The Optimal Distinctiveness between Institutional Entrepreneurship and Differentiated Competition in Weak Legitimacy Field: Based on the Multiple Case Study in the Domain of Knowledge Payment

Abstract

Abstract:

Institutional entrepreneurship is an important theoretical perspective to explain the rise of emerging industries in the era of digital economy. However, the development of the industry represented by the field of knowledge payment in recent years shows that the process and results of institutional entrepreneurship are different from what are found in previous researches. The fundamental reason is that they are in the special situation of weak legitimacy field. Therefore, new theories are needed to supplement institutional entrepreneurship and subsequent processes in a more systematic, in-depth and continuous way. Based on the theory of “optimal distinctiveness”, this paper analyzes the continuous growth process of enterprises from system entrepreneurship to differentiation competition in the field of weak legitimacy through multiple case studies of Himalayan FM, Dedao APP and Zhihu LIVE. It is found that the system entrepreneurial process of knowledge payment enterprises in the field of weak legitimacy is a strategic choice based on multi-dimensional legitimacy logic and differentiated logic orchestration. In the early stage, a number of enterprises jointly establish the recognition of the legality of the business model of the whole industry through the integration of different dimensions of legitimacy. In the middle and late stage, enterprises pursue differentiation in some dimensions and maintain or improve the legitimacy in other dimensions through compensation coordination, so as to realize the market competition of “fighting without breaking”, and finally realize the distinctive business model of individual enterprises on the basis of maintaining the legitimacy of the whole industry. This paper integrates the theoretical framework of institutional entrepreneurship and optimal distinctiveness, and analyzes the action strategy, internal logic and evolutionary mechanism of institutional entrepreneurship of the emerging knowledge payment platform from the perspective of strategic orchestration view.

Key words: institutional entrepreneurship, knowledge payment, strategy orchestration, business model, weak legitimacy field

Song Lifeng, Yang Zhuen, Lu Ying. The Optimal Distinctiveness between Institutional Entrepreneurship and Differentiated Competition in Weak Legitimacy Field: Based on the Multiple Case Study in the Domain of Knowledge Payment[J]. , 2020, 32(5): 321-336.

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