The Organizational Legitimacy Balancing Strategy of Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises from the Perspective of Institutional Logic——Taking Wanhua Group’s Cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions as a Case

Abstract

Abstract: From the perspective of institutional logic, this paper discusses the hybrid logic strategy and its process mechanism for emerging market multinational enterprises to achieve organizational legitimacy balance. Based on the case study of Wanhua Group’s cross-border M&A from 2009 to 2018, this paper shows that the legitimacy management of emerging market multinational enterprises faces two-way challenges of institutional logic conflicts: country conflict and governance competition, and the focus of organizational legitimacy management presents dynamic changes from external to internal. The dynamic transformation and combination of structural hybrids strategies and blended hybrids strategies in different stages of cross-border M&A can promote the state of multiple logics from compartmentalization to combination within emerging market multinational enterprises, and achieve legitimacy balance from the state of external strength and internal weakness to simultaneous enhancement of internal and external legitimacy. The result provides theoretical supplements for emerging market multinational enterprises to use hybrid logic strategy to achieve the balance of internal and external legitimacy, and also provides a practical guidance for Chinese multinational enterprises to determine their legitimacy strategies.

Key words: organizational legitimacy, institutional logic, structural hybrids, blended hybrids, emerging market multinational enterprises

Tao Haifei, Meng Xiangxia. The Organizational Legitimacy Balancing Strategy of Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises from the Perspective of Institutional Logic——Taking Wanhua Group’s Cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions as a Case[J]. Management Review, 2022, 34(9): 339-352.

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