Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches
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.
Abstract: 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 of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based on normative approval: and cognitive, based on comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness. The article then examines strategies for gaining, maintaining, and repairing legitimacy of each type, suggesting both the promises and the pitfalls of such instrumental manipulations.
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TL;DR: In this paper, a theory of stakeholder identification and saliency based on stakeholders possessing one or more of three relationship attributes (power, legitimacy, and urgency) is proposed, and a typology of stakeholders, propositions concerning their saliency to managers of the firm, and research and management implications.
Abstract: Stakeholder theory has been a popular heuristic for describing the management environment for years, but it has not attained full theoretical status. Our aim in this article is to contribute to a theory of stakeholder identification and salience based on stakeholders possessing one or more of three relationship attributes: power, legitimacy, and urgency. By combining these attributes, we generate a typology of stakeholders, propositions concerning their salience to managers of the firm, and research and management implications.
10,630 citations
TL;DR: This article conducted a qualitative study of the motivations and contextual factors that induce corporate ecological responsiveness, which revealed three motivations: competitiveness, legitimation, and ecological responsibility, which were influenced by three contextual conditions: field cohesion, issue salience and individual concern.
Abstract: The authors conducted a qualitative study of the motivations and contextual factors that induce corporate ecological responsiveness. Analytic induction applied to data collected from 53 firms in the United Kingdom and Japan revealed three motivations: competitiveness, legitimation, and ecological responsibility. These motivations were influenced by three contextual conditions: field cohesion, issue salience, and individual concern. In this article, the authors also identify the conditions that likely lead to high corporate ecological responsiveness.
3,231 citations
TL;DR: The business case as discussed by the authors is the underlying arguments or rationales supporting or documenting why the business community should accept and advance the corporate social responsibility (CSR) cause, which refers to the bottom-line financial and other reasons for businesses pursuing CSR strategies and policies.
Abstract: In this review, the primary subject is the ‘business case’ for corporate social responsibility (CSR). The business case refers to the underlying arguments or rationales supporting or documenting why the business community should accept and advance the CSR ‘cause’. The business case is concerned with the primary question: What do the business community and organizations get out of CSR? That is, how do they benefit tangibly from engaging in CSR policies, activities and practices? The business case refers to the bottom-line financial and other reasons for businesses pursuing CSR strategies and policies. In developing this business case, the paper first provides some historical background and perspective. In addition, it provides a brief discussion of the evolving understandings of CSR and some of the long-established, traditional arguments that have been made both for and against the idea of business assuming any responsibility to society beyond profit-seeking and maximizing its own financial well-being. Finally, the paper addresses the business case in more detail. The goal is to describe and summarize what the business case means and to review some of the concepts, research and practice that have come to characterize this developing idea.
3,033 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, three basic models or forms of network governance are developed focusing on their distinct structural properties and the tensions inherent in each form are discussed, followed by the role that management may play in addressing these tensions.
Abstract: This article examines the governance of organizational networks and the impact of governance on network effectiveness. Three basic models, or forms, of network governance are developed focusing on their distinct structural properties. Propositions are formulated examining conditions for the effectiveness of each form. The tensions inherent in each form are then discussed, followed by the role that management may play in addressing these tensions. Finally, the evolution of governance is explored.
2,891 citations
Cites background from "Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and ..."
...Legitimacy has often been discussed as critical for maintaining the status and viability of organizations (Suchman 1995), but there has been little attention devoted to the importance of legitimacy in and of networks....
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...However, even within organizations, there are inevitable tensions between efficiency and other goals, especially those related to other measures of effectiveness....
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TL;DR: The authors examines the role of professional associations in a changing, highly institutionalized organizational field and suggests that they play a significant role in legitimating change and suggest that professional associations play an important role in supporting change.
Abstract: This study examines the role of professional associations in a changing, highly institutionalized organizational field and suggests that they play a significant role in legitimating change. A model...
2,789 citations
Cites background from "Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and ..."
...The common theme is that as innovations diffuse they become "objectified," gaining social consensus concerning their pragmatic value (Suchman, 1995), and thus they diffuse even further (Tolbert & Zucker, 1996: 183)....
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...Resonating through these justifications was the priority given to "moral" alignment (Suchman, 1995) rather than to pragmatic legitimacy....
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..." Full institutionalization occurs as the density of adoption provides ideas with cognitive legitimacy (Suchman, 1995) and the ideas themselves become taken-for-granted as the natural and appropriate arrangement....
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...This transition is achieved either by nesting and aligning new ideas within prevailing normative prescriptions, thus giving them "moral" legitimacy (Suchman, 1995: see also Tolbert & Zucker, 1996: 183), and/or by asserting their functional superiority, or "pragmatic" legitimacy (Suchman, 1995)....
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...Although each of the stages in Figure 1 has commanded some attention, it is only recently that attention has turned to unbundling the theorization process (Strang & Soule, 1998; Tolbert & Zucker, 1996; Suchman, 1995)....
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References
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.
32,981 citations
TL;DR: Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules as discussed by the authors, and the elaboration of such rules in modern states and societies accounts in part for the expansion and i...
Abstract: Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules. The elaboration of such rules in modern states and societies accounts in part for the expansion and i...
23,073 citations
"Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and ..." refers background in this paper
...Meyer and Rowan (1991) identified three segregation strategies: (a) exalting ceremony while ignoring performance, (b) displaying cynicism and openly acknowledging that entrenched rituals serve no purpose, and (c) promising reform, thereby segregating today's reality from tomorrow's ideal....
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Book•
01 Jan 1957TL;DR: Cognitive dissonance theory links actions and attitudes as discussed by the authors, which holds that dissonance is experienced whenever one cognition that a person holds follows from the opposite of at least one other cognition that the person holds.
Abstract: Cognitive dissonance theory links actions and attitudes It holds that dissonance is experienced whenever one cognition that a person holds follows from the opposite of at least one other cognition that the person holds The magnitude of dissonance is directly proportional to the number of discrepant cognitions and inversely proportional to the number of consonant cognitions that a person has The relative weight of any discrepant or consonant element is a function of its Importance
22,553 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1973
TL;DR: The INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ Books files are available at the online library of the University of Southern California as mentioned in this paper, where they can be used to find any kind of Books for reading.
Abstract: THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ PDF Are you searching for THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ Books files? Now, you will be happy that at this time THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ PDF is available at our online library. With our complete resources, you could find THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES CLIFFORD GEERTZ PDF or just found any kind of Books for your readings everyday.
20,105 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1978
TL;DR: The External Control of Organizations as discussed by the authors explores how external constraints affect organizations and provides insights for designing and managing organizations to mitigate these constraints, and it is the fact of the organization's dependence on the environment that makes the external constraint and control of organizational behavior both possible and almost inevitable.
Abstract: Among the most widely cited books in the social sciences, The External Control of Organizations has long been required reading for any student of organization studies. The book, reissued on its 25th anniversary as part of the Stanford Business Classics series, includes a new preface written by Jeffrey Pfeffer, which examines the legacy of this influential work in current research and its relationship to other theories.The External Control of Organizations explores how external constraints affect organizations and provides insights for designing and managing organizations to mitigate these constraints. All organizations are dependent on the environment for their survival. As the authors contend, "it is the fact of the organization's dependence on the environment that makes the external constraint and control of organizational behavior both possible and almost inevitable." Organizations can either try to change their environments through political means or form interorganizational relationships to control or absorb uncertainty. This seminal book established the resource dependence approach that has informed so many other important organization theories.
13,195 citations