This contributed volume examines how firms, entrepreneurs, and other international business actors engage with public policy across national, regional, and global levels, and why such engagement has become central to international business strategy, responsibility, and legitimacy.

International business is being reshaped by profound disruptions, including the Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflict, climate change, technological transformation, and rising protectionism. These developments have blurred the boundaries between markets and states, positioning firms not only as economic actors but also as influential participants in policy arenas. Governments, meanwhile, increasingly rely on businesses for policy implementation, crisis response, innovation, and the pursuit of goals such as sustainability, resilience, and inclusive growth.

Featuring leading contributions from the 2026 AIB UK and Ireland Chapter conference, the book combines scholarly, practitioner, and policy perspectives to explore how international business actors engage with policy, whose interests are advanced, and with what consequences. It examines lobbying, public-private partnerships, standard-setting, global governance initiatives, industrial and innovation policy, and social and environmental regulation. Contributions consider multinational enterprises, SMEs, and entrepreneurial actors operating across borders, alongside the asymmetries of power, voice, and legitimacy that characterise policy engagement in different institutional contexts.

Drawing on international business, international political economy, entrepreneurship, and policy studies, the volume advances understanding of the strategic, ethical, and societal implications of firm-policy interactions. It demonstrates how policy engagement can shape global value chains, innovation, labour and environmental outcomes, and the governance of international business, while critically examining the tensions and risks arising when private actors influence public policy.

Noemi Sinkovics is Professor of Sustainable and Responsible Business at Newcastle University, UK, and Visiting Professor at the University of Vaasa, InnoLab, Finland. Her research focuses on how businesses can balance their social, environmental, and economic objectives. She is Associate Editor for Critical Perspectives on International Business and Deputy Editor for the European Management Journal.

Rudolf R. Sinkovics is Professor of Strategy and International Business at Durham University, UK, and Visiting Professor at LUT University, Finland. His research covers issues of inter-organizational governance, digital globalization, and responsible business. He is co-editor-in-chief of Critical Perspectives on International Business.

Olli Kuivalainen is Professor of International Marketing and Entrepreneurship at LUT University, Finland, and Visiting Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. His research focuses on early and rapid internationalisation, the role of digitalisation and emerging technologies in international business, global firm organisation and decision-making, particularly in the context of SMEs. He is an Associate Editor of International Marketing Review and serves on several editorial boards.