Concerns over food safety in China not only direct public attention to negative incidents, but also trigger the government's scrutiny of implicated firms, particularly MNCs. The question of how to repair legitimacy after media coverage of negative incidents has become a critical issue for MNCs. Although the factors for MNCs’ public crises have been identified, how local contexts and mechanisms shape repair approaches remain unclear. To address this research gap, we conducted a study of Walmart China's approaches associated with two negative incidents across two regions. We found that the negative incidents can be framed differently depending on the local environment's unfavorability for MNCs. Specifically, the negative framing gave rise to varying degrees of legitimacy loss and offered different leeway for MNCs to repair their legitimacy. We also identified the varied outcomes of different repair approaches. By revealing the linkages among local context, framing, legitimacy repair, and its outcomes, our study contributes to research on MNCs’ legitimacy management under institutional complexity and underscores the China context for legitimacy maintenance. We also offer insights that advance the institutional approach to legitimacy repair in this context. Last, we reflect on the techniques for conducting qualitative research in China.

The need to innovate is relevant to many firms around the globe and is particularly pressing for those in emerging markets. They face global competition, are under-resourced, and suffer from weaker institutional support. It is suggested that to innovate successfully in this context, indigenous firms would benefit from focusing on managing their current knowledge base more efficiently. We know little about how knowledge management works outside developed economies and which knowledge governance mechanisms have more influence than others in the context of emerging economies. To address this gap, we explore how context may matter for the use of knowledge governance mechanisms and their effect on innovation performance in Brazilian firms. Using the survey data of 109 firms, structural equation modelling, and cluster analysis, our findings suggest that the joint application of knowledge-focused rewards, organizational design, and information and communication technologies that support knowledge processes is critical for boosting innovation performance. We discuss how the peculiarities of the Brazilian context may shape these findings. Our article contributes to the knowledge management and innovation literature by demonstrating that the joint effects of bundles of knowledge governance mechanisms and contextual variables should be explored in order to understand their impact on organizational outcomes.

We develop an integrative perspective on the role of coethnic ties and ties with foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) – normally studied in isolation of each other – on the perceived legitimacy of international new ventures (INVs) from emerging economies. Building on the notions of people (interpersonal diaspora ties) and pipelines (interorganizational MNE ties) in Lorenzen and Mudambi's connectivity theory of clusters, we argue that these could contribute to the focal INV's internal and external legitimacy, respectively, as it seeks to upgrade its capabilities. We go a step further by highlighting people within pipelines – coethnic managers working in foreign MNEs – as a potentially important catalyst of the focal INV's cross-border legitimacy. Using an illustration of an INV from Bangalore, we note that India offers a fruitful setting – and one that is distinct from China – for future INV research into the role of people, pipelines and, in particular, people within pipelines.

Guanxi is one of the most popular topics in Chinese and Western scholarship concerning social ties in China. However, several problems in research on guanxi persist, and multiple debates are still ongoing without much consensus in sight. This study has two goals. First, we offer a systematic review of the current literature on guanxi, especially by differentiating guan dyads from xi networks. This reconceptualization of guanxi enables us to clarify the concept of guanxi by differentiating its two dimensions. Second, based on this literature review, we propose a redirection of future research on guanxi such that guan dyads and xi networks are not examined in isolation; rather, their holistic and dynamic interaction is the most fruitful avenue for future research, especially the four mechanisms of their interaction. The proposed reconceptualization and redirection are our two contributions to the literature.