Multinational enterprises from emerging markets (EMNEs) face the double hurdles of liabilities of foreignness and emergingness. Gaining legitimacy is one way to overcome these hurdles, and past work has looked at a number of organizational and field-level indicators of legitimacy. Recent research on legitimacy has drawn attention to the individual level of analysis as a micro-foundation of legitimacy.

This study uses a seven-step procedure to develop and validate a measure of the legitimacy of Chinese EMNEs operating in a developed country, The Netherlands. Using factor analysis and structural equation modelling on data from two different surveys in two different languages, the measurement scale demonstrates acceptable reliability and convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The study also finds that legitimacy is a hierarchical multidimensional construct, and the identified relationships between the dimensions reflect this legitimacy process at the individual level: recognition—sub-perceptions—overall perception.

David L. Deephouse is the Eldon Foote Professor of International Business/Law in the Department of Strategic Management and Organization at the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta, as well as its Associate Dean for PhD Programs and for Research. He is also an International Research Fellow of the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation. He earned his PhD at the University of Minnesota in 1994, his MBA from Georgia Tech in 1984, and his BA in Mathematics from Carleton College, Northfield, Minn., in 1982. His research focuses on social evaluations of organizations, especially legitimacy and reputation, and the causes and consequences of each. His theoretical interests include agenda-setting, institutional (in both organizational sociology and international business), media effects, stakeholder, strategic balance, and strategic choice theories. As of June 12, 2018, his work has been cited 8832 times in Google Scholar and 2530 times in Web of Science. Moreover, his work has been accepted for presentation by 11 divisions or interest groups of the Academy of Management since 1990.