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In this essay, the author reflects on the legitimacy theory in corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure research.

This is a reflection/review essay based on a review of relevant literature.

Although almost constantly under attack from a variety of scholars, legitimacy theory seems to hold on in the social and environmental disclosure arena. However, the failure of the recent wave of CSR-themed work published in The Accounting Review to even acknowledge, let alone engage with, the theory is problematic.

We, in the CSR disclosure arena, need to do all we can to help emerging scholars (particularly in the USA) find the rich body of research the mainstream journals fail to discuss.

Legitimacy-based research can help move CSR disclosure at least closer to being a tool of accountability, as opposed to a tool for legitimation.

Perhaps the critique of the mainstream North American literature’s failure to consider legitimacy theory can lead to the recognition of the need to focus on the harm to sustainability that a narrow, shareholder-centric focus leads to.

This reflection takes a unique look at the contributions of legitimacy theory to CSR disclosure research.

Dominant quality standards are present in all industries. Implicit in their use is the assumption that once adopted, there is little or no reason to replace them. However, there is evidence that, under certain circumstances, such standards do get replaced. The reasons for this action are not well-understood, either as they pertain to the displacement decision or to the selection and adoption of the alternative standard. The purpose of this study is to identify and explore these two issues (displacement and replacement) by drawing on data from the American healthcare system. This study is viewed through the theoretical lens of legitimacy theory. In addition, the process is viewed from a temporal perspective. The resulting findings are used to better understand how this displacement process takes place and to identify directions for interesting and meaningful future research.

This is an explanatory study that draws on data gathered from quality managers in 89 hospitals that had adopted a new healthcare quality standard (of these, some fifty percent had displaced the dominant quality standard – the Joint Commission – with a different standard – DNV Healthcare.

The combined literature review and case study data provide insights into the displacement process. This is a process that evolves over time. Initially, the process is driven by the need to meet customer demands. However, over time, as the organizations try to integrate the guidelines contained within the standards into the organization, gaps in the quality standard emerge. It is these gaps that motivate the need to displace standards. The legitimacy perspective is highly effective at explaining this displacement process. In addition, the study uncovers some critical issues, namely the important role played by the individual auditors in the certification process and the importance of fit between the standard and the context in which it is deployed.

The data for the propositions in this case study were derived from interviews and survey data from 89 healthcare organizations. It would be interesting to examine similar relationships with other quality standards and industries.

Our findings provide new insights related to motivations to decouple from a dominant quality standard. Results provide a cautionary tale for standards that hold a dominant market share such that perceived legitimacy of such standards is not as stable as originally thought.

This study illuminates the fragile nature of the stability of dominant standards and emphasizes the linkages between legitimacy concerns and divestiture of such standards.

This study aims to formulate a new framework for identifying deception in consumer reviews through the lens of interpersonal deception theory (IDT) and the persuasion knowledge model (PKM). It evaluates variables contributing to consumer intentions to purchase after reading deceptive reviews and proposes deception identification cues to be incorporated into the interpersonal communication theoretical framework.

The first study is qualitative and quantitative, based on sentiment and lexical analysis of 1,000 consumer reviews. The second study uses the US national consumer survey with a partial least squares partial least squares-structural equation modeling and a process-based mediation–moderation analysis.

This study shows deceptive characteristics that cannot be dissimulated by reviewing consumers that represent review legitimacy based on review valence, authenticity, formalism and analytical writing. The results also support the central role of consumer suspicion of an ulterior motive, with a direct and mediation effect regarding consumer emotions and intentions, including brand trust and purchase intentions.

This paper presents a new framework for identifying deception in consumer reviews based on IDT and PKM, adding new theoretical elements that help adapt these theories to written digital communication specificities. This study clarifies the role of suspicion in a deceptive communication context and shows the variables contributing to consumers’ purchase intention after reading deceptive reviews. The results also emphasize the benefits of lexical analysis in identifying deceptive characteristics of reviews.

Companies can consider the vulnerability of certain generations based on lower levels of suspicions and different linguistic cues to detect deception in reviews. Long-term, marketers can also implement deception identification practices as potential new business models and opportunities.

Policymakers and regulators need to consider critical deception cues and the differences in suspicion levels among segments of consumers in the formulation of preventative and deception management measures.

This study contributes to the literature by formulating a new framework for identifying deception in consumer reviews, adapted to the characteristics of written digital communication. This study emphasizes deception cues in electronic word-of-mouth and provides additional opportunities for theorizing deception in electronic communication.

Organizations put their reputations at risk when they misunderstand what their stakeholders expect from them. People expect specific behavior from an organization regarding societal issues or questions, and when an organization ignores or denigrates issues and in the worst case contributes to making conditions worse, stakeholders will react. The purpose of this paper is to propose the PZB model of service quality as a tool that organizations can use to align expectations and perceptions with organizational behavior and communication.

The paper provides two cases of the use of CSR communication as a marketing mechanism to position an entity as environmentally friendly. In both instances, the messages were declared illegal and had to be removed. The PZB model of service and the co‐orientation model are used to illustrate the principles discussed.

The cases illustrate the need for organizations to not only be more aware of the expectations of their stakeholders but also to implement organizational practices that ensure they are abreast of expectations and operate accordingly.

The value of the paper is that it provides organizations with a proven tool that can be used not only for customers but for other stakeholders as well. Its real strength, however, is that it provides guidelines for internally‐ as well as externally oriented behavior and communication.

The paper extends the PZB model to a more stakeholder approach and demonstrates its usefulness when it comes to a deeper understanding of legitimacy by organizations.

