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.

电动汽车 (EV) 已成为维持生态平衡的可持续选择。现有文献确定了一组有限的电动汽车销售推动因素，并且大多考虑单一国家背景。有趣的是，之前的研究很少使用制度理论的视角来探究电动汽车的销售。因此，我们的研究探讨了由于社会期望而导致的合法性问题如何与跨国背景下的电动汽车市场相关联。我们假设了制度支柱之间的关系，例如技术、业务、认知支柱和电动汽车销售。为了检验我们提出的假设，我们考虑了 2011 年至 2020 年来自 30 个国家的二手数据。我们采用面板校正标准误差多元回归分析来控制异方差、跨面板相关和自相关。经验证据表明，合法性引发的制度同构与电动汽车市场呈正相关。我们的研究有助于决策者设想一个可持续的电动汽车生态系统。