Internationalization of European Electricity Multinationals in Times of Transition

The global transition to renewable energy is of paramount importance to the combat against climate change. In this, truly a grand challenge of our time, electricity firms have become a crucial organizational vehicle for change. At the same time, these very firms, as MNEs, are also undergoing processes of internationalization. Together, these developments are drastically reshaping the electricity industry, reshuffling business and re-defining the role of the state. And yet when it comes to European renewable electricity firms, the parallel and interconnected processes of internationalization and the transition to renewable energy remain underexplored.
To help close this gap in our knowledge about these crucial interconnections, the present dissertation contributes with novel empirical and theoretical insights in the context of the European electricity industry. The dissertation is conceptually anchored in international business (IB) literature and further strengthened by insights from broader business and management research. It applies a case-based, multi-level perspective including firm, industry, and institutional levels explored across three papers:
- Paper 1 uses a case study of five firms to explore the significantly different ways firms, when faced with the prospect of tremendous transition, can transform from bureaucratic extended arms of the state to pro-active MNEs and, as they begin to specialize in renewable energy technologies, to key agents of change.
- Paper 2 employs the concept of geographic hedging to analyze the current process of internationalization of two firms transitioning to renewable energy and argues that in addition to firm, industry, and institutions, the profiles of top management play a pivotal role in strategic change.
- Paper 3 focusses on state hybrids transitioning to renewable energy in order to develop six analytical factors with which to assess how stateness works as a potential, flexible resource within a context of firm-specific, industrial, home and host country factors, thus demonstrating how the geopolitical context, often overlooked in IB research, can play a crucial role in internationalization.