International Institutions and Firms' Assessment of the Domestic Institutional Environment: Evidence from the Investor-State Dispute Settlement System 
Cheng, S., Jandhyala, S. 2025. Strategic Management Journal, 46(9), 2051-2068.
How do firms assess their institutional environments? Beyond domestic cues, we examine the role of international institutions. In the global investment treaty regime, foreign firms can bring legal claims against sovereign states in international venues for alleged property rights violations. We argue that rulings by international tribunals in favor of or against the state provide domestic observer firms additional cues about property rights protection and the legitimacy of state policy. We compare domestic firms' assessment of their institutional environment shortly before versus after a tribunal ruling to obtain quasi-random variation in firms' exposure to international institutions. Analyzing 14,338 firm responses across 16 countries, we find that domestic firms assess their institutional environment favorably when states win and unfavorably when states lose.
Economic Nationalism and the Home Court Advantage
Choudhury, A., Jandhyala, S., & Nandkumar, A. 2025. Strategic Management Journal, 46(1), 242-272.
Political and regulatory actors routinely adopt or enforce policies to protect domestic firms at the expense of foreign firms. However, since courts are expected to be neutral and act independently, a question arises whether (and why) they discriminate against foreign firms. We argue that the courts are nationalistic, which emanates from judges differentiating between in-group (domestic) and outgroup (foreign) members. In a sample of 58,754 patent
disputes adjudicated by US federal district courts between 1983 and 2016, we find domestic patent holders and challengers are more successful than their foreign counterparts. Rulings involving foreign firms are more likely to exhibit nationalistic rhetoric. Judicial ideology moderates the differential odds of success between domestic and foreign firms. Thus, the legal system is another source of economic nationalism activities.
Geopolitics in International Business: Challenges and Insights
Ciravegna, L., Hartwell, C.A., Jandhyala, S., Tingbani, I., Newburry, W. 2023. Academy of International Business (AIB) Insights, 23(1).
The Role of International Anti-Corruption Regulations in Promoting Socially Responsible Practices
Jandhyala, S. and Oliveira, F. 2021. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 190:15-32.
We analyze how international anti-corruption rules impact the behavior of multinational firms in promoting sustainable practices. Competition from multinational firms is expected to lower bribe rents and hence corruption in host countries. However, we argue that the competition between domestic and multinational firms is unequal as (only) the latter face greater monitoring and sanction through international anti-corruption regulations. We de- velop a game theoretic model of bribing to examine the strategic response of firms un- der conditions of unequal competition. We show that under certain conditions the bribing probability of domestic firms increases when multinational firms facing greater penalties refrain from bribing. We use an agent-based simulation to analyze industries with heterogeneous firms, showing that the optimal strategies converge to the Nash equilibrium, and identify the major drivers of profitability and bribing.
Leviathan as Foreign Investor: Geopolitics and Sovereign Wealth Funds
Di Wang, Robert Weiner, Quan Li and Srividya Jandhyala. 2021. Journal of International Business Studies, 52, 1238-1255. 
Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are important but understudied state investors. We investigate whether geopolitics influences SWFs foreign acquisitions, asking if and how their FDI patterns differ from those of private firms. Theoretical expectations are mixed. On the one hand, limited managerial control of target firms suggests that SWFs may be unable to pursue political goals, and thus they are no more sensitive to geopolitics than private firms. On the other hand, state ownership of SWFs can generate national security externalities and thereby makes SWFs more sensitive to geopolitics. Utilizing novel big-data measures of cooperative and adversarial relations based on media reporting and three different tests, we examine over 5800 cross-border acquisitions by SWFs and private firms. We find that home–host conflict hinders SWFs more than private firms whereas cooperation helps SWFs more than private firms. Hence, despite SWFs’ lack of managerial control of target firms, state ownership moderates geopolitical influences on their internationalization and makes them more sensitive than private firms to interstate relations. Our findings suggest that government concern over FDI by state entities goes beyond their operational activities.
The Politics of Investor-State Dispute Settlement: How Strategic Firms Evaluate Investment Arbitration
Srividya Jandhyala. 2020. In Chaisse, J., Choukroune L., Jusoh S. (eds) Handbook of International Law and Policy. Springer, Singapore
The spread of investor-state dispute settlement is attributed to two key motivations: assisting host states in overcoming credible commitment problems and enabling home states in depoliticizing disputes. This chapter evaluates the mixed evidence for both arguments. It then focuses on the multinational firm to examine how strategic firms may utilize investor-state arbitration to further their objectives in global operations and manage political risks. Access to investor-state arbitration strengthens the political risk management toolkit of firms. The biggest effect on firms may be related to their bargaining with governments and the settlement of investment disputes that do arise rather than on influencing firms’ investment decisions in the first place or preventing disputes altogether.
Managing Policy Reversals: Consequences for Firm Performance
Daniel Blake and Srividya Jandhyala. 2019. Strategy Science, 4(2) 111-128
The recent revival of populism and nationalism across many parts of the world threatens to unravel the market-oriented reforms of the previous era. We examine the impact of the reversal of a previously adopted market expanding policy on organization performance. We argue that these policy reversals are contested; affected firms undertake a broad range of political and nonmarket activities to alter the implementation of the policy and buffer themselves from adverse consequences. However, these activities can increase policy uncertainty while making new demands on managerial resources leading to diminished investment and a reallocation of finite managerial resources. The result is that firm performance on operational parameters suffers, including in locations that are not directly affected by the policy reversal. To empirically isolate this effect, we exploit an unexpected policy reversal in the context of telecommunications firms in India. Through an example caselet we first outline the political and nonmarket activities of one firm affected by the unexpected policy reversal. We then empirically examine the performance of affected and unaffected telecommunication firms using a difference-in-differences estimation to provide support for our arguments.
Legalization, diplomacy, and development: Do investment treaties de-politicize investment disputes?
Geoffrey Gertz, Srividya Jandhyala and Lauge Poulsen. 2018. World Development 107: 239-252
Empirical research on the impact of investment treaties has focused almost exclusively on their effect on foreign investment, with mixed results. Yet, another important promise of the treaties has been ignored altogether. Architects of the investment treaty regime, as well as many current proponents, have suggested that the treaties allow developing countries to de-politicize investor-state disputes; i.e. shield commercial disputes from broader political and diplomatic considerations with developed states. While this argument is widely accepted by legal scholars and practitioners and explicitly promoted by capital-exporting states, it has never been subjected to empirical investigation. We provide the first such test, using an original dataset of US diplomatic actions in 219 individual investment disputes across 73 countries as well as detailed case studies drawing on internal US State Department diplomatic cables. We find no evidence for the de-politicization hypothesis: diplomatic engagement remains important for investor-state dispute settlement, and the US government is just as likely to intervene in developing countries that have ratified investment treaties with the US as those that have not. Coercive American intervention in investment disputes is rare, but this is a general feature of American investment diplomacy after the Cold War, rather than one limited to investors with recourse to legalized dispute settlement procedures. These findings provide a critical corrective to our understanding of the investment treaty regime, and have important implications for understanding the effects of international legalization on developing countries.

​Cited by OECD Review of International Investment Agreements
Why do countries commit to ISDS for disputes with foreign investors?
​Srividya Jandhyala. 2016. Academy of International Business (AIB) Insights, 16(1):6-8
No matter how attractive a foreign investment opportunity appears to be, government intervention post investment can alter the sustainability and profitability of the project.In recent years, foreign investors have discovered a potent tool, the investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS), to address disputes arising from actions of host governments. Disputes between foreign firms and host governments—which might otherwise be settled through diplomacy, informal means, or domestic courts—can now be settled by an arbitration tribunal outside the jurisdiction of the host country. This article critically examines three motivations for host countries to commit to ISDS for disputes with foreign investors - attracting FDI, unintended policy, and de-politicization of investment disputes. ​
The Role of Intergovernmental Organizations in Cross-Border Knowledge Transfer and Innovation
Srividya Jandhyala and Anupama Phene. 2015. Administrative Science Quarterly, 60(4): 712-743
Nonmarket organizations play a supportive role in knowledge transfer and innovation domestically, but national differences between them can create barriers to cross-border knowledge transfer. Internationally oriented nonmarket organizations—ones that develop international ties and partnerships—may generate commonalities among participants and promote a set of similar rules, expectations, and norms across different countries and thus may be effective in supporting cross-border knowledge transfer and innovation. We focus on one such kind of organization, the intergovernmental organization (IGO), as a country’s connectedness to learning-oriented IGOs may have a positive influence on national innovation. Using an illustrative caselet on one IGO, the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, and an empirical analysis spanning 83 countries from 1996 to 2006, we find that the extent of connectedness to the learning-oriented IGO network enables national innovation. But countries differ in the extent to which they can leverage external knowledge for innovation because of the variation in relationships among local constituencies.
International and Domestic Dynamics of Intellectual Property Protection
Srividya Jandhyala. 2015. Journal of World Business, 50(2): 284-293
I examine the variation in the extent of intellectual property (IP) protection across countries. Combining insights from the ‘old’ and ‘new’ institutional perspectives, I argue that global pressures stemming from commitments to the World Trade Organization influence IP protection, but countries differ in their sensitivity to external pressures due to differences in domestic characteristics. The presence of a domestic interest group positively moderates the relationship between WTO commitment and stronger IP protection while domestic public health concerns negatively moderates this relationship. Data on IP protection for 65 countries during the period 1995–2006 provide support for the hypotheses.
Bringing the state back in: India’s 2015 model BIT
​Srividya Jandhyala. 2015. Columbia FDI Perspectives, No. 154, August 17, 2015
A review of India's 2015 model Bilateral Investment Treaty. ​
Institutions sans Frontières: International Agreements and Foreign Investment
Srividya Jandhyala and Robert Weiner. 2014. Journal of International Business Studies, 45(6): 649-669 
We examine whether the presence of International Investment Agreements (IIAs), negotiated among countries for foreign investor protection, lowers political risk faced by multinational enterprises (MNEs). Drawing on research from international business, political science, and international law, we argue that IIAs increase expected future cash flows, and hence the value of foreign assets, by limiting the ability of host governments to make discriminatory policy changes. However, the need for IIA protection, and the ability to benefit from it, varies with firm characteristics. Using detailed transaction-level data for sale of petroleum assets in 45 countries, we find that MNEs pay significantly higher amounts for those protected by IIAs than similar but unprotected assets, an effect moderated by the firm’s reserve size and state ownership.

Cited by OECD Review of International Investment Agreements
​Cited by UNCTAD report on International Investment Agreements
Property Rights and International Investment in Information Technology Services
Srividya Jandhyala​. 2013. Strategic Management Journal, 34(7): 877-889
Many modern information technology services are increasingly being produced in a host country to serve clients in an offshore location. As a result, the internationalization of service functions is beginning to resemble that of their more traditional manufacturing counterparts. This paper examines the role of formal and de facto property rights protection in the offshore location choice of information technology services. I also explore the role of a firm’s global subsidiary network and its experience with similar property rights regimes. Using investment data based on 152 firms and their international information service investments between 2002–2006, the empirical results highlight the role of de facto property rights protection and related experience in location choice.
Three Waves of BITs: The Global Diffusion of Foreign Investment Policy
Srividya Jandhyala, Witold Henisz and Edward Mansfield. 2011. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 55(6): 1045-1071
Bilateral investment treaties (BITs), agreements that provide extensive rights and protection to foreign investors, were first adopted in the 1960s, proliferated in the late 1980s and 1990s, especially among developing countries, and seemingly fell out of fashion after 2001. To explain this life cycle of diffusion across the international state system, we argue that BIT signing followed a traditional logic of diffusion for an innovation albeit here in the policy realm. In the first period, BITs provided a solution to the time inconsistency problem facing host governments and foreign investors. In the second period, these treaties became the global standard governing foreign investment. As the density of BITs among peer countries increased, more countries signed them in order to gain legitimacy and acceptance without a full understanding of their costs and competencies. More recently, as the potential legal liabilities involved in BIT signing have become more broadly understood, the pattern of adoption has reverted to a more competitive and rational logic. Our empirical tests of BIT signing over four decades provide evidence for such a three-stage model.

Cited by Singapore Chief Justice in the China-ASEAN Justice Forum
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