Legitimacy building strategies in conditions of discretionary legal enforcement: A logic of social action approach

The present study explores strategies used to legitimize the transfer of organizational practices in a situation of institutional upheaval. We apply the logic of social action (Risse, 2000) to analyze the effectiveness of consequence-based action and communication-based action, in terms of higher coordination, lower conflict, and overall higher economic performance. Consequence-based legitimation is obtained by using a system of distributor incentives tied to performance of specific tasks, while communicative legitimation can be achieved by recommendations and warnings. Our setting is an export channel to European emerging economies. Our results indicate that in the absence of legitimacy, as manifested in discretionary legal enforcement, consequence-based legitimation is more effective than communicative legitimation in reducing conflict, increasing coordination, and ultimately in improving the performance of the export dyad.     

Risk management,legitimacy, and the overseas subsidiary performance of emerging market MNEs

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are exposed to substantial risks when operating abroad and effective risk management plays a key role in determining firms’ competitiveness and success in overseas markets. Integrating the notion of home-country government-created advantages with the legitimacy perspective, we look at a concrete manifestation of government-created advantages, the impact of home-country risk-safeguarding mechanisms on Chinese MNEs’ overseas subsidiary performance. Moreover, we examine their effect under the contingency of firms’ legitimacy in host countries. Using survey data, we find that Chinese MNEs’ overseas subsidiary performance is positively associated with the use of home-country risk-safeguarding mechanisms. The strength of this association depends on Chinese firms’ legitimacy in host countries. The low level of legitimacy of these firms with host-country government and business communities can generate a negative spill-over effect that compromises the role of home-country risk-safeguarding mechanisms.     

Harmonization of firm CSR policies across national contexts: Evidence from Brazil & Sweden

We empirically investigate differences in CSR policy adoption between Brazil and Sweden. We find that Brazilian firms adopt CSR policies to a greater extent than Swedish firms. These differences suggest that the Swedish institutional context, where the public sector is the dominant player in the social arena, may have unintended consequences on the adoption of CSR policies by the private sector. We also find that with internationalization, a trend towards harmonization in CSR policy adoption between Brazil and Sweden is likely to happen. These results suggest that Swedish firms seek to gain legitimacy through greater CSR policy adoption at the international level.     

Urban Informality and the State: Geographical Translations and Conceptual Alliances

Understandings of informality commonly derive from research undertaken in states perceived as lacking the capacity to regulate the practices of their populations. This Interventions forum aims to expand the geographical parameters of empirical research on urban informality. A more global approach, we argue, also necessitates questioning assumptions that undergird this concept—in particular the underlying conception of the state. In this vein, this collection of papers aims to rethink theories of the state through the lens of informality, and vice versa, to inform and refine the concept of informality through a more thorough understanding of states. In so doing, the contributions engage with concepts that have been central both to theories of the state and to the study of informality, namely governance, agency, legitimacy, sovereignty and legality. Following this introduction setting out our theoretical approach, the Interventions forum unites five empirical studies that discuss the nexus of informality and states in contexts that have been researched less extensively from this perspective, each tackling one of the above‐mentioned concepts. Based on these different entry points, the papers provide novel angles on a state‐theoretical understanding of informality. A concluding essay brings these approaches together, reflecting on the possibilities of translating concepts to different sites.     

The influence of institutional contexts on the relationship between voluntary carbon disclosure and carbon emission performance

This article examines the relationship between the level of voluntary carbon disclosure (VCD) and carbon emission performance and how the institutional context influences this relationship. Using a sample of Global 500 firms participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) over the period 2008–2015, the evidence shows a negative relationship between voluntary carbon disclosure and carbon emission performance, which is consistent with the legitimacy theory that VCD may be undertaken for the purposes of legitimation. However, stringent carbon institutions appear to restrict legitimation attempts and help better reflect underlying performance.     

