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A perspective on multinational enterprises and climate change: Learning from “an inconvenient truth”?

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Abstract

This paper explores whether and how an important environmental issue such as climate change can not only give multinational enterprises the opportunity to develop “green” firm-specific advantages (FSAs), but also help reconfigure key FSAs that are viewed as the main sources of firms' profitability, growth, and survival. We examine the nature and geography of such FSA development, and develop two organizing frameworks, which are subsequently applied to climate change, using information from Global 500 firms. Implications and future directions for international business research are indicated.

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Notes

  1. We shall, therefore, in the remainder of the paper use the terms “FSA” and “capability” interchangeably.

  2. Nevertheless, it must be noted that there may still be some emissions from the production of hydrogen, but this depends on the way it is produced.

  3. Although fuel cell and hybrid technology are quite different, investing in hybrid technology does give car firms the building blocks needed for developing the fuel cell vehicle (Anderson & Gardiner, 2006). Future hybrids decouple the mechanical connection between engine and wheels, which is also a requirement for the fuel cell vehicle (Ricardo Consulting Engineers, 2003).

  4. Although it must be noted that this depends partly on the size of the home country. MNEs from small economies are less likely to be affected by home-country regulations than firms from large economies such as the US (Rugman & Verbeke, 1998).

  5. The high costs of setting up a hydrogen infrastructure are an exemplary case of the difficulties that MNEs face in transferring FSAs, as it requires considerable linking investments to align an FSA with particular host-country CSAs (cf. Rugman & Verbeke, 2005).

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Acknowledgements

Support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) is gratefully acknowledged. We thank the reviewers and the Departmental Editor, Alain Verbeke, for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Correspondence to Ans Kolk.

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Accepted by Alain Verbeke, Departmental Editor, 5 September 2007. This paper has been with the authors for one revision.

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Kolk, A., Pinkse, J. A perspective on multinational enterprises and climate change: Learning from “an inconvenient truth”?. J Int Bus Stud 39, 1359–1378 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2008.61

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