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Abstract
Although existing studies have connected the emergence and development of e-commerce
with infrastructure, culture, and regulations, we approach technological and platform
acceptance from the perspective of legitimacy building. In our study, legitimacy is
categorized into market, relational, and social legitimacy, and the link between each
type of legitimacy and acceptance is explored. We select the case of Alibaba and argue
that Alibaba was especially competent in building legitimacy. Alibaba's continuous
efforts to build legitimacy facilitated platform evolution despite its exposed weakness
in intellectual property rights. These efforts rendered Alibaba as a de facto standard
e-business model. This research suggests that any firm that wants market acceptance
for its platform or e-commerce technology should focus more on building legitimacy
among stakeholders than on anything else.