This introduction paper for our special issue on Chinese multinational enterprises (CMNEs) situates the important theme of CMNE growth within the context of rapid technological innovation, intensified geopolitical tensions, and trade wars in the global business environment of the mid-2020s. Using this context as a backdrop, we discuss the growth of CMNEs to derive implications for international business (IB) theory. We review key theoretical perspectives that inform prior research on CMNEs and outline the key challenges confronting CMNEs’ international expansion, as gauged against prior research. We summarize key theoretical insights from the eight papers included in this special issue. We then illustrate how future research can be informed by an explicit consideration of the international sanctions and geopolitical tensions in which CMNEs operate, as well as by the growing technological, linguistic, and ideological distance between China and European and North American countries, which influences CMNEs’ international strategies. We conclude by noting that at this critical juncture in CMNEs’ development, there are substantial opportunities for the IB community to broaden research and challenge existing theories by capturing the latest trends in the international expansion of CMNEs.

We argue that firms’ ability to disinvest real assets helps rationalize the negative distress premiums in stocks, bonds, and, as we show, loans and firm assets. Using a real options model in which shareholders and debtholders share disinvestment proceeds, the model suggests that the stock (debt) distress premium becomes more negative with the proceeds paid out to that class, and that both premiums can be negative when debtholders receive most of the proceeds. Using hard-asset disinvestment-ability proxies, the stock (bond or loan) distress premium becomes less (more) negative with those proxies, possibly suggesting that shareholders benefit more strongly from nonsecured-asset disinvestments.

Expected returns on market volatility, which can be obtained from VIX futures prices in closed form using standard models, positively predict subsequent realized volatility returns. Volatility returns are negative on average. Following increases in volatility, expected volatility returns and subsequent realized volatility returns become more negative. Because realized volatility returns are negatively correlated with index returns, expected volatility returns also negatively predict S&P 500 index returns, but these results are less significant. The results are robust to a wide range of variations in the empirical setup and to small-sample biases.

We study the classical relationship between a firm’s investment and q, for which an unobserved persistent shock is an important factor in the investment decision. In our setting, besides the potential measurement problem of q, controlling for the unobserved shock becomes a new challenge. We develop an estimation method that addresses both econometric issues given timing and information set assumptions. Using 16,256 unique public firms in the United States from 1975 to 2021, we find that q remains a significant factor of investment even after controlling for the unobserved shock and measurement error.

Vicarious learning helps small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) acquire foreign market knowledge by observing and interpreting other firms’ actions and outcomes in international markets. We searched Scopus, ProQuest, and EBSCOhost (2000–2025) and retained 27 studies (2007–2025). The synthesis organizes prior studies into four analytically derived categories that summarize how vicarious learning is conceptualized and operationalized in SME internationalization research: (T1) peer performance benchmarking, (T2) imitation and leader-following, (T3) institutional mimetic pressures, and (T4) network-, cluster-, and advisor-enabled vicarious learning. Across themes, a subset of studies suggests that absorptive capacity may condition whether external experience is recognized, assimilated, and exploited, although direct tests remain uneven and in some cases the contingency is inferred rather than explicitly tested. We translate these insights into an organizing framework and a future agenda on boundary conditions, measurement, and multi-level designs, positioning the review as mechanism clarification that imposes conceptual order on a fragmented literature, rather than as field-level consolidation.

Under Title II of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, firms can sell private placement securities to the public via general solicitation (GS) or privately (non-GS). We find that equity offerings under GS tend to be riskier than under non-GS. After accounting for selection, GS issuers are less likely to succeed in i) raising capital, ii) getting venture capital (VC) funding, and iii) exiting via IPO or mergers and acquisitions, and incur substantial brokerage costs for advertising and verifying investor accreditation. However, GS appears to help new entrants and offerings that use registered brokers. The success of Form D financing improves future VC financing and exit outcomes.

I ask whether hedgers who speculate should be regulated differently from other speculators in a model where information acquisition is endogenous, and information has real effects. Hedging benefits and feedback effects generate strategic complementarities between market-maker, firm manager, and trader, which causes multiple equilibria. Gains from trade are lower when hedgers acquire information, while speculators may produce less information than socially desirable. A “Volcker rule” separating hedging and speculative activities may help select the higher welfare equilibrium. When too little information is produced, contracts whereby a firm subsidizes losses of designated market-makers (DMM) to make prices more informative increase welfare.

Institutional investors conduct more governance research and are less likely to follow proxy advisor vote recommendations when a company’s bonds comprise a larger share of their assets. These findings are driven by bond holdings, shareholder proposals, and companies where fixed-income managers are more likely to be attentive and share an interest with equity investors in improving governance. The findings do not concentrate on companies or shareholder proposals where creditor–shareholder conflicts are likely. Overall, the findings suggest that corporate bond holdings influence how actively institutions monitor their equity positions and contribute to institutions’ overall incentive to be engaged stewards.

Neurocognitive patterns in leadership shape employee behavior and organizational outcomes, offering important insights for advancing human resource management (HRM) theory and practice. Using a focused, theory-driven journal-based content analysis of ten high-ranked HRM and organizational journals, this review synthesizes neuroleadership research published between 2005 and 2025. The analysis is guided by six integrated neuroleadership themes (decision-making, emotional regulation, motivation and reward processing, social cognition, stress resilience, and attentional control) across six core HRM domains and interpreted through performance-oriented and sustainability-oriented HRM perspectives. The findings suggest that neuroleadership research predominantly emphasizes sustainability-oriented HRM, with decision-making and emotional–cognitive themes most frequently examined within learning and development, followed by employee engagement and well-being and organizational development. In contrast, performance-oriented HRM emphases, such as performance control and transactional management, receive comparatively less attention. The review highlights the need to expand research on motivation, stress resilience, and attentional control to address the demands of an increasingly digitalized workforce.

This study offers a systematic and theory-informed integrative synthesis of research at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and entrepreneurship. Although interest in this domain has expanded rapidly, existing research remains fragmented, technology centered, and weakly connected to theories of entrepreneurial decision-making. To address this gap, the study adopts a hybrid review design that combines a systematic literature review with bibliometric co-word analysis and thematic synthesis. Based on 372 articles indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection (2010–2025), the analysis maps the intellectual structure, thematic landscape, and temporal evolution of AI–entrepreneurship research. Four thematic quadrants are identified, reflecting core applications, transversal foundations, isolated specializations, and peripheral themes. The synthesis shows that AI is largely conceptualized as a functional input, while cognitive and behavioral dimensions of entrepreneurial judgment remain marginal. Building on these insights, the article proposes a cognitively informed research agenda to guide future work.