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.

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Potential topics

• Multinational enterprises
• Sustainability
• Circular economy
• Global value chains
• Digitalization
• Geopolitics
• Institutions
• China
• Emerging industries
• 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?

Timeline

• January 7, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• October 20, 2026: Closing date for manuscripts submission