Between Signal and Execution: How Institutional Pressures and Asset Specificity Shape Corporate Exit from Russia - A Comparative Case Study of Four Western Energy Majors

Details

Supervisors

Janssen, Frank

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enWithin days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, three of Europe's largest oil and gas companies, BP, Shell and Equinor, each announced a full exit from their Russian positions. A fourth, TotalEnergies, committed to considerably less. All four were among the most exposed foreign investors in Russian production. Three years later, only one had actually gone. This dissertation asks what explains the variation in what these firms announced, and what then determined whether those announcements could be executed. It reads declaration and execution as one sequence, drawing on institutional theory for the first and on the transaction cost and exit barriers literature for the second. The four firms are compared as separate analytical cases from December 2021 to December 2024, against the public documentary record: company filings, public statements and the Russian decrees themselves.