Narrow Results

Most of the organizational theories take the existence of organizations for granted. Thus, attempts to understand success and failure at the nascent firm stage have often been conducted without an underlying theory to explain why some nascent firms succeed in becoming new firms while others do not. This study proposes that institutional theory offers an explanatory framework to explain firm emergence. Specifically, we argue that nascent firm becomes new firm thanks to resource endowments. The reliance on legitimating characteristics will grant a nascent firm an access to critical resources necessary for its emergence. We explore these ideas empirically and find support for our basic arguments.

This paper examines the legitimating process of a French higher education institution entirely dedicated to entrepreneurship. Management and entrepreneurship education strive both for academic and market legitimacies. We think entrepreneurship education is confronted with an additional challenge: building political legitimacy. We analyze the "extreme case" study of Advancia, a Paris business school. We examined the business school's legitimation process over a period of six years, from 2004 to 2010. This "extreme case" may be informative for other business schools willing to reach academic, market and political legitimacies while at the same time trying to develop a coherent and stable global strategy in a competitive higher education landscape. This is the first article dealing with the topic of legitimacy acquisition processes, with the aim of emphasizing the institutionalization of entrepreneurial mindset in French entrepreneurship higher education.

Disruptive technology platforms from emerging companies hold great promise for exploiting innovation, but often face legitimacy hurdles due to their liability of newness. Nascent firms must learn new roles with limited precedent, and establish ties with an environment that may not fully understand or value their existence. Using a legitimacy-based lens in the context of the biotechnology industry, we posit a sequential construct — cognitive, regulative, and normative legitimacy — to evaluate emergent technology platforms. Our model of biotechnology platform emergence may provide insights for understanding how breakthroughs achieve legitimacy in the scientific community, mobilize resources and talent, and attain commercial success.

Since Japan’s imposition of export controls against Korea in July 2019 and its following countermoves, including the termination of the General Security of Military Information Agreement, the governments of both countries have presented their own narratives of the origin of this trade war, both of which mirror theories of international politics. Nonetheless, these narratives mask several domestic origins. Most importantly, this paper demonstrates that behind the trade war, there has been a preoccupation of the two governments with mutually irreconcilable version forms of historicism. One is Korea’s pro-naturalist historicism, seeing Korean history as being preordained by the universal laws of human progress and defining Japan as a historical reactionary. The other is Japan’s anti-naturalist historicism, upholding internationalism as a new driving force of history that will transform Japan from a war criminal state into a proper subject in international society while criticizing Korea as being a drag on this transformation. This paper argues that, resulting from decades-long neoliberal politics that have disturbed the state-society balance, the national structure of post-democracy has encouraged each government to push historicism to its limit as an alternative source of political legitimacy in lieu of democratic accountability. Concretely, it shows that post-democracy has determined (1) the historicist framing of emerging conflicts, (2) the government’s legislative struggles to realize historicist policies, and (3) the incontestability of historicist hostility by other ideas in each country.

Previous research suggests that guanxi "costs" are significantly higher for private Chinese enterprises versus all other enterprise types, i.e., state, township and village (TVE), domestic and foreign enterprises. Also, consistent with its cultural context, guanxi is considered to be equally important in business as it is in life for all types of Chinese enterprises. Herein, the discussion is extended to describe the concept of guanxi as a means of garnering social capital in order to maintain legitimacy. Furthermore, some practical means are suggested for entrepreneurs and small business owners to build a necessary foundation for survival.

Institutions influencing entrepreneurship are undergoing significant transformation in China. During the Mao era, private entrepreneurship was virtually eradicated and was a political taboo. As reflected in the macro-level economic data, there has been an evolution of entrepreneur-friendly institutions in the country. A constellation of factors linked to China's global integration is pushing through fundamental changes in institutions related to Chinese entrepreneurship. The logics or governance structures and organizing principles related to entrepreneurship are rapidly changing in the country. This paper examines forces influencing the diffusion of instrumental values promoting entrepreneurship among Chinese institutional actors.

Traditional research on the reasons for the depressed rate of black entrepreneurship has focused on differences between black [note: The term "blacks" is used to represent the broader groups of blacks in the United States, which include African-Americans and also black people from African countries, the Caribbean and other countries.] and white entrepreneurs. In this paper, we move beyond the individual entrepreneur and study consumers' perceptual differences of black and white entrepreneurs. Using a multi-disciplinary theoretical framework to study 846 participants, we found empirical evidence that there are significant relationships between perceptions of legitimacy and consumer attitudes toward entrepreneurs and intended patronage. In addition, there appears to be differences in the way consumers perceive black and white entrepreneurs, which suggest significant challenges facing black entrepreneurs. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

This article analyses key characteristics pertaining to the evolution of nascent technologies and enterprises. More specifically, we analyse the development of two new renewable energy technologies — solar photovoltaic (PV) and wave power (WP) — within the Norwegian energy sector. There are mainly two reasons for selecting these technologies. First, they may facilitate the transition to more sustainable energy supplies. Second, they display strikingly different development dynamics, from which important lessons can be learned for the management of innovation in the energy sector. The main causes of the Norwegian PV industry's success are its ability to exploit a global niche market, and the effective matching of technological capabilities with market opportunities into strategies for learning and legitimacy. The constrained development of WP technology, on the other hand, is not only attributed to technical difficulties, but also to the lack of niche markets, research rivalry, decreasing public support, and insufficient organisational capacity.

