Strangers in a Strange Land: Legitimacy Formation by Polish Multinationals Venturing into Sub-Saharan Africa

Aleksandra Wąsowska (), Krzysztof Obłój and Dominik Kopiński
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Aleksandra Wąsowska: University of Warsaw
Krzysztof Obłój: Kozminski University
Dominik Kopiński: University of Wroclaw

Management International Review, 2024, vol. 64, issue 4, No 3, 700 pages

Abstract: Abstract Our paper revisits one of the fundamental questions of International Business (IB) scholarship, investigating the ways through which multinational enterprises (MNEs) establish legitimacy when entering a foreign market. We address this question in a novel context of Central and Eastern European (CEE) firms venturing into Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), employing a multiple case study approach. We investigate the process of legitimacy formation by Polish firms entering SSA for market-seeking reasons. We find that the firms studied use their initial liabilities of foreignness, outsidership, and origin as starting points for pragmatic, moral, and cognitive legitimacy-building by developing narratives that neutralize the distance between themselves and important local stakeholders. Our findings contribute to an understanding of the contingent nature of ‘liabilities’ in IB literature and shed light on the role of narratives in the internationalization process.

Keywords: Central and Eastern Europe; Legitimacy; Multinationals; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s11575-024-00548-2

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