Multinational Corporations’ Interactions with Host Institutions: Taking Stock and Moving Forward

Over more than 30 years, research on the interactions between multinational corporations (MNCs) and their institutional host environments has produced rich but scattered insights, which this review organises and integrates. We map the current state of knowledge and build an integrative model involving motivation and host context as antecedents; interaction strategy and actors as the phenomenon; and consequences, especially at the organisational level, as outcomes. By reviewing 176 articles published in leading journals, we reveal previously hidden relationships between host-country institutional context, proactive and reactive strategies, and positive and negative outcomes for the focal organisation. We also identify three future research frontiers focused on understudied aspects of interactions between MNCs and institutions: dynamics of strategies, dynamics of impact, and microfoundational dynamics. We suggest that combining organisational institutionalism and comparative institutionalism offers a pathway to push the outlined research frontiers.