Mark C. Suchman

TL;DR: This article synthesize the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches, and identify three primary forms of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based upon normative approval; and cognitive, according to comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness.

TL;DR: A recent survey of the literature on legitimacy in organizational institutionalism can be found in this article, where the authors provide an overview of past theoretical and empirical research on legitimacy, including some basic suggestions on the dimensions, sources, and subjects of legitimacy, as well as on key legitimation processes, antecedents and consequences.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine three distinct facets of organizations' legal environments: the facilitative environment, in which law passively provides an arena for organizational action; the regulatory environment, which law actively seeks to control organizational behavior; and the cultural perspective, which portrays organizations as cultural rule-followers and sees the law as a system of moral principles, scripted roles, and sacred symbols.

TL;DR: Deephouse and Suchman as discussed by the authors reviewed 1299 publications and conference papers that had the string "legitim" in the title, abstract, or keywords of a paper and identified six central questions around which this chapter is arranged: What is organizational legitimacy? Why does legitimacy matter? Who confers legitimacy, and how? What criteria are used (for making legitimacy evaluations)? How does legitimacy change over time?

TL;DR: The early stages of a convergence between sociology of law and the sociology of organizations have been witnessed in recent years as discussed by the authors, where sociolegal scholars increasingly recognize that important aspects of legal life occur within bureaucratic settings, such as law firms, regulatory agencies and corporations.