 This paper combines institutional and political perspectives to develop a framework for analysing firms' strategies in relation to demands for environmental protection in emerging economies. The main subjects for an examination of the framework and the issues it raises are three large-scale diversified multinational corporations (MNCs) in the chemicals sector, each with manufacturing in both China (PRC) and Taiwan. They are contrasted with four local firms in the same sector. An accommodation between MNCs' strategies and institutional constraints is achieved through a system of dynamic relationships in which both firms and institutional agents have a stake. Institutions are found to be more pervious to corporate strategic action than has been assumed by recent institutional theory, and with consequences that are not necessarily inimical to local community interests. The study offers new insights into (1) the processes that lead to conformity in corporate environmental practices (isomorphism), (2) the need to extend the normal purview of institutional theory, and (3) the contribution of a political perspective that allows for MNC proactivity.

This paper addresses two questions through a study of 180 SMEs located in contrasting industry and home country contexts. First, which business models for international markets prevail among SMEs and do they configure into different types? Second, which factors predict the international business models that SMEs follow? Three distinct international business models (traditional market-adaptive, technology-exploiter, and ambidextrous explorer) are found among the SMEs studied. The likelihood of SMEs adopting one business model rather than another is to a high degree predictable with reference to a small set of factors: industry, level of home economy development, and decision-maker international experience.

This paper examines institutional entrepreneurship in the development of China's environmental protection system (EPS) over a period of almost 30 years. China's EPS evolved in four main stages, the boundaries of which were marked by transition-critical events. Within each stage, institutional entrepreneurs conducted activities that supported trajectories of field development. These activities are analysed according to the way they contributed to the construction of regulative, normative and cognitive institutional system pillars. The formation of the EPS as an organizational field in China was characterized by a `made order' in which the regulative system came first and the state and its agencies dominated the process as the principal institutional entrepreneurs. In this respect it contrasts with the evolution of the same field in the USA.

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This paper contributes to a multidimensional perspective on the speed of SME internationalization. It examines the influence of entrepreneurial characteristicsexperience, rationales and innovation strategieson multiple dimensions of internationalization speed. Findings from a sample of 180 SMEs show that earliness, speed of deepening, and speed of geographic diversification can be viewed as three different strategic alternatives and that each dimension is predicted by a different set of entrepreneurial antecedents. Earliness of internationalization is associated with entrepreneurs' international business experience and their perception of opportunities abroad as well as preference for an innovation strategy characterized by ambidextrous innovation. Speed of deepening is related to entrepreneurs' international business experience, their orientation towards differentiation vis-à-vis competitors, and commitment to innovation and a strategy focusing on exploration. These results indicate the importance of distinguishing between different forms of innovation. Speed of geographic diversification is predicted only by entrepreneurs' orientation towards differentiation vis-à-vis competitors.