This dissertation examines how multinational enterprises (MNEs) navigate the strategic challenges generated by geopolitical tensions and deglobalization pressures. Across three essays, it develops theoretical frameworks and empirical analyses addressing how firms respond to legitimacy conflicts, express organizational nationalism, and reconfigure their operational footprints in politicized environments.

The first essay introduces a dual legitimacy perspective on MNE strategy under geopolitical tensions. It argues that high geopolitical tension combined with high host country dependence creates a dual legitimacy dilemma, a condition in which home and host country legitimacy demands become sharply contradictory while host side losses remain difficult to absorb. Rather than simply balancing competing stakeholder expectations, firms under this dilemma pursue structural responses that act on the sources of constraint: political strategies that reduce contradiction, and market strategies that lower dependence. The essay further develops a dynamic view in which shifts in tension or dependence reconfigure the dilemma and make adaptation or positioning more viable over time.

The second essay examines organizational nationalism as a firm level phenomenon shaping cross-border acquisition behavior. Drawing on data from Chinese listed firms from 2002 to 2023, it shows that higher organizational nationalism increases firms' pursuit of acquisitions in developed markets, as firms seek to advance their home country's global standing. These deals are, however, less likely to be completed, because nationalist signals provoke political resistance and social backlash in host countries. The negative completion effect intensifies when target country contexts are more sensitive to such signals, including settings with higher host country nationalism, greater political contestation, and larger diplomatic or institutional distance.

The third essay investigates how reshoring affects government procurement relationships for U.S. listed firms. Reshoring signals alignment with government policy preferences and generates political legitimacy benefits, increasing firms' subsequent access to government contracts. However, it simultaneously erodes firms' bargaining power by reducing the credible outside options available during contract renegotiations. Together, these findings reveal that reshoring creates asymmetric consequences for government relations, generating short term resource gains while introducing structural vulnerabilities.

Taken together, the three essays show that geopolitical tensions reshape the political and institutional terms under which firms operate, compete, and signal intent across borders.