Falsified online reviews (FORs) are the published/viewable consumer-generated online content regarding a firm (or its representatives) or its services and goods that is, to some degree, untruthful or falsified. The purpose of this study is first to explore the nature of FORs, focusing on reviewers' interpretations and refections on falsity, intent, anonymity and the target of their FOR. Secondly, the authors examine the valence and veracity dimensions of FORs and introduce a typology to differentiate their variations.

using an exploratory research design, 48 interviews were conducted with participants who post online reviews on social media about their experiences with food and beverage serving outlets.

The results show four common forms of FORs on social media. These are reviews focused on equity equalizing, friendly flattery, opinionated opportunism and malicious profiteering.

The authors provide exploratory and in-depth information via interviews, but do not analyse the content of FORs.

Firms should be aware of varieties of FORs and that these may not be limited to malicious content. This is important in terms of showing that in dealing with FORs, a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. FORs are not always entirely fabricated, and instead various levels of falseness are observed, ranging from slight alterations to complete fabrications.

Previous research explored how to identify and differentiate FORs from truthful ones, focusing on the reviews or how they are perceived by readers. However, comparatively little is known of the reviewers of FORs. Hence, this study focuses on reviewers and offers new insights into the nature of FORs by identifying and examining the main forms of FORs on social media.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how both offenders and their families perceived their interactions with police and whether there were negative consequences of the offender-focused strategy that was implemented in a hot spots policing experiment.

Data from interviews of 32 offenders and 29 family members are examined qualitatively for themes to evaluate how the strategy was carried out and how it impacted offenders’ behavior and both groups’ perceptions of the police detectives and the strategy overall.

The results show that there was overwhelming agreement by both offenders and their family members that the police detectives who contacted them treated both groups with dignity and respect. After the contact was over, the offenders appeared to commit less crime, followed probation more closely, and had positive feelings about what the police detectives were trying to do. Improvement of the offenders’ relationships with their families was an unanticipated finding indicating a diffusion of benefits of the strategy.

The results suggest that when procedural justice principles are used in an offender-focused police intervention, positive impact can be achieved without negative consequences.

This is a rare example of an in-depth evaluation of the perceptions of offenders and family members contacted through a hot spots policing offender-focused strategy.

This chapter analyzes how institutional pressures have allowed for continuities as well as brought about changes in modern police organizations in Korea. When facing a legitimacy crisis, the Korean law enforcement system has typically responded with organizational restructuring. Strong myth-building patterns compensate for the lack of moral legitimacy of the police, particularly under authoritarian-military regimes that suppress democratization movements in Korea. Even after seemingly radical organizational changes aimed at placing the police under democratic control, highly institutionalized core structures of the police remain in place. Performance reform after the economic crisis, which was proceeded from reformers’ shared belief in the market-driven solutions, diagnosed the Korean police as a big, inefficient, and self-serving bureaucracy, a diagnosis that eventually caused gradual deterioration in the taken-for-grantedness of policing activities. The internet and social media made the Korean police even more vulnerable to external challenges and a questioning of its legitimacy.

In the UK, major IT public procurement projects regularly fail at significant cost to the taxpayer. The prevalence of these failures presents scholars with a challenge; to both understand their genesis and to facilitate learning and prevention. Functional approaches have revealed numerous determinants of failure ranging from procurement specifications to risk escalation, but true and definitive causes remain elusive. However, since failure is not itself an absolute truth, but rather a concept which is reached when support is withdrawn, the survival of a project depends on there being sufficient belief in its legitimacy. We use critical hermeneutic methods and the conceptual lens of legitimacy to reveal powerful legitimating influences that enable and constrain action, but which are not analysed in the retrospective government inquiries that determine lessons learned.

Entrepreneurship teachers (ETs) evolve in an environment where different categories of people interact: students, teachers and stakeholders. Assuming one or more identities or roles, teachers, practitioners, ex-entrepreneurs and/or researchers are the ‘transmitters’¹ of entrepreneurship education (EE). The question of recognition of teachers’ professional status is not always addressed (Hargreaves, 2000). Scientific research in EE shows certain weaknesses (Byrne, Fayolle, & Toutain, 2014; Fayolle, 2013), notably, a lack of interest in questions of (i) the perceived legitimacy of ETs and (ii) the support they receive in carrying out their work (particularly professional development). Taking a decidedly multidisciplinary perspective, this chapter aims to deal with the question of the perceived legitimacy of ETs using a literature review that covers all disciplines having shown an interest in the notion of teacher legitimacy.

The legitimacy of EE depends on the interactions between legitimate instructors and legitimate students in a given context, which respects certain collectively accepted norms. It also depends on the context and the objective of EE. Following the example of a university hospital worker (doctor), ETs can be practitioners, teachers and researchers. Their degree of expertise, position in the institution, positioning in relation to other actors – students, peers, colleagues, institutional and professional stakeholders – and the discourse they use are the elements that constitute their legitimacy.

The purpose of this paper is to review the “state of the art” in research on police legitimacy. The authors consider two bodies of theory and empirical research on police legitimacy: one rooted in social psychology and concerned with individual attitudes, and the other based on organizational institutionalism. The authors contrast the theories, discuss the methods with which propositions have been examined, and take stock of the empirical evidence. The authors then turn to a direct comparison of the theories and their predictions.

Critical review and comparison of two bodies of literature.

Police legitimacy is a phenomenon that can be properly understood only when it is addressed at both individual and organizational levels. A large body of social psychological research on police legitimacy has been conducted at the individual level, though it has dwelled mainly on attitudes, and the empirical evidence on the relationships of attitudes to behavior is weak. A much smaller body of research on organizational legitimacy in policing has accumulated, and it appears to have promise for advancing our understanding of police legitimacy.

The understanding of police legitimacy can be deepened by the juxtaposition of these two bodies of theory and research.