Ride who’s coattails? How do high-tech enterprises pursue business legitimacy?

The institutional theory suggested high-tech firms collaborate with reputed entities to gain legitimacy. However, the literature gave no guidance on how to select suitable reputed entities for high-tech firms pursuing legitimacy, high-tech firms are confused on ride who coattails. Drawing on signalling theory, we find that collaboration with research institutions has a stronger positive effect on business legitimacy than collaboration with the government. Competitive intensity and legal inefficiency asymmetrically affect the effect of collaboration with research institutions and collaboration with the government on business legitimacy. Our findings extend the literature on business legitimacy gaining.