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Legitimacy

About: Legitimacy is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 26153 publications have been published within this topic receiving 565921 citations.


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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that corporate-influenced programs are more likely to emphasize detection of violations of minimal standards in the areas of wages, hours, and occupational safety and health because focusing on these issues provides corporations with legitimacy and reduces the risks of uncertainty created by activist campaigns.
Abstract: Corporations have increasingly turned to voluntary, multi-stakeholder governance programs to monitor workers’ rights and standards in global supply chains. This article argues that the emphasis of these programs varies significantly depending on stakeholder involvement and issue areas under examination. Corporate-influenced programs are more likely to emphasize detection of violations of minimal standards in the areas of wages, hours, and occupational safety and health because focusing on these issues provides corporations with legitimacy and reduces the risks of uncertainty created by activist campaigns. In contrast, these programs are less likely to emphasize workers’ rights to form democratic and independent unions, bargain, and strike because these rights are perceived as lessening managerial control without providing firms with significant reputational value. This argument is explored by coding 805 factory audits of the Fair Labor Association between 2002 and 2010, followed by case studies of Russell...

203 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, legitimacy is defined as the belief that an authority is appropriately exercised, and legitimacy and delegitimation as processes of justification and contestation intended to shape such beliefs.
Abstract: While legitimacy dynamics are paramount in global governance, they have been insufficiently recognized, conceptualized, and explained in standard accounts of international cooperation. This special issue aims to advance the empirical study of legitimacy and legitimation in global governance. It engages with the question of when, how, and why international organizations (IOs) gain, sustain, and lose legitimacy in world politics. In this introduction, we first conceptualize legitimacy as the belief that an IO’s authority is appropriately exercised, and legitimation and delegitimation as processes of justification and contestation intended to shape such beliefs. We then discuss sources of variation in legitimation processes and legitimacy beliefs, with a particular focus on the authority, procedures, and performances of IOs. Finally, we describe the methods used to empirically study legitimacy and legitimation, preview the articles of the special issue, and chart next steps for this research agenda.

203 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors studied panel data for corporate governance ratings in 50 countries between 1997 and 2005 to understand what the country-level predictors of corporate governance legitimacy might be.

203 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The European Court of Justice does not have an extensive store of good will among ordinary citizens of the European Union as mentioned in this paper, and there is, however, a moderately strong relationship between legitimacy and acceptance.
Abstract: Theory: We use competing propositions from the literature on institutional legitimacy and compliance to trace the sources of acceptance of, or the propensity to comply with, judicial decisions. Hypotheses: Generally, institutions with a store of legitimacy are more successful at evoking acquiescence to their decisions. We expect willingness to accept an unpopular decision to be most prevalent among those who are strongly committed to the institution itself, who perceive the Court as using fair procedures to make its decisions, who are strongly attached to the rule of law, and who are neutral about the issue on which the Court has made a decision. Methods: Regression analysis of items from a survey of the mass publics in the twelve member-states of the European Union in fall 1992. Results: The European Court of Justice does not have an extensive store of good will among ordinary citizens of the European Union. Few people are willing to accept a Court of Justice decision they find objectionable. There is, however, a moderately strong relationship between legitimacy-i.e., diffuse support-and acceptance. Perceptions of procedural justice play little role in the process, although basic legal values (e.g., attitudes toward the rule of law) contribute to acceptance within some countries. In general, our research demonstrates that legitimacy is important for acceptance and probably for compliance; and that the European Court of Justice must tend to what may be an emerging shortfall of legitimacy for the high bench of the European Union.

202 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is hypothesized and shown that formal certification from authorized actors increases the likelihood of making this transition from planned venture to operational start-up in the emergent independent power sector, and the effects of certification are contingent on the legitimacy of the sector as a whole.
Abstract: In this paper, we study the transition from planned venture to operational start-up in the emergent independent power sector. Planned ventures face tremendous obstacles in assembling the resources necessary to begin operations; we hypothesize and show that formal certification from authorized actors increases the likelihood of making this transition. Moreover, we find that the effects of certification are contingent on the legitimacy of the sector as a whole: Certifications have a stronger effect on start-ups when sector legitimacy is low than when it is high. This research helps us understand a rarely studied organizational transition---from entrepreneurial intention to actual operations---within nascent sectors. It directs attention to the legitimating effects of formal certification, highlights the importance of a multilevel approach to legitimacy, and contributes to the growing rapprochement between entrepreneurial studies and institutional theory.

202 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20245
20231,984
20224,252
2021967
20201,096
20191,281