Abstract
This paper investigates the financial strategies employed by the Fortune Global 500 multinational enterprises (MNEs) in response to the financial uncertainties created by a non-market event – the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper utilizes data from corporate websites of these MNEs to reveal dialogic communication through systematic content analysis. The dialogic context is important because financial activities, actions, and responses to the pandemic provide information in real time. Findings reveal that, regardless of industry-type, MNEs employed four distinct financial strategies to remain financially flexible and competitively resilient during an unprecedented exogenous shock. These strategies - capital restructuring, cost reorganization, investment and diversification, and financial support programs – are prevalent irrespective of industry or headquarters’ location. The study contributes to extending intersecting theories on the organizational learning of MNEs and their corporate finance through the prism of a viral infectious disease. The study also sheds light on how organizations responsively invest in resources and change their product offerings to
benefit from emerging business opportunities, when non-market events occur.