This theoretical paper proposes a multi-theoretical framework combining institutional theory, resource dependency theory, and social identity theory to study the role of host-country national female executives staffed by multinational firms in their local top management team to serve as external legitimation providers of foreign subsidiaries and efficiently mitigate the liability of foreignness. By examining how local female executives frame the implementation of external legitimization strategies at the micro-level of subsidiary's organizational practices and resources, this research makes room for the agency of subsidiaries to counter the LOF by becoming actors of institutional change, thereby developing multinationals’ performance in adverse environments. Finally, the study methodology to be conducted on the subsidiaries of French multinational luxury retail firms in Japan is proposed.