The Influence Of Institutional Pressure On Enterprise International Marketing Strategy And Its Performance Based On Legitimacy Perspective

In the ten years from2001in which China joined the WTO, the outstandingperformance of the internationalization of Chinese enterprises is the rapid growth ofoverseas investment and merger volume, which has become the focus of worldattention. But in fact, the internationalization of Chinese enterprises still exists manyproblems, such as low degree of internationalization, international competitivenessand international reputation. So, what causes the insignificant effectiveness ofinternationalization of Chinese enterprises? The resource-based theory andinternational entrepreneurship theory can not reasonably explain. Institutional theoryis that the enterprise is embedded in the social environment. The internationalizationof enterprises means the great changes of operating environment. If there are gapsbetween the behavior of enterprises and the regulation, norms and cognition of theinstitutional environment, the enterprises are unable to obtain legitimacy and areaccepted by the community. Based on legitimacy perspective of institutional theory,this study explores operating mechanism between institutional pressure, enterpriselegitimate marketing strategy and enterprise performance.This paper comprises four parts of introduction, theory development, empiricalanalysis and conclusion. The introduction part includes the1stchapter which mainlyclarifying the background and significance of this research as well as the researchpurpose and framework. Theory development comprises the2ndand the3rdchapter,we bring forward a research perspective and theory framework based on the reviewand analysis of the present literature such as institutional theory and internationalstrategy theory. Chapter4and5consist of the empirical analysis. We verify ourhypotheses and modle through Questionnaire and data analysis. Chapter6consists ofthe forth part. We conclude the results and management and practice meaning. Wealso point out the limit in our research and make some suggestions to futureresearch.The outline of each chapter is as follows:Chapter1is introduction. It points out the background and significance of theresearch. In recent years, the internationalization of Chinese enterprises is increasingly popular, but the effectiveness of the internationalization is notsignificant. Previous study of the internationalization of the enterprise is an internalperspective regardless of the resource-based perspective or internationalentrepreneurship perspective. In fact, the external institutional environment has animportant impact on enterprise internationalization and sometimes plays a decisiverole. Therefore, this study clearly states research purpose, method and framework. Itwill discuss deeply the relationship between the institutional pressure, enterpriselegitimate marketing strategy and enterprise performance useing the method of normstudy combining empirical study from the legitimacy perspective of institutionaltheory.Chapter2is literature review. We reviewd the important literature at home andforeign that was related to the research variables such as institutional pressure,Constituents’ Multiplicity of host country, enterprise external dependence, enterpriselegitimate marketing strategy and enterprise performance. The key problem is thatwe introduce three dimensions of enterprise legitimate marketing strategy, namely,compliance, highlighting and manipulation.Chapter3is the study design. This chapter will exploratively present the studymodel of the relation between institutional pressure, Constituents’ Multiplicity ofhost country, enterprise external dependence, enterprise legitimate marketingstrategy and enterprise performance from the legitimacy perspective. It deducestheoretical hypotheses from the relation of the related concepts in the study model.This chapter introduces the questionnaire design process, variable measurementmethods and study design.Chapter4is about the development and testing for the legitimate marketingstrategy. This chapter is a very important part of empirical research, namely thedevelopment and testing of the scale. Certainly, in order to ensure content validityand operability of the scale as far as possible, this study conducted qualitativeresearch and had an in-depth interview with part of the managers of internationalmarketing department. The exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factoranalysis were conducted for the initial scale.Chapter5is the data analysis and interpretation. Firstly, this chapter tested reliability and validity of the scales using statistical software. Secondly, this chaptercarried on descriptive analysis to understand the basic situation of the enterpriseinternationalization. At last, it tested the hypotheses using the regression analysis.The results show that the institutional pressure has a significant positive effect on thecompliance strategy, highlighting strategy and manipulation strategy; variousstrategies have a significant positive effect on enterprise performance; theconstituents’ multiplicity of host country has a negative moderating effect on thisrelationship between the institutional pressure and compliance strategy; it has anegative moderating effect on this relationship between the institutional pressure andhighlighting strategy; but it has a positive moderating effect on this relationshipbetween the institutional pressure and manipulation strategy; enterprise externaldependence has a positive moderating effect on this relationship between theinstitutional pressure and compliance strategy; it has no moderating effect on thisrelationship between the institutional pressure and highlighting strategy; but it has anegative moderating effect on this relationship between the institutional pressure andmanipulation strategy.Chapter6is the study conclusions and prospects. Firstly, this chapter summariedthe analysis of the previous chapters to draw the conclusions of this study.Secondly, it discussed academic value and practical significance of this study. Finally,the inadequacies of this study was presented and pointed out the future direction offurther research.In a word, this study reviewed the literatures on institutional economics,international trade, sociology and marketing. With the domestic enterprises whichjoint venture or cooperate overseas or set up an overseas wholly owned subsidiary asthe research objects, this study systematically discussed the operating mechanismbetween the institutional pressure, legitimate marketing strategy and enterpriseperformance using a research method of integration of norm with demonstrationfrom the legitimacy perspective.