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The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot be achieved without the contributions of multinational enterprises (MNEs). However, extant international business research hardly covers the private sector's role in achieving international policy goals. This article conceptualises the SDGs as a goal-based institution. Building on institutional theory, it develops propositions that help explain MNEs' engagement with SDGs. Exploratory survey results from 81 European and North American Financial Times Global 500 companies indicate that MNEs engage more with SDG targets that are actionable within their (value chain) operations than those outside of it, and more with SDG targets that ''avoid harm'' than those that ''do good''. Differences in SDG engagement based on MNEs' home-and host-countries and their industrial sectors are also explored. We draw policy conclusions for a more pro-active involvement of MNEs in sustainable development, and we define avenues for future international business research. In particular, cross-sector partnerships deserve further attention.

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This paper addresses the topic of this special symposium issue: how to enhance the impact of crosssector partnerships. The paper takes stock of two related discussions: the discourse in cross-sector partnership research on how to assess impact and the discourse in impact assessment research on how to deal with more complex organizations and projects. We argue that there is growing need and recognition for cross-fertilization between the two areas. Cross-sector partnerships are reaching a paradigmatic status in society, but both research and practice need more thorough evidence of their impacts and of the conditions under which these impacts can be enhanced. This paper develops a framework that should enable a constructive interchange between the two research areas, while also framing existing research into more precise categories that can lead to knowledge accumulation.