“…First, we extend previous studies on the institutional drivers of corporate sustainability strategies by showing that managerial ties with governmental officials, regulatory officials, top managers at other firms, and local community leaders feed into corporate proactive and responsive sustainability strategies of emerging market firms (Boso et al, 2017; Gao et al, 2019; Garcia & Orsato, 2020; Melissen et al, 2018). These institutional entities determine the structure and nature of commercial and economic exchanges in emerging markets (Peng & Luo, 2000; Xu et al, 2012), and we show that top‐level managers' relationships with key institutional actors substitute for the underdeveloped market systems in such markets by providing the local market intelligence and information needed to underscore corporate proactive and responsive sustainability strategies (Chen, Liu, Wei, & Gu, 2018; Park, 2018).…”