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Article
Publication date: 19 September 2016

Mark Washburn and Kenji Klein

The purpose of this paper is to develop theory regarding reputation and legitimacy signaling by organizations in contested emerging fields characterized by category ambiguity…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop theory regarding reputation and legitimacy signaling by organizations in contested emerging fields characterized by category ambiguity. Because impression management becomes increasingly important as category boundaries become fuzzy, the authors examine how highly participatory audiences in contested emerging fields respond to organizational attempts to seek acceptance and manage impressions.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a database of web-based advertisements by 1,226 medical marijuana dispensaries, the authors test the effect that dispensary attempts to signal either legitimacy or reputation have on audience approval.

Findings

The authors find that audiences react differently to communication strategies intended to build reputation vs those intended to build legitimacy. Under conditions of highly contested category legitimation, audiences respond positively to signals of legitimacy but negatively to signals of reputation.

Originality/value

This study advances the understanding of category emergence and category building under conditions of contestation. The study adds to the growing body of work that suggests category creation involves unique collaborative processes between organizations and audiences, and the authors show that these processes constrain organizational attempts at impression management.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 54 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 2005

Janet Luft Mobus

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between mandatory environmental performance disclosure and subsequent environmental regulatory performance.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between mandatory environmental performance disclosure and subsequent environmental regulatory performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Using legitimacy theory as the interpretive lens, regulatory non‐compliance disclosures threaten organizational legitimacy and non‐compliant firms are expected to respond to these threats. The potential effectiveness of different legitimation strategies for reducing these threats is evaluated.

Findings

Regression analysis shows a negative correlation between the mandatory disclosure of environmental legal sanctions and subsequent regulatory violations using firms in the US oil refining industry. These results are interpreted as demonstrating that subsequent regulatory compliance is a tactic employed by managers to minimize the delegitimizing effect of organizational impropriety revealed by mandatory accounting disclosures.

Practical implications

Implications for practice include linking financial reporting to environmental performance. This link gains greater importance as concern about the environmental effects of business operations becomes more acute within the investor, regulatory, and public interest arenas.

Originality/value

The paper makes original contributions to research on mandatory environmental disclosures that are embedded in US financial reporting. In addition, a conception of legitimacy theory that is broader than previously relied upon in accounting research literature is reviewed. The study examines a single industry within a single country. Further research may determine whether similar relationships are observed in other industries, and whether equivalent relationships can be examined in international settings. In addition, the possibilities and limits of regulatory compliance as a measure of environmental performance, and of environmental accounting as a policy tool in the governance of the commons are discussed.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 18 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 February 2022

Dana Schadenberg and Emma Folmer

This paper aims to analyse how sustainable second-hand stores (SSHSs) use storytelling as a legitimization strategy. Second-hand stores have traditionally relied on a charity…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to analyse how sustainable second-hand stores (SSHSs) use storytelling as a legitimization strategy. Second-hand stores have traditionally relied on a charity identity to attract customers. More recently, changing market demands, the growing popularity of second-hand shopping, “vintage” and online shopping have opened up new opportunities for these social enterprises (SEs). This study asks how SSHSs can maintain their legitimacy with incumbent stakeholders while also exploiting these new opportunities.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses an abductive approach starting from existing knowledge on how storytelling builds legitimacy in conventional enterprises. The authors collected qualitative data and interviewed owners and managers of second-hand stores in the Netherlands. This paper specifically looked at how second-hand stores are using their web shops to convey stories and build legitimacy with (new) audiences.

Findings

Contrary to the authors’ expectations, they found that the web shop is not used as a site for storytelling the mission of the store but is rather a stage for specific products that tell a story of trendy and vintage shopping. This attracts a new customer segment to the store that conventionally does not shop there. This paper concludes that second-hand stores use vintage products as symbols in storytelling through their web shop to gain access to a new market. By foregoing to tell the story of their mission on the web shop, the second-hand stores are choosing to keep their charity and business identity separate.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper makes an original contribution by analysing how second-hand stores are actively exploiting new opportunities created by a changing market context and seeking to maintain legitimacy while doing so. This paper argues that legitimacy is not a static “reward,” rather, something that evolves with the enterprise. This research adds to the body of literature on legitimacy and more specifically cultural entrepreneurship, which holds that entrepreneurs can actively gain and maintain legitimacy through storytelling.

