Restoring Social Legitimacy: Discursive Strategies Used By a Pharmaceutical Industry Leader

Abstract

Purpose – This paper seeks to better understand discursive strategies used by organizations to restore their fading legitimacy. Our investigation focuses on how a leader of the pharmaceutical industry uses narratives to maintain and restore legitimacy at two levels. Our longitudinal case study is built around two events representinga threat to the legitimacy of the pharmaceutical industry. Our study brings to light the subtle techniques employed by a pharmaceutical leader to restore legitimacy during those two cloudy periods for the big pharmas. Design/methodology/approach – This research analyzes the president’s letter of the annual report using semiotic tools that catch the essence and goals of the narrative sections. Our case study covers 20 of Pfizer most recent annual reports (1988-2007). Findings – The study shows that some narratives sections are built to protect legitimacy on two fronts. Most of the time, pharma’s discourse is built to maintain their legitimacy in front of its main stakeholder (shareholders) by presenting the firm’s main “object of desire” as the enhancement of shareholder’s value. But in period of crisis, the firm’s narrative are built to restore legitimacy in the eye of the general public. To do so, they change their discourse to present a screen object (related to the theme of the crisis) as the goal of the companies’ action. Originality/value – The paper brings together multiple elements of narratives sections to show how big pharmas built their discourse to restore legitimacy by adapting their defensive texts to specific screen objects as a response to a crisis.