International business research emphasizes the importance of geopolitics to multinational enterprise (MNE) strategic decision‐making. Yet, insights and evidence are dispersed across levels of analysis and disciplinary perspectives, making it difficult to determine how exactly MNEs respond to geopolitics. Leveraging a sample of 97 papers from journals in strategy, international business and management, we clarify the impact of geopolitics on home and host country relations and the interplay with MNE strategic decision‐making. In advancing existing knowledge boundaries, we make sense of MNE responses to geopolitically induced uncertainty by accounting for MNEs’ heterogeneous political capabilities and investment real options. We show that when MNEs have strong political capabilities, they often opt for a shaping engagement response to influence home–host country relations. However, weak political capabilities limit investments with flexible real options and restrict investments with committed real options, leading to adaptive engagement, non‐engagement and exit responses. Finally, we outline an agenda for future studies on the topic.

中文翻译：

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跨国企业如何应对地缘政治？审查和研究议程


国际商业研究强调地缘政治对跨国企业 （MNE） 战略决策的重要性。然而，见解和证据分散在分析和学科视角的各个层面，因此很难确定跨国企业究竟如何应对地缘政治。利用来自战略、国际商务和管理期刊的 97 篇论文样本，我们阐明了地缘政治对母国和东道国关系的影响以及与跨国企业战略决策的相互作用。在推进现有知识边界的过程中，我们通过考虑跨国企业的异质政治能力和投资实物选择，来理解跨国企业对地缘政治引发的不确定性的反应。我们表明，当跨国企业具有强大的政治能力时，他们通常会选择塑造性的参与反应来影响母国与东道国的关系。然而，薄弱的政治能力限制了灵活实物期权的投资，并限制了承诺实物期权的投资，从而导致适应性参与、不参与和退出反应。最后，我们概述了有关该主题的未来研究议程。