale-ups
Emerging market MNEs and sustainability in global business

Guest Editors

Prof. Simon Collinson 📧 (contact via journal submission platform)

Prof. André Sammartino 📧 (contact via journal submission platform)

Prof. Ans Kolk 📧 (contact via journal submission platform)

Prof. Jonathan Doh 📧 (contact via journal submission platform)

Key Deadlines

📅 Manuscript Submission Opens: 1 July 2026

⏰ Manuscript Submission Deadline: 20 October 2026

Submission Guidelines

Submissions are made through ScholarOne Manuscripts, the official submission platform of Emerald Publishing. Authors must strictly follow the journal's author guidelines.

When submitting, select "Multinational Enterprises, Sustainability and Innovation in the Digital Age" from the special issue drop-down menu at the appropriate step in the submission process.

⚠️ Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication elsewhere while under review for this journal.

For author guidelines and to submit your manuscript, visit the official Multinational Business Review page on the Emerald Publishing website and access via ScholarOne Manuscripts.

About the Journal

The Multinational Business Review (MBR), published by Emerald Publishing, is a leading peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing research on multinational enterprises, international business strategy, and global management. It provides an international platform for scholars and practitioners exploring how firms operate, compete, and create value across borders in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

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