The Role of Advanced Technologies in Corporate Decarbonization: A Problematizing Review and Comparative Research Agenda

Abstract

Advanced technologies are widely promoted as tools for decarbonization across sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, and energy. However, evidence of their environmental impact remains mixed, with outcomes varying significantly between settings. This variability highlights the need to understand how national institutional contexts shape the implementation and effectiveness of these technologies. A comparative international business perspective is especially useful in uncovering why the same technology leads to different results between countries, revealing the role of regulatory environments, market dynamics, and organizational norms. This paper uses a problematizing review method to critically examine five types of assumptions found in current research: in-house, root metaphor, paradigm, ideology, and field assumptions. This paper analyzes these assumptions through diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framings. The data for this review were drawn from a systematic search of the Web of Science and Scopus databases, supplemented by manual searches of high-ranking journals across multiple disciplines, resulting in a final sample of 64 relevant peer-reviewed articles. Our contribution includes exposing blind spots in existing literature, proposing a future research agenda, and encouraging a more context-sensitive, institutionally informed approach to technology and decarbonization in comparative international business.