The complex interplay between human rights, corporate behavior, and international political dynamics raises questions on how human rights matter for firms, challenging extant theories in international business and political science. However, to date, there has been a lack of attention on how corporate human rights policies influence MNE exit from countries whose governments are involved in human rights violations. This paper aims to fill this gap by explaining how the evolution of international human rights norms and subsequently corporate human rights policies shape multinational responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to our argument, (i) there is a convergence of corporate human rights policies across firms over time, and (ii) firms with more stringent corporate human rights policies are more likely to withdraw from Russia. Our empirical tests support these arguments. As the first empirical analysis of corporate human rights policies, our research makes significant contributions to international business and political science.

We study how the interplay between formal institutions and national culture influences inventors in developing artificial intelligence (AI) innovation. We argue and find that, following the GDPR’s introduction, GDPR-affected countries exhibit lower AI innovation rates than unaffected countries. Further, we postulate that this negative effect is weaker in GDPR-affected countries marked by higher levels of individualism, masculinity, and indulgence, but stronger in the affected countries with higher levels of uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and long-term orientation. Employing the national cultural measures of Hofstede and GLOBE, these contingency logics are broadly supported. Surprisingly, however, our results indicate that the negative effect is stronger in countries with higher levels of masculinity. The main contribution of our study is introducing privacy law and its contingencies derived from national culture as drivers of AI innovation.

In our investigation of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and their internationalization strategies, we extend the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) to unravel the triggers and underlying factors influencing the decision to divest previous foreign direct investments (FDIs). Specifically, we focus on the impact of changes in host political risks on the likelihood of foreign divestment. Emphasizing the significance of prior divestment experiences within the framework of the BTOF, we assert that such experiences play a pivotal role in predicting divestment probabilities. Additionally, we propose that MNEs, when navigating changes, are inclined to mirror the reactions of their peers in exploring alternative responses. Examining data from 3065 foreign subsidiaries of 340 Finnish MNEs across 78 host countries during the period from 1970 to 2021, our study substantiates that changes in host political risks heighten the probability of foreign divestment, with divestment experience and peers' reactions intensifying this effect. These findings not only contribute to the enrichment of the BTOF but also significantly advance the foreign divestment literature.