The megamarketing of microfinance: Developing and maintaining an industry aura of virtue

The current socio-economic climate is marked by an increased focus on corporate responsibility and the role of business in society. In this climate, megamarketing – efforts to develop and sustain an industry or market by gaining the cooperation and support of various stakeholders and publics – is an increasingly relevant approach. Current research in megamarketing focuses on understanding how various industry actors and stakeholders establish the legitimacy of a given industry by accommodating prevailing regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive structures. In contrast, this paper examines megamarketing efforts that go beyond such attempts to establish legitimacy towards establishing an industry as a virtuous entity displaying qualities that surpass minimal accepted standards and ‘business-as-usual.’ Inspired by work on virtue ethics in organisational studies, we develop the concept of industry aura: a ‘halo’ of unique and authentic virtues that characterise an industry. We explore the development of industry aura by surveying the discursive megamarketing tactics through which microfinance has been established as a virtuous industry. We conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of 589 articles about microfinance appearing in five selected newspapers between 1986 and 2016. Our findings reveal three sets of megamarketing discursive tactics: 1) diagnostic framing and social mission framing, deployed to establish microfinance as a virtuous entity; 2) virtue anchoring and frame bridging, used to defend the industry’s aura in times of authenticity crisis; and 3) diagnostic and social-mission reframing aimed at recovering the tarnished aura of microfinance. Our paper enriches megamarketing research by charting relevant terrain that stretches beyond the established vectors of legitimacy theorizing and offers important implications for megamarketing practitioners.     

基于合法性视角的国际企业战略联盟研究

以制度理论为基础,分析了国际企业战略联盟的内部合法性与外部合法性问题。通过对战略联盟内部合法性、外部合法性概念、作用的阐述,构建了一个整合框架,进而分析了企业特征、环境特征对企业获取合法性的影响,进一步拓展了基于制度理论的战略联盟研究,为国际企业的跨区域扩张,尤其是为新兴经济国家或转型经济国家的市场整合提供了新的解释与思路。     

Legitimating behaviors and firm emergence: a resource dependence perspective

This study makes an attempt to understand some of the reasons why some nascent firms make the transition to new operational firms (a process called “firm emergence”) while others do not. Because of liabilities-of-newness, nascent firms face the daunting task of acquiring legitimacy from their immediate audience in order to emerge as new operational firm. This study claims and finds empirical evidence that through certain legitimating behaviors nascent firms can acquire legitimacy from their immediate audience and thus succeed in becoming new operational firms. The study will put forward more general propositions for future testing, and will draw implications for practitioners and entrepreneurship scholars.

制度变迁与女性创业者崛起——来自LN家族的案例

以一个长时段的女性主导的家族创业为例,考察制度变迁与中国女性创业者崛起的关系,既有理论的必要性、也有现实的合理性。作者采用扎根理论方法,构建了基于制度理论的分析模型,用研究中自然涌现的"男女平权、创业合法化、女性创业能力"三个基本要素刻画了女性创业者崛起的关键因素。研究结果显示,制度变迁的发生顺序造就了中国女性创业者的崛起,集权体制具有发起大规模社会变革的效率优势,男女平权制度冲击了传统家庭模式和性别分工,改革开放实现创业合法化,通过干中学等方式女性积累并提高了发现、利用创业机会的能力,在三因素的共同作用下,中国女性创业者走上了崛起之路。作者基于制度变迁的视角建立了女性创业的理论框架,分析女性创业的原因以及如何兴起的过程。     

基于组织合法性的企业低碳管理模式构建——对丹佛斯、通用和日立模式的跨案例研究

通过理论梳理,构建了基于组织合法性的企业低碳管理模式,并结合3家标杆企业(丹佛斯、通用、日立)的案例分析提出研究推论。研究结果表明:低碳管理模式的形成是企业进行外部适应及内部整合的组织合法性构建过程;企业内部低碳管理合法性是以低碳意识-评级系统-产品服务化-低碳管理惯例这一顺序构建的;低碳管理惯例是低碳管理合法性持续存在、自我激活的过程,其最终形成需经历低碳认知图式、低碳行动框架、低碳生产流程、低碳产品设计等过程。