Processes of Legitimization and Pressure Toward Regulation : Corporate Conformity and Strategic Behavior

Abstract

Organizations are embedded in a legal environment made of rules. Because these rules influence and constrain their behavior, organizations have incentives to act as institutional entrepreneurs by attempting to modify them or participate in their construction to their advantage. This strategy is of particular interest for scholars studying political strategies. In this influence process, power is a cornerstone concept but has traditionally been reduced to resource dependence ties. This paper sets up a theoretical framework to describe the power strategies that institutional entrepreneurs use to influence regulations. We argue that these strategies encompass both legitimization and pressure strategies. Legitimization consists of taking part in the political arena by trying to convince the other stakeholders, whereas pressure strategies attempt to influence political debates by using the dependence of the other stakeholders. Empirically, we examine how corporations managed to influence a regulatory process on industrial wastes in France in the 1990s. This in-depth and longitudinal case study shows that legitimization and pressure are complementary rather than mutually exclusive political strategies, and that they rely on a pool of resources that can be used jointly for implementing both strategies.