Fabienne Fortanier

Multinational Enterprises and the New Development Paradigm: Consequences for Host Country Development

The New Development Paradigm (NDP) integrates the theoretical and empirical views on development that have gained prominence since the mid‐1990s. In particular the multifaceted nature of development objectives‐including social and ecological development next to economic growth‐and the critical role of institutions in the development process characterize the NDP. This new perspective has important consequences for understanding the role of Multinational Enterprises in fostering development. This paper addresses these implications and delineates a research agenda that pays systematic attention to the wide variety of direct and indirect, active and passive ways in which MNEs can (and do) affect sustainable development

Internationalization and environmental disclosure: the role of home and host institutions

Purpose – The domestic institutional context has emerged as a key determinant of firms’ environmental disclosure, but studies have hardly addressed the extent to which exposure to foreign institutional contexts plays a role in the occurrence and contents of non-financial disclosure, crucial aspects for understanding multinationals’ accountability. This article therefore investigates the relationship between internationalization (both degree and spread) and environmental disclosure. Design/methodology/approach – It is hypothesized that both home and host country institutional pressures affect the relationship between internationalization and environmental disclosure, and that effects are more prominent in environmentally-sensitive sectors. The proposed relationships are tested using data from the Fortune Global 250. Findings – Results show a significantly negative relationship between the degree of internationalization and environmental disclosure, which is only partly mitigated by environmental governance and institutional quality in home and host countries. Only for firms in high-sensitivity sectors from high-standard countries is the relationship positive. Findings are particularly strong for the degree of internationalization; and non-significant for dispersion/spread. Originality/value – This article moves beyond the predominant focus on country-of-origin effects by adding exposure to foreign institutional contexts, for which it develops a new indicator. It renews attention to non-financial disclosure, a topic underexposed in the IB literature. Viewed from a broader IB perspective, the article provides an empirical illustration of the effect of home and host institutions on firm strategy, and of the use of different metrics to assess internationalization with divergent results for degree versus spread, as well as for sales versus assets, pointing at areas for further research.

Internationalization and Performance: The Moderating Role of Strategic Fit

Recent research on the internationalization–performance (IP) relationship has suggested that many of the different results can be explained by the role of moderating factors. This paper explores the hitherto underemphasized role of strategic fit between organizational structure on the one hand and industry pressures towards integration and responsiveness on the other hand. We suggest a new way of measuring organizational structure (and consequently strategic fit), based on archival data rather than questionnaires, and include these measures in our regression analysis on a sample of 332 Fortune companies.We find that strategic fit positively affects performance and moderates the shape, size and direction of the internationalization–performance relationship.