The role of media coverage in the audience’s legitimacy judgment about disruptive innovation: an empirical study of DiDi in China

ABSTRACT

The novelty of disruptive innovation is often beyond our understanding, but the news media coverage can help us understand it better. News media coverage may have a different effect on the audience’s legitimacy judgment. Positive news media coverage may get higher audience’s legitimacy judgment and negative news media coverage may get lower audience’s legitimacy judgment. Besides, different news sources may have a different effect on this process. Thus, from the perspective of news content analysis, what factors affect the audience’s legitimacy judgment? Does news reputation adjust the audience’s legitimacy judgment? Evidence from DiDi firm, on behalf of disruptive innovation in China, supports these questions and propositions. In line with institutional theory, we make three straight points. First, news coverage shows a significant positive relationship to the audience’s legitimacy judgment, user-oriented values and society-oriented values. Second, operational-risk and ethical-risk news coverage show a significant negative relationship to the audience’s legitimacy judgment. Third, news reputation partly moderates the audience’s legitimacy judgment to disruptive innovation at different stages. Thus, news media matters in a social setting.

KEYWORDS:

• Disruptive innovation
• legitimacy judgment
• media analysis
• DiDi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 19BJY176] and National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 72102090].

Notes on contributors

Peili Yu

Peili Yu is a Professor, Doctoral Supervisor and Associate Dean of the School of Business Administration in Northeastern University. She received her PhD from Northeastern University, China. She was also a visiting scholar at Business School of Kansai University and Business School of Harvard University. Her research interests include innovation ecosystem, disruptive innovation, industrial innovation and high-quality economic development. She is also an excellent review expert of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and National Social Science Foundation of China (NSFC). She is a standing director of China Association of Industrial Economics, an expert of Northeast China Revitalisation Research Institute, a member of Liaoning Provincial Government Advisory Committee and Liaoning CPPCC. She has presided over the National Natural Science Foundation, the National Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of China, and completed a number of entrusted scientific research projects of state Grid, Baosteel, Liaoning Electric Power and other enterprises, and undertaken a number of provincial and municipal scientific research projects. She has published more than 50 papers in Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Foreign Economics & Management et al, and 5 books in academic journals in domestic and overseas.

Muyang Liu

Muyang Liu is a PhD student of Industry Economic at Northeastern University in China. She received her M.S. degree in international trade from Northeastern University in 2016 and B.S. degree in finance from Shandong University in 2014. She went to Sun Yat-Sen University as an exchange student degree in international business. In addition, her research interests focus on disruptive innovation and innovation legitimacy currently. She has published articles in Foreign Economics & Management, Science Research Management, and among others.

Tariq H. Malik

Tariq H. Malik is a professor of Management & Innovation Studies, and Fouding Director of ICOIS (International Centre of Organization & Innovation Studies) in China, Singapore and the UK. He is a professor of Management (entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology policy) at Liaoning University. He holds honorary professorial positions and visiting professorial positions. He received his masters at Manchester and PhD in Management and Innovation from the University of London. He engages in interdisciplinary research, developing the framework of ‘bricolage of ideas’. He has reviewed for leading journals, receiving the outstanding reviewer award from Research Policy and best reviewer award from Academy of International Business conferences. With the passion to develop institutions for the betterment of all, he has founded and directs ICOIS (International Centre for Organization & Innovation Studies). He is the founding and member and member for life of WINIR (World Interdisciplinary Network of Institutional Researchers). In China, Tariq received several awards from the city, provincial and central governments’ in China: the most favourite teacher in China and for the regional socio-economic contribution. Tariq has lived in New York, London, the Middle East, China and Singapore. Now he commutes between Singapore, China and London.

Junguo Shi

Junguo Shi is an Assistant Professor at Institute of Industrial Economics and School of Finance and Economics, Jiangsu University. He received his PhD from Northeastern University, China. He was also a visiting scholar at Eindhoven University of Technology and Seoul National University. His research interests include economics of innovation and catching-up, disruptive innovation, and industrial policy analysis. His articles have been published in Management and Organization Review, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, and among others.