How does Corporate Entrepreneurship in Traditional Firm Gain Legitimacy

Abstract

Abstract:

In response to challenges arising from the mobile Internet, many traditional firms seek digital transformation via corporate entrepreneurship. The legitimacy issue becomes a major concern since corporate entrepreneurship is different from traditional startups in many ways. In particular, though corporate entrepreneurship does not have to face legitimacy deficiency caused by resource insufficiency, internal constraints may also restrict its legitimacy. However, previous studies have mostly focused on new ventures' legitimacy and paid little attention to that of corporate entrepreneurship. Therefore, this study attempts to address how corporate entrepreneurship gains legitimacy. Firstly, results show that corporate entrepreneurship needs to achieve both internal and external legitimacy. To obtain legitimacy quickly, organization could first obtain local legitimacy internally, and then gradually enhance internal and external legitimacy. Secondly, we investigate the mechanism of obtaining legitimacy from the perspective of resource behavior, and find that effective management and leverage of resources are extremely important to overcome internal restrictions and enhance overall legitimacy.

Key words: corporate entrepreneurship, internal legitimacy, external legitimacy, resource behavior, case study

Wang Bing, Mao Jiye. How does Corporate Entrepreneurship in Traditional Firm Gain Legitimacy[J]. , 2020, 32(4): 104-116.

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