With growing legislation mandating human rights due diligence (HRDD) practices, the corporate respect for human rights has gained more prominence. Conflict-affected areas present high risks for Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) to be complicit in human rights violations. However, conflict-sensitive HRDD has hardly been considered in previous business and human rights (BHR) literature. Therefore, this future-oriented study aims to analyze how MNEs will implement HRDD practices in such challenging institutional settings within the next decade. In a Delphi study, 82 experts from business, civil society, and academia discussed future scenarios on conflict-sensitive HRDD practices. Based on the Institutional Work perspective, we show how MNEs can essentially contribute to the translation and institutionalization of mandatory HRDD practices inside and outside of conflict-affected areas. Our findings indicate that the majority of MNEs will shape the institutional setting to enable the effective implementation of conflict-sensitive HRDD practices to the extent this allows for the reduction of risks to business. Thereby, we contribute to the BHR literature focusing on compliance challenges with current and future HRDD laws.

We apply the resource-based view (RBV) to explore the determinants of FDI into sanctioned locations. We argue that both greater resources and greater experience will help multinational enterprises (MNEs) to overcome sanctions, a dark side to resource munificence. We also build on institutional theory to examine contextual conditions and find that effective home country institutions deter FDI to sanctioned locations and decrease the magnitude of the moderating effect of firm resources and experience. Moreover, FDI to sanctioned locations will be greater from firms in home countries that are themselves sanctioned because of the resulting specific ownership advantages: such home country advantages also weaken the impact of firm resources and experience. We test these ideas on a large panel dataset and find support for our arguments.

Legitimacy theory suggests that firms strive to gain legitimacy by maintaining positive relationships with external stakeholders. As such, firms conduct corporate social responsibility (CSR), which helps them mitigate the negative impact of a crisis on their stock prices. However, our understanding remains limited regarding whether CSR efforts directed toward different external stakeholders provide similar protection during a crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic provides a valuable context for expanding our understanding of legitimacy theory by comparing the CSR activities of firms toward two important external stakeholders: the community and customers. We argue that community-focused CSR has a more profound and far-reaching social impact during a pandemic compared to customer-focused CSR. Thus, we hypothesize that community-focused CSR offers a stronger buffer during a pandemic than customer-focused CSR. Furthermore, we contend that this relative advantage of community-focused CSR over customer-focused CSR during a pandemic may hold greater significance in environments where stakeholders have a higher reliance on community-focused CSR activities, precisely in countries with higher healthcare infrastructure deficiency and rural populations. Our hypotheses are supported by a sample of 345 transportation industry firms located in 40 countries. This paper contributes to legitimacy theory in the context of international business.