Study On The Legitimacy Crisis And Coping Strategies Of Overseas Chinese Enterprises

Since the official implementation of Chinese enterprises' "going out" strategy in 2003,the international market and overseas investment projects of Chinese enterprises have expanded rapidly,and a number of large transnational corporations with international influence have emerged.Despite these achievements,Chinese enterprises'overseas trips have not been smooth.Strikes,protest rallies,petitions and even violent incidents against Chinese enterprises have occurred in host countries from time to time.Large-scale social protest movements have posed a serious threat to the survival of overseas enterprises and become an important incentive for Chinese enterprises to collapse overseas."Legitimacy",as an important intangible resource on which the survival of an organization depends,has become the focus of competition between protest groups and overseas enterprises.This paper selects two representative Chinese overseas enterprises as research objects,and uses the method of argumentation analysis to explore the legitimate strategies used by social resistance groups and overseas enterprises in the event of social protests,in order to to dynamically show the process of "construction/loss" of legitimacy of overseas enterprises.The purpose of this study is not to judge the legitimacy of overseas enterprises and social protest groups,nor to discuss the value judgment and evidence authenticity of the issues involved.Based on a relatively complete set of legitimacy strategies,this paper examines how overseas enterprises and social protest groups use the mentioned legitimacy strategies in the debate of issues,and explains their positions to the conflicting parties and the public to enhance their organizational legitimacy.The results show that the legitimacy of Chinese overseas enterprises in host countries is facing greater challenges.At the level of regulative legitimacy,the enterprises faces the double test of "illegality" and "heterogeneity";at the level of normative legitimacy,it faces the moral review of "double standards";at the level of cognitive legitimacy,it faces the disadvantage of "outsiders" and "countries of origin".The legitimacy strategy of overseas enterprises is relatively simple and tends to resort to legal or institutional framework to solve problems.Therefore,overseas enterprises also need to analyze their own organizational characteristics and market characteristics of hostcountries,and adopt different "legitimacy" strategies according to different scenarios.Finally,while using the legitimacy strategy of overseas enterprises,it is more necessary toseek mutual understanding and reach an agreement with the external social environmentof the host country,so as to rebuild the legitimacy of legalization.