Perspective: Reconciling top-down with bottom-up institutional change: A co-evolutionary perspective for advancing the IB contribution to the SDGs

International business (IB) scholars and practitioners are increasingly concerned with grand societal challenges, many of which are represented by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this perspective paper, we advance a co-evolutionary perspective as an integrative approach to inform the intersection of IB and sustainable development, using the SDGs as the domain for our analysis. Our perspective acknowledges the complex interdependences of two key institutional mechanisms shaping SDG-related change: (1) top-down adjustments to formal rules driven by policymakers seeking to advance a shared global agenda, and (2) bottom-up grassroots evolution by diverse stakeholders who prioritize local relevance of SDG-related action. While IB research has a tendency to theorize based on either one, integrating both is important to surface and understand the roles that MNEs actually play in sustainable development. Our perspective offers directions for future IB research to advance understanding of the MNE’s role multiplexity in SDG-related contexts, to adopt systems perspectives that acknowledge feedback loops associated with institutional dynamics, and to assess the system-level impact of SDG-related change.