Legitimation Process in Organizations and Organizing: An Ontological Discussion (original) (raw)
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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.
An integrative Theory of Organizational Legitimacy
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. An integrative theory of legitimation, based on semiotics, is then presented which identifies the articulation of these approaches and allows a richer basis for the analysis of legitimation phenomena.
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.
MANAGING LEGITIMACY: STRATEGIC AND INSTITUTIONAL APPROACHES
This article synthesizes the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches. The analysis identifies three primary forms oi legitimacy: pragmatic, based on oudlence 8elf-interest; morai, based on normative approval: and cognitive, based on comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness. The article then examines strategies ior gaining, maintaining, and repairing legitimacy oi each type, suggesting both the promises and the pitfalls oi such instrumental manipulations.
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). ...
In Search of Legitimacy: Managerialism and Legitimation in Civil Society Organizations
VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 2013
In this article, we investigate the changes in the legitimating accounts used by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), in the context of spreading managerialism-one of the most powerful institutional practices of our time-in the Third Sector. We first introduce the concepts of legitimacy and legitimating account, before showing how managerialism manifests itself in CSOs and presenting three managerialist accounts used to legitimate such organizations: efficiency and effectiveness (E&E), stakeholder's needs, and innovation. We then examine empirically how the use of these accounts changed between 1995 and 2008. In order to do so, we analyze quantitatively the contents of a sample of annual reports produced by Austrian CSOs over the stated period, and apply discourse analysis to a smaller group of reports to reveal more fine-grained developments. Our results show significant changes: of our chosen accounts, the one most tightly linked with managerialism, E&E, had come to be taken-for-granted by 2008, whereas the more generic and subtle concepts of stakeholder's needs and innovation featured more strongly than in 1995.
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).