Few studies have examined the process by which health technology innovators must socially construct their firm and share their ideas with economic and health system actors. To fill this gap, we intended to provide insights into the differences characterising the health technology startup (HTS) among other startups and test a conceptual model by characterising press releases and media coverage emanating from five firms (three HTS and one well-established firm, and one non-health information technology). Using a multiple case study design, with three embedded units of analysis composed of the startups’ sensegiving intentions, its competitive actions and its strategic responses to pressures, we observed marked difference in the use of marketing and symbolic actions as well as recourse to prominent actors. Besides, health startups were the only ones relying on cognition rather than actors’ self-interest or moral judgments. There were also differences depending on the startup status and the number of actors resulting in different response patterns to pressures. The findings are paving the way to further research on innovators and actor’s inner thinking, which may contribute to shaping business development programs targeted specifically for health tech startups, and may help emerging entrepreneurs compare their evolution to health and non-health tech startups.

Science-policy interactions are often contested, due to strategic production and use of knowledge. This is problematic because the potential of science to enrich decision-making is underexploited. Scientific literature suggests that these problems are related to a lack of credibility, salience and/or legitimacy of knowledge. Science-policy interfaces (SPIs), such as knowledge brokers, are suggested to enhance science-policy interactions by promoting the production of credible, salient and legitimate knowledge. However, the current scientific debate provides little clarity on which SPIs are most useful in solving which science-policy interaction problems and what strategies should be employed. Based on a profound literature review, this paper aims to arrive at a better understanding of SPIs, by providing conceptual clarity and linking typical SPIs to distinct problems and the contexts in which they emerge. We suggest an empirical research agenda to test theoretical claims about SPIs and our own refinements thereof, and to identify best practices.

Numerous publications have emerged relating to the Site C dam on the Peace River in northern British Columbia, Canada. This paper focuses on a recently published study that examined the effectiveness of Indigenous peoples’ participation in the environmental impact assessment of the dam. Although the study identifies several important deficiencies, it is incomplete with a number of inconsistencies and suggests a path that is unlikely to be a sufficient remedy. The objective of this paper is to address key shortcomings that could foster crucial misunderstandings. Environmental decisions and actions were organised based on the typologies of impact assessment for context and to identify interconnections and sources of ineffectiveness. Results confirm that the effectiveness framework has considerable utility and improves measurement accuracy. This paper also presents supplemental insights into engagement, consent, legitimacy as a dimension of impact assessment effectiveness when Indigenous peoples are involved, and concludes with suggestions for future research.

This paper uses the Wenchi District as a case study to generate a nuanced understanding of the interactive process between decentralized government structures and traditional authority in the context of Ghana's highly touted democratic achievements within the African continent. Qualitative methods involving focus group discussions of 159 males and 98 females aged between 18 to 72 years in 8 communities were used to facilitate insightful discussions and reflections. The focus group discussions (FGDs) were complemented with key informant interviews (n = 8) and direct observations. Using grounded theory, the results reveal that the interaction between traditional authorities and government decentralized institutions within Ghana's emerging democracy are characterized by competition for power and legitimacy. This has led to mistrust and the inability to take advantage of the potentially synergistic effects between the two systems of local governance for accelerated development. Furthermore, the findings reveal that a predominant culture of fear of authority within different hierarchical levels, is stifling genuine participation, further reinforcing a lack of accountability by authorities from both sides. We conclude that if decentralization policies are to be effective in Ghana, it may be imperative for government to strive for more open governance processes that are capable of blending the traditional systems with the emerging democratic dispensation depending on the context.

Decentralization to regional bodies and consolidation of short-term and developmental finance together constitute the best hope for governance reform in international financial institutions.

The implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is examined from various perspectives, as well as the distinctive features of some theories. CSR is a kind of action for communicating with stakeholders to show that companies pay attention to the environment, nature, and society. The theories relating to CSR implementation can be discussed from different perspectives. Agency theory focuses on the relationship between agent and principal and may give rise to conflict of interest. Legitimacy theory places the public as its responsibility. Disclosing information about social and environmental performance is a path for companies to maintain or regain their legitimacy in the society’s point of view. Meanwhile, entity theory focuses only on the satisfaction of the shareholders, hence the company activities are only directed to meet the welfare of the owners. Enterprise theory recognizes the responsibility to the owners and broader stakeholder groups. However, Sharia enterprise theory pays attention in two directions, consisting of vertical accountability to God and the horizontal accountability in direct and indirect stakeholders for humans, the environment, and society.

