Acquiring Legitimacy in Institutional Entrepreneurship: A Case for Emerging Economies

This study evaluates the extant literature on the acquisition of legitimacy of an institutional entrepreneurial activity in emerging economies. Emerging economies have less developed governmental and regulatory frameworks and, at a more basic level, less developed regulatory and enforcement environments. Consequently, market regulation, corporate governance, transparency, accounting standards, and intellectual property protection are often less robust than in more advanced economies. Moreover, in emerging economies, where there is less contestation about any given institutional structure, changes in institutional structures are likely to be more frequent than when compared with an advanced economy. Under these conditions, there is an increased possibility of an individual or an organization having the authority or economic resources to change the rules of the game; the participants might reap the benefits of such an opportunity, a phenomenon referred to as institutional entrepreneurship. Such change in the 'rules-of-the-game' may be beneficial to wider society and lead to productive activity, or in some cases become unproductive and lead to opportunistic activity. The existing literature on institutional entrepreneurship in emerging economies offers some understanding into how such individuals or organizations acquire power to influence change. However, the mechanisms that enable these institutional innovations to become accepted either by key stakeholders or the general society within the specific context of emerging economies remain unclear and call for further investigation. For novel institutional arrangements to become accepted implies that they have acquired legitimacy. Using the context of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, this paper offers an integrating conceptual framework that opens up our understanding of the process of gaining legitimacy for institutional entrepreneurship with that particular focus on emerging economies. Following, it proposes methodological considerations for such research undertaking in emerging economies.