The purpose of this volume is to produce a collection of articles by leading social psychologists and organizational scholars that focus on legitimacy processes in organizations. Over the last two decades in social psychology within sociology, scholars have developed legitimacy theories that strive to show how legitimacy processes merge into structures. Also, in organizational research, issues of legitimacy processes are of central concern - for example, in neoinstitutional theory. Therefore, it is worthwhile to devote a volume that will address specifically how these legitimacy processes operate in organizations. This collection of papers will accomplish two goals. First, the contributors will have an opportunity to discuss how legitimacy processes contribute to our understanding of how organizations are structured and how they work. In addition, by examining legitimacy processes, the contributors will be able to explore the micro/macro implications of these processes. Second, this volume should stimulate more discussion between social psychologists and organizational researchers on issues of legitimacy and future directions for understanding legitimacy processes.

The second edition of the bestselling The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism has been thoroughly revised with new chapters added, bringing together extensive coverage of aspects of Institutional Theory.

This volume explores organizational legitimacy in business, featuring examples from a variety of industries around the world. Synthesizing the most current theoretical insights and best practices, the contributing authors examine the ways in which organizational legitimacy can be understood, its perceived influence on the market, and the relationship between organizational legitimacy and overall organizational success. The authors draw from different methodological perspectives to develop a holistic approach to organizational legitimacy that transcends the traditional concepts of corporate reputation, business ethics or corporate social responsibility. Historically, efforts to understand how organizations acquire, manage and use legitimacy have applied insights from institutional theory, resource dependence theory, organizational ecology and stakeholder theory, but the field has remained fragmented, despite the profound implications of achieving legitimacy for ensuring organizational stability, survival and sustainability through access to capital, resources and business opportunities, as well as problem solving, performance measurement and stakeholder support. Presenting case studies of successful initiatives, the book addresses: · How organizational legitimacy is defined and measured · How organizations achieve legitimacy and how they acquire resources · How different stakeholders (e.g., consumers, investors, employees) make legitimacy judgments and resource allocation decisions · Whether audiences in the same socio-cultural context arrive at shared legitimacy judgments with regard to a focal organization

The role of Corporate Social Responsibility in the business world has developed from a fig leaf marketing front into an important aspect of corporate behavior over the past several years. Sustainable strategies are valued, desired and deployed more and more by relevant players in many industries all over the world. Both research and corporate practice therefore see CSR as a guiding principle for business success. The “Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility” has been conceived to assist researchers and practitioners to align business and societal objectives. All actors in the field will find reliable and up to date definitions and explanations of the key terms of CSR in this authoritative and comprehensive reference work. Leading experts from the global CSR community have contributed to make the “Encyclopedia of Corporate Social Responsibility” the definitive resource for this field of research and practice.

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Sociology - Basics and General, grade: 1,3, Free University of Berlin, course: Institutional Theory, language: English, abstract: In her paper, the author comes from the idea that there is not one definition of legitimacy and try to summarize the arguments on what legitimacy is. Boyd (2000) suggests that legitimacy is dependent on social structure, systems and norms and that legitimation is a social process, however it is not clear how large a part of the social system must confer its approval for an organisation. These statements she also analyses. In her paper she argues that there is a plethora of theories analysing the gaining of legitimacy, however the process of gaining legitimacy and its establishment depends on diverse factors. To support the argument, she has researched and compared various theories and thus discussed different aspects on how legitimacy is gained. The paper is organised as follows: firstly, she will sum up the theories on what legitimacy means and how is it approached by different authors. Secondly, she discusses the questions of actors and who establishes legitimacy, then I focus on the theories about what role do resources play in establishing legitimacy and lastly, I analyse the approach of legitimacy as a constraint. Another thesis underlying her paper is from Deephouse (1996) who argues that organizational legitimacy is defined as a status conferred by social actors. He states that legitimacy depends on the perspective of a particular social actor, whose values and expectations for action should be congruent with the aspiring legitimate organisation. Moreover, the social actors approve legitimacy for an organisation, where only certain actors have the authority to confer legitimacy, however they need to be identified first. In her seminar paper she also discusses Hybels (1995) who theorizes that legitimation comes from the actors through conferral of resources and communication of positive reputation, however she points out the resource-based view from Tilling (2010) where he suggests that legitimacy is an operational resource too. During her research, she discussed several authors who research the aspects of legitimacy important for her paper. Suchman (1995) and Hamidu (2015) who analyse the concept of legitimacy, Dowling and Pfeffer (1975) who address the importance of resources and the idea of legitimacy as a constraint, Hybels (1995) whose work opposes the argument about resources of the two authors, and other authors who contribute to her topic.

This Handbook forms part of wider research in responsibility, ethics and legitimacy of corporations. Through an interdisciplinary perspective with comparative integration of sociological, politological, philosophical, theological, ethical, economic, legal, linguistic and communication theoretical approaches this Handbook will clarify how the interrelation between company and environment is mediated by legitimating notions in public spaces and public relations; how and why these notions have changed radically; how these transformations strike on the epistemological as well as practical dimension of business companies; and the problems involved in these transformations at the macro-, meso- and micro levels. The Handbook begins with a historical introduction and chronology of the development of business legitimacy, providing a comprehensive assessment of the concept’s evolution and identifying the most influential authors and their works. These may be divided into authors who follow (1) a philosophical, sociological, or conceptual tradition in management and leadership in their treatment of legitimacy and those who belong to the research tradition of (2) application of the concept in management science and leadership as well as in organizational theory and business practice in the interdisciplinary perspective of the different approaches. The Handbook continues with systematic approaches and major themes developed in the concept of business legitimacy. Contributions here may be conceptual, empirical/applied or case studies. The different parts of the volume deal with the different topics to which business legitimacy has been applied, with how legitimacy is relevant in the various operational areas of the firm, and with the legitimacy theory’s responses to some of the most important issues that businesses and organizations currently face.

One of the most notorious differences between the academic production on management carried out in Europe, compared to that in the United States, is the attention that European scholars give to the managerial discourse and rhetorics, especially in their textual or written embodiments. In fact, it is one of the few topics where the usual dominance of American scholarship (Engwall, 1998) does not hold. Discourses in management address basically two issues, most often of analytical intertwined in practice, differentiated here only because requirements. One, is the legitimization, both ideological and political, of management, basically geared at the justification of the differentials of power present in the coordination of collective action aimed at the consecution of economic objectives. As Bendix points out in Work and Authority in Industry, the most pressing challenge for this ideological work stems from the fact that in capitalism the logic of efficiency is hegemonic, and this is not easily conducive to the justification of status differentials. This is why managerial discourses are never open, straightforward, and why they are, in sum, clearly ideological.