This study examines the impact of environmental expenditure on the export growth of Indian manufacturing firms. With the increasing emphasis on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles, companies are under pressure to invest significantly in environmental management to meet regulatory requirements and maintain competitive advantages. Using data from listed Indian manufacturing firms between 2003 and 2023, this study investigates how increased environmental spending affects export performance. The findings reveal a significant negative impact of environmental expenditure on export growth intensity, suggesting that stringent environmental investments can divert resources from essential market activities, thereby diminishing international competitiveness. This research contributes to the literature by contextualizing the Resource-based view (RBV) within emerging markets, highlighting the unique challenges faced by firms in these environments. It also underscores the need for strategic resource allocation and dynamic capabilities development to balance environmental initiatives with other market activities.

This systematic review synthesizes the literature on environmental sustainability within MNEs, exploring insights through the distinct lenses of IB, General Management, and Sustainability journals. Through the application of topic modeling and traditional qualitative coding to 160 scholarly articles, we delineate three principal themes: Stakeholder Engagement and Corporate Reporting, Strategic Dynamics of Environmental Sustainability, and Market Adaptation and Regulatory Compliance. Our analysis reveals inherent tensions similar to those traditionally observed in IB literature, underscoring the interconnected nature of environmental strategy in MNEs with their international business practices. We argue for a paradigm shift towards fully integrating environmental sustainability into the core operations of MNEs. This integration encourages a cohesive strategy that not only addresses pressing sustainability challenges but also sustains competitive advantage. This review synthesizes cross-specialization perspectives to propose a comprehensive framework for understanding and advancing environmental strategies in MNEs. It highlights the necessity of a holistic approach and outlines vital directions for future research, pivotal for fostering sustainable global business practices.

Considering the changing dynamics of sustainability across societies and industries, consensus has not been made on the understanding of sustainable business modelling (SBM). This is critical because variation in prioritization, conceptualization, and boundary of sustainability affects firms' value creation process across countries. Literature on SBM presents a deterministic view, while it is fragmented in terms of perspectives and how researchers integrate ‘sustainability’ in BM for which options are created for integrating sustainability-related issues, or sustainability is driving the business modelling in changing international business. To fill this gap, we aim to do a systematic literature review to identify the perspectives on which researchers are fragmented in defining sustainability. We identify the four different perspectives within the broad literature of SdBM: value drivers, institutional, global network, and balancing perspectives. We further survey additional literature to explore the philosophical underpinnings influencing the fragmentation of SBM-concept. We explore the three approaches: pragmatic approach, constructivist approach, and environmentalist approach. Drawing on them, we present the gaps and argue that researchers should adopt a holistic view of sustainability in SdBM in consideration of institutional dynamics and critical phenomena of internationalization for which transnational institutions play a critical role in setting the rules of the game.

Corporate sustainability (CS) is fundamentally context-specific, yet a comprehensive study of the contextual roles in CS as a whole is lacking. This paper aims to explore how contextual factors influence CS and which sustainability-related themes emphasize their importance. Using a hybrid approach combining bibliometric analysis and TCM (theory-context-method) analysis, we reveal the quantitative overview of the academic trend in this subject and identify the most commonly applied theories, contextual factors, and methods. The most discussed topics regarding the impact of contextual factors involve business models, strategies, innovation, entrepreneurship, and corporate performance. We recommend a diversity of theories generated from different cultures to uncover contextual influence, and a deeper consideration of the unique characteristics in emerging markets, particularly the national and cultural factors.