Hello!
I would like to invite you to the virtual seminar series of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS). Next Friday April 10th at 11 am EST we will be hosting Joao Albino-Pimentel (University of South Carolina). He will present joint work with Yu Li (SKEMA Business School) and Grazia Santangelo (Copenhagen Business School) titled "Unexpected Dilemmas: MNE Divestitures as Strategic Responses to Controversial Host-Country Legislation". The format will include a 20-minute presentation, followed by 10 mins of Q&A and an additional 30 mins of informal discussion with the speaker-a valuable opportunity for PhD students and junior faculty to connect and engage. Please find the abstract below:
How do multinational enterprises (MNEs) respond when host countries enact legislation that conflicts with their prevailing stakeholder values? We address this question by examining the impact of host-country anti-LGBTQ laws, a type of regulation that, while seemingly neutral operationally, generates legitimacy risks for MNEs by creating misalignment between global, home and host-country stakeholder values. Drawing on panel data covering 513 U.S. MNEs and 141,013 subsidiaries across 143 countries (2009–2021), we find that exposure to newly enacted anti-LGBTQ laws significantly increases subsidiary divestiture rates. This baseline effect is reduced for MNEs with lower vulnerability to external stakeholder pressures, namely for those headquartered in LGBTQ-conservative home environments and for those with formalized internal inclusion policies. Our findings introduce controversial host-country institutions as a distinct category of divestiture driver, one that operates through legitimacy rather than efficiency logics. We thereby extend global strategy research beyond conventional economic and political risk frameworks, showing that moral contestation over social policy can reshape MNE portfolio decisions.
Please register for the seminar on the ARCS website or directly here. We only have one seminar left after this one with Ben Lewis (BYU) on May 8th (pls note a change from May 1).
Hope to see you there!
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Best regards,
Olga Hawn, PhD
Associate Professor, Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Sustainability Distinguished Fellow
Faculty Director, Ackerman Center for Excellence in Sustainability
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
Associate Editor, Strategic Management Journal
Associate Editor, Management Science
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