This study examines how emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) respond to cross-national diversity in environmental regulation. Prior research suggests that internationalization exposes EMNEs to diverse environmental standards and may facilitate regulatory learning, yet offers a limited understanding of the mechanisms through which such exposure translates into green innovation. Drawing on institutional theory, we argue that green innovation is particularly fostered when EMNEs operate across host countries whose environmental regulatory regimes are more stringent than those in the home country, and when such exposure varies across multiple host locations. We theorize that this form of environmental regulatory diversity creates learning pressures and legitimacy incentives that motivate EMNEs to upgrade their environmental capabilities through green innovation. Using panel data comprising 9,362 firm-year observations from 1,088 Chinese MNEs over the period 2008–2021, we find support for our arguments. We further show that these effects are contingent on organizational and institutional conditions, specifically top management teams’ technological expertise and the strength of intellectual property enforcement in home-country locations. These findings advance research on EMNE learning and sustainable innovation under complex global environmental governance.

Overseas compliance management is crucial for multinationals to operate with high character, but existing research has paid little attention to emerging multinationals’ overseas misconduct. Focusing on different directions and the interaction of the institutional gap and aspiration gap, we conducted an empirical analysis of a sample of Chinese multinationals who engaged in outward direct investment from 2009 to 2021 and found that in the case of a negative institutional gap, there is a positive linear correlation between a positive/negative aspiration gap and overseas misconduct. In the case of apositive institutional gap, there is a U-shaped relationship between a positive aspiration gap and overseas misconduct, and an inverted U-shaped relationship between a negative aspiration gap and overseas misconduct. Research conclusions bridge the divergence of the institutional paradox and aspiration paradox, provide a nuanced understanding on overseas misconduct, and distinguish different situations to guide emerging multinationals to operate in compliance overseas.

We study how multinational companies may propagate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices through subsidiaries in foreign countries with stricter ESG policies. Using staggered regulatory changes in a host country’s ESG strictness as an exogenous shock, we find that multinational firms with subsidiaries in countries that increased ESG strictness would significantly increase their R&D investments, build more green inventions in domestic operations, and have higher ESG ratings. Cities with more multinationals exposed to foreign ESG regulatory changes experience a greater reduction in air pollutant emissions. Our results are consistent with the argument that multinationals promote and propagate ESG practices across countries, likely to sustain access to finance in a foreign country with high ESG standards.

The methods of tax avoidance in common used by the multinational company in China are discussed; the causes of the multinational corporation’s tax avoidance are analyzed. On one hand, some special tax treatment on the foreign investor should be canceled, and the rules of anti-avoidance of tax should be made in China but also the foreign tax management should be strengthened, the basic informational construction should be improved, And the government should improve the system of tax collection. On the other hand, the international exchange and corporation on ant-avoidance of tax should be developed; singing the bilateral and multilateral tax agreement may solve some problems of tax avoidance.