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This paper examines whether affiliation strategies used by social movement organizations to establish institutional linkages assure survival. Several streams within both social movement and organization theories suggest contrasting expectations. Two core research questions are proposed: how does strategic affiliation, as well as increasing legitimation, alter social movement organizations’ longevity, and how does the evolution of the movement condition these dynamics? Our answer focuses on the self-help/mutual-aid movement and the institutionalization of national self-help/mutual-aid organizations. Analyses comparing economic, political and symbolic means of survival at the population-of-organizations level and organizational level, and across the history of the movement, show that professional and political alliances and legitimation impact the longevity of self-help/mutual-aid organizations in unexpected ways. For instance, as the number of political alliances at the population level increases, the likelihood of organizational survival declines, although political alliances at the individual organizational level are beneficial for an organization. These relationships change dramatically as the movement matures. Implications for integrating social movement and organizations theories are discussed.

In this paper, the authors explore the specific nature of material-based legitimation and examine how it differs from other forms of legitimation. Prior studies of institutional legitimacy have predominantly focused on the discursive and iconic aspects of legitimation, with much less focus placed on the role of materiality. To advance our argument, the authors introduce the notion of enactive legitimation. The authors suggest that legitimation is derived from and supported by the ongoing engagement and interaction with materials and material-based practices. To elaborate our argument, the authors study a case of the use of material signification to legitimize a new financial product within Islamic banking. The authors show that the legitimacy of the product is grounded in materials and the materiality of a number of ritualized practices. Materials and practices, however, also impose their own specific constraints on the process, and do so in ways that are more evident than when legitimation is based on signs and symbols (both language and images). The paper contributes to practice-based institutionalism by leveraging one of the central tenets of practice theory to extend the understanding of legitimation. It also illustrates what practice-based sensitivity may look like in action.

Social science attention to the distinctive role played by the professions in modern society dates, at least, from the 1930s, beginning with the pioneering research of Carr-Saunders and Wilson (1933) and the theorizing of Parsons (1939). A considerable body of work was produced well into the 1960s, most of which embraced what was subsequently termed a functionalist approach. It was argued that in return for employing their specialized knowledge in the client's interest, professionals were ceded the right to set standards of training and practice and to exercise autonomy of decision making in their spheres of competence (e.g., Goode, 1957; Goss, 1961; Greenwood, 1957; Hughes, 1958b). Considerable effort was expended in differentiating between more- and less-fully developed types of professions (e.g., Etzioni, 1969; Scott, 1965), as well as identifying the stages and strategies by which professions acquired their distinctive features and status (e.g., Abbott, 1988; Freidson, 1986; Wilensky, 1964).

This study aims to evaluate the impact of a sustainable production action on consumer trust and purchase intention by a company involved in moral transgression and also analyze the effect on consumer trust and purchase intention if a company, after green marketing, is identified as greenwashing spreader.

This quantitative nature (n = 121) study uses scale’s discriminant and convergent validity analyses, structural equation modeling and Student’s t-test.

Even for previously morally transgressive brands, actions of social legitimation, such as embracing environmental causes, positively impact consumer trust and purchase intention. However, consumers drop brand trust and purchase intention when verifying that this action was greenwashing.

Mediating or moderating variables of ecological awareness, such as religiosity or political view, were not tested.

This article combines the impact of positive, sustainable management actions for morally transgressive companies and the effects of new transgression on their sustainable management action. Thus, it aims to reduce the gap between organizational practice and management research.

This article shows that embracing society’s emerging causes and helping the world be a better place to live, moving toward the 2030 United Nations agenda, have practical repercussions for organizations.

This article contributes both to the literature and managerial implications by combining the impact of positive, sustainable management actions for morally transgressive companies and the effects of new transgression on their sustainable management action, thus reducing the gap between management research and organizational practice by unveiling the relations between sustainable actions and their perceived consequences.

This paper explores the role that environmental disclosures might play in producing a legitimating effect on investors within the context of the chemical industry. By way of an experimental decision case it examines effects of negative, and the offsetting effects of positive, environmental disclosures surrounding chemical firms’ liabilities for toxic waste site liabilities. The paper outlines the theoretical bases for the process of organizational legitimation, and sets the decision experiment in a detailed historical analysis of the toxic waste problems of the 1970s that led to the enactment of legislation requiring clean up and imposing significant liabilities on chemical firms. The results from the decision experiment, which indicate that under some circumstances positive disclosures can restore or repair an organization’s legitimacy, are discussed in the context of the earlier theoretical and historical analysis.

