A configurational approach to political risks and institutional logics

Advancing our understanding of political risks is crucial for international management (IM) research and practice. This study addresses how multiple institutional logics that govern multinational enterprises (MNEs), as latent tensions of political risks, may work together for superior or inferior performance. Methodologically, we adopt a configurational approach to predict how varying state logic and market logic combinations affect performance in the context of internationalization among Chinese financial services firms. Employing fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), we identify a specific taxonomy of four political risk prototypes that lead to different performance outcomes. Overall, this study provides novel insights into political risk variations of internationalizing firms and links different institutional logic configurations with performance outcomes.