Gaining, maintaining and repairing organisational legitimacy (original) (raw)
Related papers
International Journal of Public Administration, 2018
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to examine how legitimacy is gained, maintained or repaired through direct action with salient stakeholders and/or through external reporting, by using a number of empirical case vignettes within a single case study organisation. Design/methodology/approach-The study investigates a foreign affiliate of a large multinational organisation involved in an environmentally sensitive industry. Data collection included semi-structured interviews with 26 participants, organisational reports and participation in the organisation's annual environmental management seminar and a stakeholder engagement meeting. Findings-Four vignettes featuring environmental issues illustrate the complexity of organisational responses. Issue visibility, stakeholder salience and stakeholder interconnectedness influence a company's action to manage legitimacy. In the short-term, environmental issues which affected salient stakeholders resulted in swift and direct action to protect pragmatic legitimacy, but external reporting did not feature in legitimacy management efforts. Highly visible issues to the public, regulators and the media, however, resulted in direct action together with external reporting to manage wider stakeholder perceptions. External reporting was used superficially, along with a broad suite of communication strategies, to gain legitimacy in the long-term decision about the company's future in New Zealand. Research limitations/implications-This paper outlines how episodic encounters to manage strategic legitimacy with salient stakeholders in the short-term are theoretically distinct, but nonetheless linked to continual efforts to maintain institutional legitimacy. Case vignettes highlight how pragmatic legitimacy via dispositional legitimacy can be managed with direct action in the short-term to influence a limited range of salient stakeholders. The way external reporting features in legitimacy management is limited, although this has predominantly been the focus of prior research. Only where an environmental incident damages legitimacy to a larger number of stakeholders is external reporting also used to buttress community support. Originality/value-The concept of legitimacy is comprehensively applied, linking the strategic and institutional arms of legitimacy and illustrating how episodic actions are taken to manage legitimacy in the short-term with continual efforts to manage legitimacy in the long-term. Stakeholder salience and networks are brought in as novel theoretical extensions to provide a deeper understanding of the interrelationships between these key concepts with a unique case study.
Gaining legitimacy in contemporary world: environmental and social activities of organisations
International Journal of Sustainable Society, 2008
This article investigates the links between environmental and social activities of organisations and organisational legitimacy. The recent overemphasis on the business case for voluntary environmental and social activities of organisations is undermining the attention to other drivers such as legitimacy concerns. Previous literature has discussed how the principle of legitimacy may underpin corporate environmental and social performance providing motives for managers to pursue corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. In this article, we tried to advance questions that relate more to how CSR activities could potentially influence legitimation efforts of organisations. We focused on two main issues. The first is how CSR activities play into the different legitimation efforts of organisations at cognitive and socio-political levels. The second issue identifies potential variations in organisational choices of CSR activities as legitimation efforts and the conditions that influence these differences as constructs for further empirical research.
2012
The sustainability problems of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services increasingly challenges the legitimacy of corporations. Corporate legitimacy, however, is vital to the survival of corporations in competitive environments. The literature distinguishes three strategies that corporations commonly employ to address legitimacy problems: adapt to external expectations, try to manipulate the perception of their stakeholders or engage in a discourse with those who question their legitimacy. This paper develops a theoretical framework for the application of different legitimacy strategies and suggests that corporations facing sustainability problems have to be able to activate all three legitimacy strategies, despite their inherent incompatibilities.
Legitimacy Theory and Environmental Practices: Short Notes
International Journal of Business and Statistical Analysis, 2015
Legitimacy theory is one of the most discussed theories to explain the phenomenon of voluntary social and environmental disclosures in corporate communication. Consistent with the notion of legitimacy theory, companies seek to gain, maintain or repair their legitimacy by using social and environmental reporting. Legitimacy theory may provide useful insights for corporate social and environmental disclosures. However, there are a number of gaps in the literature dealing with legitimacy theory, which have not been addressed, such as the development of a general framework of legitimacy theory. The paper is mainly concerned with reviewing the literature of legitimacy theory in an attempt to identify the necessary characteristics of this theory. There is a lack of research into framework of legitimacy theory. The paper is mainly concerned with a bringing some coherence to the framework of legitimacy theory and corporate environmental practices. The understanding of the nature of such theory can help in explaining corporate environmental practices.
Journal of Cleaner Production, 2015
This paper identifies three conceptually distinct, but interrelated concepts regarding corporate environmental behaviour from the literature-environmental legitimacy, environmental accountability, and environmental proactivity-and shows how they can be integrated into a single framework. This is done in a context where prior studies in the literature do not relate these concepts to each other or place the concepts within a meaningful context, nor integrate them into a single framework. The framework demonstrates an organisational journey towards achieving legitimacy in environmental endeavours. Environmental legitimacy is conditional upon the public evaluation of corporate environmental performance and environmental reporting (environmental accountability), which in turn, requires organisations to invest in environmental management and accounting systems and stakeholder engagement (environmental proactivity). The paper identifies company, stakeholder and other characteristics that influence the constructs in the framework and also propose a research agenda based on this framework. Environmental performance constitutes the central concept in the framework, acknowledging that improved environmental performance promotes the ultimate goal of sustainability. The framework suggests that the judicious management of environmental performance and reporting, the two components of environmental accountability, results in environmental legitimacy. Furthermore, environmental accountability can be enhanced by environmental proactivity, a concept comprising environmental management and environmental accounting, as well as stakeholder engagement. This synthesis of the factors that influence and contribute to environmental performance is the framework"s main contribution.
