The Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University (GSOM SPbU) held a research seminar "Internationalization of Emerging Market Firms and the Role of Government in Financing and Developing Large Cross-Border Infrastructure Projects: New Challenges of Green Economy". The organizer of the event is the Center for Russian Multinationals and Global Business at GSOM SPbU under the guidance of Professor Andrei Panibratov.

 

In an academic discussion, GSOM professors and doctoral students discussed the participation of the state in the large international projects, "green" strategies and their impact on the international activities of companies with the state ownership.

 

In her review of the state-owned firms’ international strategies, Daria Klishevich, a research fellow at the Center, noted an interesting trend – organizations following a hybrid structure, leading to the variety of firms in terms of ownership structure and share of the state. As new promising areas of research work from the experts viewpoint topics such as the impact of the institutional environment at the domestic and foreign markets on the strategies of companies, the impact of protectionist measures of states on the development of international strategies of firms, and the role of the new environmental agenda in shaping international strategies may be of interest.

 

Associate Professor of the Department of Strategic and International Management Olga Garanina spoke about how multinational oil and gas companies, many of which are state-owned, adapt their international strategies to the green economy agenda development. Decarbonization and transition to carbon-free energy is a huge challenge corporations are actively responding to, in particular, by setting long-term goals for carbon neutrality. Despite the absence of a single “recipe” for decarbonization, oil and gas multinationals are becoming agents of ambitious new climate targets. In her presentation, Olga Garanina emphasized that state ownership is an important factor influencing the climate activity of oil and gas companies, which can have both a favorable and a deterrent effect on firms' strategies.

 

The study was supported by the RSF grant No. 22-28-20430, https://rscf.ru/en/project/22-28-20430/