International business, climate change and the energy transition: A commentary on the importance of business models and digitalization

This chapter is a commentary on “A perspective on multinational enterprises and climate change: Learning from “an inconvenient truth”?” by Kolk and Pinkse (2008). The commentary zooms in on the role played by MNEs in the climate change debate, namely considering how MNEs may cause or aggravate the problem and/or help bring solutions to climate change, and the energy transition more broadly, issues that can significantly affect MNE strategies, performance and growth. Importantly, new ideas are introduced concerning the shift from green firm-specific advantages (FSAs) (discussed in depth in the original article) to what are referred to as business model-related specific advantages (BMSAs). The commentary discusses, amongst others, the influence of factors such as digitalization and locational dimensions, including MNEs’ embeddedness in various institutional contexts, as well as the potential for transferability and recombination of BMSAs. Altogether, a clear and forward-looking agenda for research on international business, climate change and the energy transition, emerges.