Details

Social Enterprise Journal, vol. 18 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-8614

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 June 2017

Juliane Reinecke, Koen van Bommel and Andre Spicer

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…

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.

Details

Justification, Evaluation and Critique in the Study of Organizations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-379-1

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 February 2024

Seung Hyun Kim, Kwang Hyun Ra, Sang Hun Lee and Do Sun Lee

This study examined the effects of organizational justice and citizen respect to support for democratic policing through self-legitimacy among South Korean police officers.

Abstract

Purpose

This study examined the effects of organizational justice and citizen respect to support for democratic policing through self-legitimacy among South Korean police officers.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used survey data from 467 South Korean police officers in 2022. Structural equation model analysis was used to examine relationships between each variable.

Findings

This study found a positive relationship between organizational justice and self-assessed legitimacy. Also, citizen respect had a positive relationship with both police officers' self-assessed legitimacy and audience legitimacy. Self-assessed legitimacy had a significant effect on support for democratic policing, while perceived-audience legitimacy did not have a significant effect on support for democratic policing.

Originality/value

The current study provides evidence that self-legitimacy affects supporting democratic policing in a non-Western democracy. Additionally, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the role of police self-legitimacy as a link between organizational justice and citizen respect and the intended behaviors of police officers toward citizens.

Details

Policing: An International Journal, vol. 47 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 April 2018

Justin Nix and Scott E. Wolfe

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors associated with management-level officers’ sensitivity to various manifestations of the “Ferguson effect.”

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors associated with management-level officers’ sensitivity to various manifestations of the “Ferguson effect.”

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was administered to police officers attending an advanced training institute in the Southeastern USA in the fall of 2015. Specifically, a series of items first inquired about negative attitudes attributable to deadly force incidents throughout the country, followed by items tapping into theoretically relevant concepts including self-legitimacy, audience legitimacy, and peer attachment.

Findings

Findings suggest that like line-level officers, police managers may also harbor various attitudes attributable to a Ferguson effect – including less willingness to be proactive, reduced motivation, less job enjoyment, and a belief that crime will ultimately rise as officers “de-police.” However, officers who believe their communities afford legitimacy to the police were less likely to report these sentiments. Study limitations and avenues for future research are also discussed.

Originality/value

This is the first study to consider how police managers have been impacted by highly publicized deadly force incidents in recent years. It underscores the importance of maintaining legitimacy in the public eye, particularly in the post-Ferguson era of American policing.

Details

Policing: An International Journal, vol. 41 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 3 May 2022

Rok Hacin and Gorazd Meško

In recent years, several studies on self-legitimacy of police officers were conducted; however, few have tested the unstable nature of legitimacy in different time periods. This…

Abstract

Purpose

In recent years, several studies on self-legitimacy of police officers were conducted; however, few have tested the unstable nature of legitimacy in different time periods. This paper aims to focus on the self-legitimacy of police officers and its impact on pro-organizational behavior in 2013 and 2016.

Design/methodology/approach

The study took place in eight regional police directorates in Slovenia. The number of participants amounted to 529 police officers in 2013 and 478 police officers in 2016 that have completed a paper and pencil survey that was pretested using a convenience sample of police officers studying as part-time undergraduate students.

Findings

Overall findings revealed organizational commitment as the strongest predictor of self-legitimacy of police officers in Slovenia. The invariance of the “core variables” and their influence on the self-legitimacy of police officers in different time periods was confirmed. Their perception of individual legitimacy, organizational commitment, education and years of service influenced pro-organizational behaviors of police officers.

Research limitations/implications

Limitations of the study can be seen in the sincerity of participating police officers and the nature of self-legitimacy, which operates differently in different societies.

Practical implications

The results could be used for the improvement of policing in a young democratic country.

Social implications

Legitimacy, procedural justice and other components of policing in a democratic society need to be tested globally, especially in young democracies. This study is an example of an ongoing, follow-up endeavor of researchers and the national police to reflect upon the development of policing.

