State-owned multinationals (SOMNCs) have been recently rediscovered as an interesting type of firm to study, one that challenges some of the arguments of the theories of the multinational. In the 1970s, the initial studies of state-owned firms focused on understanding the logic and internationalization of these companies. However, the implementation of pro-market reforms throughout most of the world in the 1980s and 1990s led to the privatization of many state-owned firms and a diminishing interest in SOMNCs. In the late 2000s, however, there was resurgence of interest on the topic, partly because of the rapid expansion of a new set of emerging market multinationals, some of which were state-owned, and partly because of the appearance of various types of state-owned firms (majority, minority, indirect, sovereign wealth funds, etc.) that had not been studied before. The study of state-owned multinationals connects several fields – economics and political economy and their study of state ownership of firms, and international business and its study of the internationalization of firms – that can provide new insights via cross-fertilization. These firms pose interesting challenges to the usual explanations for the existence of state-owned firms: one is rooted in economics and explains the existence of state-owned firms as a solution to market imperfections, and another in rooted in political economy and explains the existence of these firms as a result of the ideology of some governments in maintaining control over the economy. Foreign direct investments by state-owned firms seem to challenge both arguments, providing the foundation for developing new insights by analyzing these firms. Moreover, the state ownership of SOMNCs also poses challenges to the usual explanations of the behavior of multinational companies in international business, given that the government may impose non-business objectives on the companies that result in unusual patterns of internationalization not well explained in theories of the multinational. As a result of the rediscovery of SOMNCs as an interesting research topic, and in view of the changes in the types of influence of the state on firms, we recently organized a special issue of JIBS on state-owned multinationals. This collection of JIBS articles complements that special issue by providing additional background for those interested in going deeper in the topic, with the articles presented in chronological order to facilitate a better understanding of how the study of SOMNCs has progressed. Organising Editor: Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, Reviewing Editor, Journal of International Business Studies