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When Orders of Worth Clash: Negotiating Legitimacy in Situations of Moral Multiplexity

Juliane Reinecke
Koen van Bommel
Andre Spicer

Justification, Evaluation and Critique in the Study of Organizations

ISBN: 978-1-78714-380-7, eISBN: 978-1-78714-379-1

ISSN: 0733-558X

Publication date: 1 June 2017

Abstract

How is moral legitimacy established in pluralist contexts where multiple moral frameworks co-exist and compete? Situations of moral multiplexity complicate not only whether an organization or practice is legitimate but also which criteria should be used to establish moral legitimacy. We argue that moral legitimacy can be thought of as the property of a dynamic dialogical process in which relations between moral schemes are constantly (re-)negotiated through dynamic exchange with audiences. Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot’s ‘orders of worth’ framework, we propose a process model of how three types of truces may be negotiated: transcendence, compromise, antagonism. While each can create moral legitimacy in pluralistic contexts, legitimacy is not a binary variable but varying in degrees of scope and certainty.

Keywords

  • Economies of worth
  • French pragmatist sociology
  • Dialogue
  • Justifications
  • Moral legitimacy
  • Convention theory

Citation

Reinecke, J., van Bommel, K. and Spicer, A. (2017), "When Orders of Worth Clash: Negotiating Legitimacy in Situations of Moral Multiplexity", Justification, Evaluation and Critique in the Study of Organizations (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 52), Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 33-72. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20170000052002

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited

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