Originality/value

The paper has confirmed the invariance of relations with colleagues, supervisors' procedural justice and audience legitimacy on the self-legitimacy in different time periods and societies.

Details

Policing: An International Journal, vol. 45 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 23 December 2022

Yoshinobu Nakanishi

The purpose of this study is to propose a model of knowledge legitimation in organizational learning focusing on the relationship between power politics and legitimacy.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to propose a model of knowledge legitimation in organizational learning focusing on the relationship between power politics and legitimacy.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopts the approach of a conceptual discussion.

Findings

This study developed an organizational learning model that explains how actors exercise their power and how knowledge is legitimated through politics. The author identified various factors that shape the politics; these factors trigger, enhance, facilitate and inhibit power exercise. This study also identified which type of power (influence, force, domination and discipline) leads to which type of legitimacy (pragmatic, moral and cognitive). Furthermore, this study found that power politics and organizational learning are interrelated; actors’ powers bestow legitimacy on knowledge, and knowledge enhances the power of related actors.

Originality/value

This study identified the set of factors that shape actors’ power exercise in organizational learning as well as their associated mechanism and illustrated how they lead to knowledge legitimation. The author also revealed the relationships between actors’ power and legitimacy of knowledge. Finally, this study elaborated on the findings of prior studies concerning politics of organizational learning.

Details

The Learning Organization, vol. 30 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-6474

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 June 2021

Fei-Lin Chen, Ivan Sun, Yuning Wu and Shun-Yung Kevin Wang

This paper aims to assess whether internal procedural justice is directly and indirectly through self-legitimacy connected to external procedural justice among Taiwanese police…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to assess whether internal procedural justice is directly and indirectly through self-legitimacy connected to external procedural justice among Taiwanese police officers.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data used in this study were collected from 316 Taiwanese police officers in 2019. Structural equation modeling was performed to examine the direct and indirect relationships between internal and external procedural justice.

Findings

Supervisors' internal procedural justice is directly related to the external procedural justice rendered to the public by police officers. Internal procedural justice also directly enhances officers' perceptions of internal legitimacy and external legitimacy. Greater senses of internal legitimacy are then accompanied by higher external procedural justice.

Research limitations/implications

Survey data collected from a non-random sample of officers limit the study findings' generalizability. Organizational justice in the form of supervisory justice is instrumental in promoting officers' perception of self-legitimacy and their delivery of fair treatment to the public.

Originality/value

The present study represents a first attempt to link two important veins of studies in recent policing literature, organizational justice and officer self-legitimacy. This study provides needed evidence to support the value of supervisory justice in policing in a non-Western democracy.

Details

Policing: An International Journal, vol. 44 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 April 2022

Francesca Bacco and Elena Dalpiaz

Management research has begun to explore how cultural entrepreneurs use established or declining societal traditions to create distinctive new ventures and products. In this

Abstract

Management research has begun to explore how cultural entrepreneurs use established or declining societal traditions to create distinctive new ventures and products. In this study, we propose an alternative pathway for creating entrepreneurial opportunities, that is, through leveraging extinct societal traditions. Extinct societal traditions yield opportunities to create highly distinctive products and ventures, yet their use entails substantial challenges. To understand how entrepreneurs can successfully leverage extinct societal traditions, we investigate the case of The Merchant of Venice, an Italian venture established in 2013 that produces luxury perfumes based on the perfume-making tradition that flourished in Venice between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and disappeared afterwards. Our study illuminates how cultural entrepreneurs can leverage extinct societal traditions by (a) exhuming lost knowledge and practices, (b) validating them as an authentic and appreciable tradition of a given community and territory, and (c) elevating their meaningfulness as core to place identity. Our study contributes to the literature on cultural entrepreneurship and traditions by revealing the distinct challenges that resurrecting extinct traditions entail, enriching the understanding of types, goals, and processes of cultural entrepreneurship, and widening current knowledge of the roles of tradition custodians.

Details

Advances in Cultural Entrepreneurship
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-207-2

Keywords

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