The Influence of Legitimacy and Multi-level Environments: A Case Study of TaiwaneseSubsidiary’s Entry Mode Choice in Mainland China

This research studies Taiwanese subsidiaries’ entry -mode choice from the angle of institutional theory. The findings show that Taiwanese subsidiaries in Mainland China imitate each other to gain legitimacy when choosing an entry mode at different levels of institutional environments. Taiwanese subsidiaries prefer to imitate the entry mode of their own group, rather than institutional environments at other levels, and prefer to imitate the entry mode of local industry institutional environment, rather than national industry institutional environment and region institutional environment, which indicates that Taiwanese subsidiaries tend to seek legitimacy in a narrow institutional environment among a multi-level institutional environments in Mainland China .