A critical review of the application of the legitimacy theory to corporate social responsibility
The society has expectations from every business organization in their environment(Guthrie, Cuganesan& Ward, 2006). These expectations may be in form of value or interest of the stakeholders in the society which are embedded in corporate social responsibility(Noah, 2017). When these expectations-strategically improvised for in the organizational operationsare not met or are perceived inadequate or inappropriate, the stakeholders lose confidence the organization and that may threaten the existence, survival and the performance of the organization(Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975; Guthrie et al., 2006).Newman, Rand, Tarp & Trifkovic(2016)submit that for a firm to survive, such firm has to develop its CSR policy, level of CSR which can lead to the firm"s closure if not done. The strategic positioning of organizational day-today operational activities and behaviour to truly reflect the norms, values, expectations and demands of the society with a view of being legal and acceptable to the public is the organization "s legitimate status and this legitimate status has its root in legitimacy theory(Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975; Guthrie et al., 2006).. Legitimacy theory has been used in many research papers, especially in the areas of organizational behaviour (Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975), social and environmental disclosure(Guthrie, Cuganesan&Ward,2006), business ventures (Fisher, 2020), environmental accounting(Enahoro, 2009) and many more. According to Guthrie et al.(2006),recent research on environmental and social disclosures are anchored on legitimacy theory because this theory is best used in explaining the dual concepts. Literatures on CSR policy formulation and performance-which are also important-and the application of legitimacy theory on CSR policy formulation and performance are still very scanty. This creates a lacuna in research in CSR policy formulation and implementation. This has made it difficult for organisations to operationalise CSR policy. The little literatures around fail to provide adequate guides, procedures and benefits for the adoption of CSR policy(Peloza, 2009). Aguinis & Glavas(2012:932) note that there is knowledge gap in the implementation of diverse theoretical Abstract: Organisations need to strategically position their operational activities to meet the norms, values, expectations and demands of the society to gain legitimate status which are embedded in corporate social responsibility. However, the theories available in literatures have not adequately provided guide to aid practice as organisations still find it difficult to operationalise corporate social responsibility despite efforts from international organisations. The causal-outcome relationship is still glaringly missing in the build-up and applications of these theories. Our review accentuate the constructs in the legitimacy theory to mimic the practice as guides by elaborating how CSR as a variable can affect organisations in various ways paving way for future researchers to experiment. Our recommendations among others is that organisations should operationalise CSR policy as that will grant them legitimate status which in return will reduce organisational risks and increase profitability in the long run.
Legitimacy Theory and Environmental Accounting Reporting and Practice: A Review
South asian Journal of Social Studies and Economics, 2022
In meeting the regulatory and ethical requirements of environmental accounting, reporting and practice among corporate organizations seem quite complex and challenging. Globally, management exerts much energy complying with environmental issues that affect salient societal requirements of pragmatic legitimacy and environmental accounting reporting and practice, yet the extent of this alignment remains uncertain. This study examined legitimacy theory and environmental accounting reporting and practices, adopting an exploratory research approach. The study resorted to using relevant materials from the field of accounting and finance. The study consulted and used journals, periodicals, and other documented material found to be appropriate and relevant to the study. Legitimacy theory was appropriately reviewed while other subsidiary theories of stakeholder theory and environmental information disclosure theory form part of the theoretical consideration. The study recommended that management of pollution sensitive companies should make environmental protection a priority and show good and quality character of adequate environmental disclosure and proper environmental accounting reporting and practice as expected by the stakeholders.
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).
2017
Decoupled CSR in crisis communication: A Latin-American perspective Purpose This paper seeks to analyze the communication process carried out by companies in response to environmental incidents in Latin America, by considering decoupling (the mismatch between appearance and reality) and legitimacy related issues. Design/methodology/approach This research is based on two methods. Firstly, we adopt a case study analysis of a major environmental incident involving a North American-based mineral coal production company in Colombia. Second, a content analysis of several public sources (e.g. media sources, press releases and sustainability reports) was performed in order to allow for the linking of theory and practice. Findings This study found that in an attempt to defend its legitimacy, the company used decoupling in its CSR communication as both an attempt to suppress crisis (hiding) and as a crisis response strategy. Contrary to the expected negative outcome, this decoupling strategy held limited implications for legitimacy. Research limitations/implications The outcome of the study shows an important link between legitimacy and CSR communications in has limitations for generalization. Originality/value This paper represents an atypical case that enhances existing theoretical approaches-the perceived notion that decoupling mostly has limitations for legitimacy is strongly questioned in this research. This outcome reflects the potential impact that the geographical context may have on the company's crisis communication strategy and ultimately its legitimacy.
Legitimacy threats and organizational responses: Drivers leading to symbolic vs substantive actions
In my dissertation I investigate the drivers leading organizations to respond symbolically versus substantially to legitimacy threats due to their (perceived) socially irresponsible behaviours. To do so, I conducted a qualitative research over ten Food & Beverage (F&B) companies subject to a legitimacy threat as a result of their misleading marketing practices. My findings suggest that it is possible to group these organizations in three distinct profiles: a) The Committed Actors, which solely engage in substantive actions; b) The Calculating Actors, whose first response concerns denial of responsibility followed by symbolic actions and c) The Compliant Actors, which first deny their responsibility and implement substantive actions at a later stage. On the basis of these findings, my work contributes to the literature by shedding light on the interplay between symbolic and substantive actions and by unveiling the internal and external organizational drivers shaping this interplay. My study also demonstrates to have some managerial implications because it shows the role of corporate social responsibility in organizations’ attempt to gain stakeholders’ support. Key Words: Legitimacy Threat; Symbolic Actions; Substantive Actions; Corporate Social Responsibility