‘Caught in the middle’: Effects on and reactions of Vietnamese timber exporters in the context of US-China economic sanctions

•Secondary sanctions have positive and negative impacts on third-country businesses.•Firms fully or selectively comply with sanctioned/sanctioning country rules.•Third-country firms use aligning, aspiring, influencing, and insulating strategies. The impact of primary sanctions on firms has been well-documented in the literature. However, the impact of secondary sanctions on businesses in third countries and their strategic responses has been under-researched. This study explores this issue by investigating Vietnamese timber exporters in the context of US-China economic sanctions. Taking a case study approach, interviews were conducted with key government and industry officials as well as firms in Vietnam. Using the key concepts from the realism school of thought and the stakeholder theory as the analytical lenses, we found that third countries’ businesses encountered both positive and negative impacts of the sanctions and employed four strategies, namely aligning, aspiring, influencing, and insulating to respond to the challenges and opportunities these sanctions presented. This study contributes to identifying the notion of temporality and explaining how and when third-country firms intertwine both reactive and anticipatory strategies.