Modern conflicts are increasingly battles over images and ideas, as protagonists seek to shape audiences’ views by managing the information available through the media. The stake are high: influencing public opinion in a desired direction can have tangible pay‐offs in economic and military terms and even – in the case of the Israel‐Palestine war – in territory. Against this background, the media war can be even more important than the shooting war. While each side in the Israel‐Palestine conflict alleges media bias in favour of the other, a theoretical perspective, the hostile media effect, illuminates seeming contradictions highlighted by these competing claims. While the Israelis are better resourced for public relations purposes than the Palestinians, a vigorous domestic critique of Israeli PR efforts illustrates the limits of PR and emphasises the fluid, “wicked” nature of problems that often face communication managers.

States that the financial services industry application of mainstream strategy literature gives ample consideration to an organization’s task and technical environment. Points out, however, that this level of analysis does not deal explicitly with the larger “institutional” context, within which an organization is embedded. Using the Canadian banking industry as an exemplar of a highly institutionalized financial services industry, demonstrates the utility of institutional theory in understanding the origins, nature and dynamics of powerful institutional pressures of conformity. Calls this conformist strategy “mismanagement”.

This paper aims to explore the complete process and underlying mechanism that social enterprises obtain legitimacy during interactions with stakeholders from theoretical integration of institutional theory and organization ecology perspective.

Based on theoretical classification, this paper selects six typical Chinese social enterprises and conducts a multi-case analysis.

The study finds that social enterprises aim at legitimizing single entity or industry and shaping stakeholders’ cognitive boundary simultaneously. Therefore, by adopting constrained cooperation and competition activities, social enterprises use normative isomorphism to achieve personal legitimation and combining ecological niche construction, social enterprises achieve organizational legitimation. By adopting fragmented cooperation-dominant or competition-dominant activities, social enterprises use mimic isomorphism supplemented by competitive isomorphism or population structure creation to obtain industry legitimation. By adopting dynamically integrated coopetition activities, social enterprises use mimic isomorphism and reflexive isomorphism to reach field legitimation.

This paper proposes a mechanism model that the coopetition with stakeholders influences the legitimation process, identifies four stages of social enterprise’s legitimation process and the types of legitimacy obtained in each stage and fills the gap of Chinese indigenous social enterprise research.

The paper focuses on legitimation and legitimation strategies applied by companies. Following the process of systematic review, we analyse empirical studies exploring legitimation and legitimation strategies from different theoretical perspectives. Using the key findings by reconnoitering and comparing the theoretical background, approaches, methodologies and findings of these empirical studies, we outline potential directions for research in the legitimation strategies of firms engaged in international business operations.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the role played by three archetypal constructs pertaining to the individual sustainability-oriented entrepreneur, namely prior knowledge, sustainability orientation and sustainability intention, in legitimation behavior and explores their strategic utility.

The author studies legitimacy-seeking behavior in the case of ten sustainability-oriented entrepreneurs. A qualitative case study approach is used, capturing evidence of legitimation behavior in the startup phase through interviews, participant observation and documentation analysis.

Prior knowledge and sustainability orientation appear to offer little value beyond their role as necessary factors in maintaining legitimacy. Both appear to have limited strategic value for legitimation in comparison to sustainability intention. Intention as a construct embodies the “paradox” of sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship, and learning to successfully overcome this paradox to strategically utilize intention in legitimation is crucial for these entrepreneurs.

Knowledge of these factors could assist sustainability-oriented entrepreneurs in strategically utilizing these factors as agency when dealing with diverse stakeholder expectations to achieve their enterprising goals. Strengthening knowledge on factors important for legitimacy is pertinent in supporting this shared value approach to entrepreneurship.

Little theoretical or empirical attention has been paid to the complexity of strategic legitimation behavior of sustainability-oriented entrepreneurs. This paper provides novel empirical insight into what role these archetypal factors play in legitimation behavior and how they can be strategically utilized.