TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose Despite the growing amount of research on the social and organizational role of legitimacy, very little is known about the subtle discursive processes through which organizational changes are legitimated in contemporary society. The purpose of this paper is to explore the subtle processes of interdiscursivity and intertextuality through which an organization constructs a sense of legitimacy.Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the case of a newly privatized oil company in a transitional, post-communist economy, the authors’ research uses critical discourse analysis to analyze the annual reports, corporate press releases, and relevant media from the four years following privatization.Findings The authors argue for a relational understanding of legitimacy construction that emphasizes how legitimacy relies on the multiple processes of intertextuality linking corporate narratives and media texts. Corporate narratives are not produced solely by the discourses that occur at the individual and organizational levels; they are also produced by the much broader discourses that occur at the societal level.Originality/value This study’s main contribution is that it reveals the intertextual and interdiscursive construction of corporate narratives, which is a key element in understanding how discourses around privatization are interlinked and draw upon other macro-level discourses to construct legitimacy.
VL  - 30
IS  - 3
SN  - 0951-3574
DO  - 10.1108/AAAJ-05-2014-1705
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-05-2014-1705
AU  - Lupu Ioana
AU  - Sandu Raluca
PY  - 2017
Y1  - 2017/01/01
TI  - Intertextuality in corporate narratives: a discursive analysis of a contested privatization
T2  - Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 534
EP  - 564
Y2  - 2024/05/06
ER  -