Institutional enablers of electric vehicle market: Evidence from 30 countries

Abstract

Electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as a sustainable option for maintaining ecological balance. Extant literature identified a limited set of enablers of EV sales and mostly considered single-country contexts. Interestingly, prior studies rarely employed the lens of institutional theory to probe EV sales. Hence, our study explored how legitimacy concerns, due to societal expectations, are associated with the EV market in a cross-country context. We hypothesized the relationships between institutional pillars, such as technological, business, cognitive pillars, and EV sales. To test our proposed hypotheses, we considered secondary data from 30 countries from 2011 to 2020. We employed panel-corrected standard error multivariate regression analysis to control heteroscedasticity, cross-panel correlation, and autocorrelation. Empirical evidence suggested that legitimacy-induced institutional isomorphism was positively associated with the EV market. Our study aids policymakers in envisaging a sustainable EV ecosystem.