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Legitimacy refers to the acceptance of an authority, which may be a regime or a governing law. While authority signifies an exact position in an already established government, legitimacy represents a system of government. Legitimacy-based view (LBV) is an analytical tool that explains a government’s motivation to either engage or not in international business (Netelenbos, 2016). Legitimate authority is usually given the right and is justified to exercise power. The extent to which a government intervenes in an international business is normally influenced by the political risk of a multinational at home, societal context, and the risk encountered by the advancing technology and service firms. If the actions of a particular firm are beneficial and legitimate, the government will not be inspired to participate (Daniels John, 2007). Conversely, it would be motivated to get involved in a firm’s actions that are said to be less legitimate. Two types of legitimacy that can be used to explain the U.S. government’s recent ban on Chinese firm TikTok are discussed below.
Overview of TikTok
TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance Ltd which is a Chinese company. It is used to create lip-sync, talent videos, short music, looping videos, and dance which last for about 3 to 15 seconds (Dale, 2020). It is a platform that is common among teens, though other older generations also use it. The innovation was released in China in 2016 as an international form of Douyin, which is a multimedia platform owned by a young tech giant in China. It gives its users a chance of creating, editing, and sharing short videos. Later, the networking service (TikTok) was launched in other markets outside China in 2017 and was availed worldwide, including in the U.S. in 2018 (Herrman, 2019). It is a platform that has rapidly become a vibrant online interaction media, providing channels for underprivileged groups and artists to express, market themselves, and make a living.
Since its launch, TikTok has expanded in different parts of the world, including Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the U.S. Despite its increasing popularity, the network was banned from some markets, including India and it is under scrutiny in the U.S. because it raised national security concerns which are primarily centered on the safety and privacy of the data collected (Wang, 2020). The application also censors political speech and it was feared that there was a high possibility it could be used as a medium for spreading misinformation. According to a claim by the U.S. government, TikTok is said to attain vast bands of important information automatically from its users.
The captured information may include any other related network activities such as search histories, browsing, and location data. The data collection thus portends to permit the Chinese Communist Party access to the personal proprietary information of the Americans (Weimann and Masri, 2020). By so doing, China could have the potential of tracking the locations of America’s contractors, federal employees and build dossiers. This information can further be used to blackmail and carry out corporate espionage.
Moral Legitimacy
Something is regarded as legitimate if it is in accordance with the set rules. These rules can either be legal, logical, institutional, moral, or customary. Implementing moral legitimacy, as required by global justice, should be grounded on universal moral principles (Collinson, Narula, and Rugman, 2016). Customary legitimacy should comply with the society’s traditions, rules of different religions, and customs. Institutional legitimacy implies the principle of morality which is applied to a particular institution, as the public passes judgment whether or not such an institution satisfies moral criteria. Moral legitimacy signifies actions that obey and are in agreement with the rules of an ethic (Bowen, 2019). It not only rests on judgments on whether an activity is beneficial to the evaluator, but also whether the said activity is the right thing that should be done (Stevens, Xie, and Peng, 2016). Usually, the moral legitimacy within a firm is conferred by the stakeholders’ belief that the actions of the firm contribute to the welfare of the society, and they conform to the values and norms which are shared by the same society.
With respect to the above and the idea that TikTok poses a national threat to the U.S. government, the innovation completely fails to achieve moral legitimacy, which is the degree to which an organization pursues goals in a socially acceptable manner. Invading information privacy in the host country is a norm that is not accepted by society, and therefore the government was motivated to intervene by imposing an instant ban on its operations (Dale, 2020). Meanwhile, the platform is still under regulatory scrutiny over issues regarding the circulation of immoral content.
Cognitive Legitimacy
Assessing if the activities of an organization are desirable and appropriate and that they match the pre-constructed principles on work organization and social value generation is what constitutes cognitive legitimacy. It involves accepting the organization as inevitable and necessary based on various cultural accounts which may be taken for granted (Lock and Schulz-Knappe, 2019). It is founded on both the conscious and subconscious evaluation of the merits of a firm and the acceptance of its existence and actions.
With regard to this type of legitimacy, despite the fact that TikTok rapidly gained popularity across the globe and in the U.S. market, its short-lived tenure in the Indian markets and its recent ban in the U.S. is an indication that it failed to gain cognitive legitimacy in these markets, from the general public’s perspective. The rapid rise and fall signified acceptance, scrutiny of its legitimacy which is followed by a non-acceptance on questionable grounds of national security. Thus, it lacked the key ingredients which underpin cognitive legitimacy–necessary or inevitable.
Reference List
Bowen, F. (2019) ‘Marking their own homework: the pragmatic and moral legitimacy of industry self-regulation’, Journal of Business Ethics, 156(1), pp. 257-272.
Collinson, S., Narula, R. and Rugman, A.M. (2016) International business. Pearson.
Dale, C. (2020) ‘Australia investigates TikTok and WeChat amid U.S. bullying towards Chinese tech companies’, Guardian (Sydney), (1929), pp. 5-6. ISSN: 1325-295X.
Daniels John, D. (2007) ‘International business: environments and operations’, in John D. Daniels, Lee H. Radebaugh and Daniel P. Sullivan (11th eds) International business (pp. 59-77). Person Prentice Hall. Web.
Herrman, J., 2019. How TikTok is rewriting the world. The New York Times. Web.
Lock, I. and Schulz-Knappe, C. (2019) ‘Credible corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication predicts legitimacy’, An International Journal of Corporate Communications 24(1), pp. 2-20
Netelenbos, B. (2016) Political legitimacy beyond weber: an analytical framework. Springer.
Peng, M.W. and Meyer, K. (2016) International business. Nelson Education. Web.
Stevens, C.E., Xie, E. and Peng, M.W. (2016) ‘Toward a legitimacy‐based view of political risk: the case of Google and Yahoo in China’, Strategic Management Journal, 37(5), pp. 945-963.
Szkudlarek, B., Osland, J.S., Nardon, L. and Zander, L. (2020) ‘Communication and culture in international business–moving the field forward’, Journal of World Business, 12(6), pp. 1-9. Web.
Wang, J. (2020) From banning to regulating TikTok: addressing concerns of national security, privacy, and online harms. The Foundation for Law Justice and Society. Web.
Weimann, G. and Masri, N. (2020) ‘Research note: spreading hate on TikTok. Journal of Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 21(7), pp. 1-14.
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