Laws, Enforcement, and Strategy: A Multi‐Layered Qualitative Study of Multinational Enterprise Compliance Under European Union and Chinese Data Protection Regimes
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT In an era of proliferating but divergent data protection regimes, the European Union's rights‐based approach and China's sovereignty‐centric model have become two dominant poles of global data governance. This article examines how multinational enterprises navigate compliance under these dual systems and how that compliance is shaped through interaction with regulators and courts. Using a multi‐level qualitative framework, we combine macro analysis of legal regimes, meso assessment of enforcement, and micro case studies of TikTok in the EU and Accor in China. We show that both jurisdictions assert extraterritorial control and intensify enforcement through distinct institutional pathways. Confronted with conflicting obligations, firms segment data architectures and embed compliance in technical design, trading interoperability for legal certainty. These dynamics reveal a recursive relationship between law, enforcement, and organisational adaptation, in which the practical meaning of compliance is produced through rules‐in‐use and firms exercise bounded agency rather than full autonomy.
Source: Policy & Internet
DOI: 10.1002/poi3.70037
Author: Yiping Cao
Institution: University of Edinburgh
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,570
OpenAlex ID: W7147544804