Jonas Puck, WU Vienna

Srividya Jandhyala, ESSEC Business School

Vera Kunczer, Copenhagen Business School

Harald Puhr, University of Innsbruck

Michael Wolfesberger, WU Vienna

Rising national security concerns, populist politics, and societal pressures have produced fragmentation, i.e., the coexistence of overlapping, conflicting, or weakly coordinated rules and pressures across national, supranational, and societal spheres. MNEs must navigate the triality of home, host, and supranational institutions in cross-border business. Multilateral frameworks that could shape MNE sustainability initiatives, such as the UN SDGs and the Paris Agreement, face domestic resistance in some countries and are part of the legal basis in others. Such tensions between supranational frameworks and nationalist movements or policies can create conflicting institutional logics and institutional schisms. While international institutions shape firms' assessments of their domestic environments, in adapting to these fractured environments, MNEs may also amplify institutional pluralism through local responses.

This focused issue seeks to advance understanding of how MNEs strategize in fractured environments and the resulting stakeholder pressures. Papers may address the proposed areas of focus or other relevant areas related to MNE responses to fragmentation and stakeholder pressures. The issue welcomes interdisciplinary submissions that complement business perspectives with approaches from other disciplines, particularly political science. Both conceptual and empirical papers are welcome, including contributions focused on methodological advances, theory testing, and theory development.

Potential topics

• What drives the exposure of MNEs to institutional fragmentation and fracturing?
• When and how do MNEs integrate market- and non-market strategies across global markets in response to fragmented stakeholder and institutional pressures?
• How do MNEs manage and organize their response strategies across different markets?
• How do institutional fragmentation and geopolitical tensions shape interactions within firms?

Timeline

• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline