The data-based power of big-tech multinational enterprises

Abstract Despite the increasing recognition of digital globalization in international business (IB) literature, there is a more pressing need for a comprehensive understanding of the unprecedented power generated by big-tech multinational enterprises (MNEs). This paper suggests that harnessing data ubiquity globally, instantaneously, and continuously represents a defining feature and a revolutionary power source for big-tech MNEs. By leveraging global data value chains through a mutually reinforcing data-AI feedback loop of data access, analysis, and application, big-tech MNEs can reshape IB practices and challenge global regulatory frameworks. Drawing on power-dependence theory, our research framework highlights a logic of power mutuality characterized by the interplay between power generation and power counterbalance. These two forces provide a holistic lens for examining how big-tech MNEs create data-based power, but are simultaneously countered by the economic and sociopolitical stakeholders of big-tech MNEs. We propose promising avenues for future research on MNEs’ data strategies, global data value chains, foreignness and liabilities of data, and global data governance.