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Dear friends and colleagues, 

 

We are delighted to share the second issue of Global Strategy Journal for 2026. It is available at

https://sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/20425805/current. 

 

This issue contains papers accepted through the regular process and grouped around the topic of Nonmarket Dynamics and Global Strategy.

 

Ivar Kolstad and Arne Wiig analyze how the reputational risk of petroleum companies from industrialized economies is affected by partnerships with companies from emerging markets with weaker regulatory standards. Their analysis indicates that partnerships provide access to institutional capabilities of emerging market partners, suggesting collaboration is transactional rather than transformative. Vegard Kolbjørnsrud and Linda Rademaker develop a conceptual framework articulating how data barriers can influence firms' global strategies. The framework specifies key dimensions of data barriers and draws on the institutional perspective to discuss how these dimensions can influence the relative attractiveness of host countries, entry decisions, and key contingencies. Manon Meschi, Antonio Majocchi, and Ulrike Mayrhofer ask how SMEs respond to multiple exogenous shocks in export markets. They use real option theory to demonstrate that the intensity of a shock influences an SME's export depth and detail the different reactions to natural versus human-induced shocks. The issue closes with a perspective piece by Dan Prud'homme, Stav Fainshmidt, Nianchen Han, and Sumit Kundu, which considers the divergent or conflicting treatment of the same firm by different government agencies within the same host market. They extend organizational stigma theory by connecting decoupling, and cross-audience and audience-specific firm labeling, and spelling out how firms can avoid or slow this process. The papers are open access, and you can get them by clicking on their titles.

 

If you are interested in reading forthcoming papers accepted but not yet published in an issue, you can find them at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/20425805/0/0. 

 

We look forward to receiving your best work for consideration for publication. 

 

Best wishes, 

 

Ilya Cuyper, Stewart Miller, and Grazia Santangelo

Co-editors of Global Strategy Journal

 

Emerging market partners and reputational risk in the petroleum industry

Ivar Kolstad and Arne Wiig 

This paper analyzes how reputational risk of petroleum companies from industrialized economies is affected by partnerships with companies from emerging markets with weaker regulatory standards. Using panel data analysis with company-host country pair and year fixed effects, we find that increased collaboration with companies from corrupt countries is associated with an increase in negative attention regarding local pollution. This negative reputational effect is driven by collaboration in corrupt host countries where emerging market companies have a comparative institutional advantage. Looking into mechanisms, we find no effect of collaboration on environmental conduct or policy, which is inconsistent with the mechanisms implied by institutional theory. Our results instead indicate that partnerships provide access to institutional capabilities of emerging market partners, suggesting collaboration is transactional rather than transformative.

 

How data barriers shape international strategy 

Vegard Kolbjørnsrud and Linda Rademaker

Parallel with the growing volume and value of data in business operations, governments increasingly impose restrictions on the use, storage, and transfer of data across borders. In this paper, we examine how these data barriers can influence firms' global strategies. First, we propose a conceptual framework specifying five key dimensions of data barriers: the type of data, the data action they restrict, their source, motivation, and direction. Using an institutional perspective, we discuss how these features can influence the relative attractiveness of host countries, entry decisions, and important contingencies. We propose strategies that firms can pursue to respond to these constraints and develop a research agenda for further work in this area, thereby contributing to the literature on institutional strategy and global digital strategy.

Stay or go? Exogenous shocks and small and medium-sized enterprises' export market portfolios 

Manon Meschi, Antonio Majocchi, and Ulrike Mayrhofer

How do small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) respond to multiple exogenous shocks in export markets? Drawing on real options theory (ROT), we analyze a unique data set of 2975 French SMEs over the period 2015–2020. We show that, when facing low-intensity shocks, SMEs expand the breadth of their export market portfolio, thereby enhancing switching options across regions. As shock intensity increases, they reduce the breadth while sharply increasing the depth of their export market portfolio, thereby strengthening growth options within their home region. Moreover, SMEs react more strongly to natural shocks (natural and climatic disasters, epidemics) than to human-induced shocks (armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, and industrial disasters). We advance our understanding of SME internationalization under uncertainty and contribute to embedding ROT into international business research.

 

Political stigmatization across US host government agencies and strategic responses by Chinese MNEs 

Dan Prud'homme, Stav Fainschmidt, Nianchen Han, and Sumit Kundu

Chinese MNEs face political risks from decoupling policies, particularly in the United States. Prior research explains when such policies arise but pays limited attention to divergent or conflicting treatment of the same firm by different government agencies within the same host market. Extending organizational stigma theory, we argue that severe decoupling occurs when labeling a firm as politically dangerous reaches a cross-audience tipping point, while lesser decoupling arises at audience-specific tipping points. We further conceptualize how such labeling diffuses across agencies and how firms can avoid or slow this process through audience dependence, division, and diminution strategies. Effectiveness depends on which audiences firms prioritize and when they intervene in the labeling process.

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Grazia Santangelo
Professor
Copenhagen Business School
Copenhagen
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