Adjustment and pivoting in tandem: The evolution of EMNEs in CoPS industries under geopolitical tensions

The rapid catchup and growing capabilities of emerging-market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) have made them increasingly susceptible to geopolitical tensions, especially in complex product systems (CoPS) industries deeply intertwined with national security and modern industrialization. Through a longitudinal case study of an EMNE in the offshore engineering equipment industry, we develop an integrative framework that illustrates how such firms can navigate the perceived threat of geopolitical tensions while sustaining their global operations, particularly when they have not undergone substantial disruption. We find that, in anticipation of such risks, firms proactively reconfigure their businesses through a dual logic of adjustment (recombining existing elements) and pivoting (integrating novel elements with existing ones) across market, technology, and ecosystem dimensions. Our study extends the strategic choice perspective by framing EMNEs’ evolution as a process in which this dual logic embodies strategic ambidexterity under structural constraints. It further advances the action-based view of dynamic capabilities by specifying how the interplay among multiple strategic dimensions enables sustained firm evolution under the perceived threat of geopolitical tensions.