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Little is known about how experiential entrepreneurship education approaches contribute toward enhancing the engagement of students in the learning process. Using a purposive and convenience sample of individual student reflective journals, the purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate how the process of constructive misalignment enhances the level of student engagement through a team-based experiential entrepreneurship education assessment.

Data were gathered from a purposive and convenience sample of reflective journals, an individual “performance assessment” element of three Masters-level courses (courses 1, 2 and 3) that included an “active” group business ideas generation presentation and a report. These texts were analyzed through content analysis that critically evaluates and summarizes the content of data and their messages.

While expected learning outcomes included teamwork and communication, the higher levels of active learning and student engagement related to innovation and generating a business idea was much more modest. Rather, the study finds that significant learning opportunities were apparent when students experienced unexpected aspects of constructive misalignment, such as linguistic–cultural challenges, nonparticipation and freeriding.

Building on Biggs’ (2003) model of constructive alignment in course design and delivery/assessment, this paper elucidates various unexpected and surprising aspects. It suggests that constructive misalignment could provide major learning opportunities for students and is thus more likely in these team contexts where entrepreneurship students experience constructive misalignment. Educators should, therefore, continue to design experiential entrepreneurship courses and their performance assessments through team-based approaches that achieve higher levels of engagement as well as more active learning.

An international joint venture (IJV) helps multinational enterprises (MNEs) overcome the “liability of foreignness.” However, in the presence of institutional voids, MNE’s overreliance on the local partner can result in the MNE unwittingly becoming involved in a corporate scandal. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the causes, impacts and outcomes on the MNE’s legitimacy following a corporate scandal.

Using secondary data, this paper presents a qualitative case study of the Fonterra-Sanlu milk-powder scandal in China.

The paper identifies the institutional voids that contributed to the scandal. It also examines the effects of the scandal on the MNE’s legitimacies and evaluates the appropriateness of its actions in China during the formation, erosion and repair stages of its legitimacy.

It contributes to legitimacy literature by discussing the importance of MNE’s active commitment when entering the emerging market. It argues that the building of pragmatic legitimacy is not sufficient, and explains why attendance to moral obligations is part of building moral and cognitive legitimacy.

This unique case study of a corporate scandal offers deep insights into how, what and why questions regarding how the three forms of legitimacy are necessary for improving IJV performance by MNEs operating in emerging economies. It particularly highlights the importance of moral legitimacy as a mechanism for overcoming institutional voids.