Corporate diplomacy refers to the use of non-market (political and social) strategies by firms to both respond to and potentially shape country diplomacy. Like country diplomacy, corporate diplomacy demands a constant and delicate balancing act. This chapter highlights the importance of corporate diplomacy in the exit strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs), especially during periods of diplomatic tensions between the MNEs’ home and host countries. We introduce a framework supported by four case examples that illuminate how MNEs can manage stakeholder pressures from different countries by improving their corporate diplomacy endeavors. In a world marked by escalating geopolitical tensions among major economies, establishing best practices in corporate diplomacy becomes indispensable for MNEs as they navigate the complexities of exiting from or sustaining their presence in a given country.

Disruptive technology platforms from emerging companies hold great promise for exploiting innovation, but often face legitimacy hurdles due to their liability of newness. Nascent firms must learn new roles with limited precedent and establish ties with an environment that may not fully understand or value their existence. Using a legitimacy-based lens in the context of the bio-technology industry, we posit a sequential construct — cognitive, regulative, and normative legitimacy — to evaluate emergent technology platforms. Our model of biotechnology platform emergence may provide insights for understanding how break-throughs achieve legitimacy in the scientific community, mobilize resources and talent, and attain commercial success.

International entrepreneurship is typified by market-making activities which can be technological or cultural. Technological innovations are created by experimentation, whereas the change through cultural innovation is shaped by the collective endeavours of entrepreneurs. For cultural and technological innovation, we theorise how international entrepreneurs must accommodate the multiplicity of national markets and their diversity to achieve legitimacy, but in doing so, they must also maintain their uniqueness. We identify and elaborate four strategies: assembling, disseminating, sharpening and delimitating. Our contextualisation of cross-border venturing of cultural and technological innovations provides an understanding of how entrepreneurs make markets.

We began first with the hope that a conversation regarding individuals with autism and employment may be broached. Then, we spoke of the social environment in which these individuals with autism are oppressed through exclusion by tucking them into a vulnerable population. Then, the conversation shifted to pulling individuals with autism out of their vulnerable social group so that they may be a single individual with autism, only to be countered that, even as a single person, an individual with autism will still behave so differently from societal expectations or even my own expectations. Then, the conversation shifted to considering that perhaps it is for the own good of the individuals with autism, perhaps the workplace is no place for such individuals, and it would just hurt the person themselves to be there. Then, to push the conversation again to invite them into the workplace, again there is this counter that, even if those poor individuals would like to be a part of the workplace, they cannot fulfill the demands of work, the organization itself would not be a functional organization. Then, the conversation is pulled back into asking what is more important. Is it more important to keep an organization that cannot function for its people or to keep a functioning organization that is successfully hurting people? How about this instead: Let’s end the conversation with the hope that a world will be created with love for all, as we call for more organizational studies that include not just individuals with autism but also all kinds of authentic individual ways of being that are reaching for connection to entities, time, place, and persons to be desired and legitimized in organizations. For it is not impossible to create a functional organization when we discover that every authentic person is a legitimate being in the world.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide organisations with a better understanding of how they can manage rapidly developing information and communication technology, and particularly wireless networks that have evolved into several technological standards in recent years. Case analyses of two large organisations, called here Metro University and Urban Healthcare Centre, demonstrated collective patterns of how organisational legitimacy was changed. More specifically organisational legitimacy, in relation to wireless networks and IT management, was often enhanced by the recognition and/or appreciation from three major groups of stakeholders: external customers who were normally prospective users, internal customers who were the existing users, and the IT staff members who provided services to the user groups. Our empirical findings suggest that certain social values such as prospective customers' recognition, internal customers' satisfaction, and existing IT staff members' appreciation might help shape an organisation's long turn image and legitimacy. They might not provide immediate profitability and growth, but their effects could be sustained over time and help organisations to survive and ultimately thrive. Organisations situated in today's rapidly changing IT and wireless environment might thus need to reconsider how to better capture various social values derived from IT and wireless network projects, and in turn help legitimise their innovative status that might ultimately ensure long-lasting survival.

This chapter aims to provide a concise review of reforms in different political institutions since China's reform and opening-up in 1978, and to analyze the progress, bounds, and agendas behind these reforms. We examine party-led reforms in the bureaucratic system, State Council, government agencies, legislature, judicial system, and rural politics, as well as changes and continuities in the Party elites' ideology of democratization and civil society–state relations. Along with political and economic reforms in the past three decades and as the process of state building gradually unfolds, the government has enacted more laws and regulations successfully. The Party has also transformed past administrative means into legal means with stronger leadership and governance. The Party's elites are gradually acknowledging the universality of democracy, although neither the adoption of Western context of freedom nor the establishment of liberal democracy in China is implied by such acknowledgement. The ultimate objective of the reforms is to drive the Party toward reclaiming its legitimacy. Currently, the paramount task is to strengthen party organizations and consolidate the Party's ruling capacity. This means that the Party may develop Singaporean-style authoritarianism and maintain its ruling position by laws and economic interests.