An integrative Theory of Organizational Legitimacy (original) (raw)
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An integrative theory of organizational legitimation
Scandinavian Journal of Management Studies, 1986
The concept of legitimation has been used in the organizational analysis literature to refer either to processes by which power relations are mystified through the manipulation of symbols or to processes by which organizations conform to consensually defined standards of evaluation. This article traces the intellectual lineage of these approaches in the management literature and current and classic literature of the social sciences, and demonstrates the complementarity of their strengths and weaknesses.
Legitimacy is perceived as an important building block of organizational theory. Over the years, researchers have tried to decipher the meaning of legitimacy in relation to organizational success and survival in various ways. This paper discusses the evolution of the theoretical and empirical use of the term "legitimacy" in organizational literature. Despite the intensive use of the term as a dependent and independent construct, we still know little about how legitimacy is granted, especially when the capabilities or values of an organization are ambiguous. The review focuses on possible dimensions or variant terms of legitimacy, as well as on the interrelationship or interdependency of the dimensions. The review leads to the presentation of a new hierarchical theoretical model for awarding legitimacy, based on decision-making theory and then suggests related propositions that combine the micro-level inspection to institutional process.
Legitimation Process in Organizations and Organizing: An Ontological Discussion
Materiality in Institutions, 2019
Legitimacy and legitimation are key topics of the management literature. In the 70s and 80s, legitimating mainly meant convincing and sticking to the rules of a dominant external stakeholder (with a stable set of preferences) that needed to be convinced. Today, other processes have emerged. They are more based on the crowd-based, communitygrounded, value co-creation oriented, and take the shape of big emotional waves pushed by an infinite sum of small generosities. In short, they are more de-centered. If the bulk of institutional concepts are powerful to explain the first situation (which still remains present), the latter process dynamic requires some revisions and extensions which are detailed here. By means of three ontologies of legitimation, I discuss three processes extending a discursive and judgmental view of legitimation.
Organizational Legitimacy: Different Sources–Different Outcomes?
An abstract of a dissertation that examines different dimensions of legitimacy stemming from different sources, and how they condition the effects of each other. The traditional literature studies organizational legitimacy as a uni-dimensional phenomenon, however, there are multiple audiences with different systems of values that evaluate organizations and based on the fit with their values grant or withdraw legitimacy from the firm. This dissertation examines three different dimensions of legitimacy (i.e. social, market, and home country) and shows that they may substitute each other in affecting organizational outcomes. This is shown in a financial event study of additions and deletions from the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, a qualitative study of the nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the emerging market of Russia, and a large-scale quantitative analysis of M&A deals, where the acquirer comes from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS).
Controversial industry sectors, such as alcohol, gambling, and tobacco, though longestablished, suffer organizational legitimacy problems. The authors consider various strategies used to seek organizational legitimacy in the U.K. casino gambling market. The findings are based on a detailed, multistakeholder case study pertaining to a failed bid for a regional supercasino. They suggest four generic strategies for seeking organizational legitimacy in this highly complex context: construing, earning, bargaining, and capturing, as well as pathways that combine these strategies. The case analysis and proposed bidimensional model of generic legitimacy-seeking strategies contribute to limited literature on organizational legitimacy in controversial industry sectors. In addition, beyond organizations active in controversial contexts, this study and its implications are useful for individuals and organizations supporting or opposing the organizational legitimacy of organizations in controversial industries.
The Double-Edge of Organizational Legitimation
Organization Science, 1990
... (Note that a poor reputation or stigma may itself constitute a severe challenge.) Martin (1982) argues that implicit forms of communication (eg, organizational rituals and folklore) tend to be more credible than explicit forms (eg, press releases, policy statements, annual reports). ...
Toward a New Measure of Organizational Legitimacy: Method, Validation, and Illustration
Organizational Research Methods, 2011
Measures of organizational legitimacy fall in three categories, based, respectively, on the observation of code adoption, firm linkages, and media coverage. Such variety reflects the absence of consensus definitions. Because legitimacy involves perceptions of social congruence, the author argues in favor of a perceptual measure based on media content analysis. The author extends existing media-based indicators by offering a multidimensional measure of legitimacy, the raw legitimacy vector (RLV), which accounts for the heterogeneity of perceptions across space and time. The article details a three-step methodology to compute RLV and illustrates its applicability using data on the global defense industry. The author finds strong support for RLV’s factorial, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity and demonstrates that RLV performs better than alternative measures. The paper contributes to research by identifying four stable dimensions of legitimacy (environment, competition, accountability, and transactions), by distinguishing empirically legitimacy and reputation, and by offering a measure suited for international comparison in both legitimate and contested industries.