Abstract
Entrepreneurs commonly engage in discursive activities to pursue the legitimacy of their new organizations. Previous studies on this pursuit have essentially been focused on verbal language and there is limited understanding of how other communication modes, such as the visual, offer specific potentials for influencing legitimation audiences. With the contemporary pervasiveness of digital documents and online environments that often employ the visual mode, this gap has become more relevant. To address it, this study is guided by the following research question: how do entrepreneurs use the visual mode of communication to legitimize their new ventures? Building on the case of a new organization, this study shows that specific features of the visual mode of communication are especially well suited to sustaining legitimation in particular ways. While previous research has mostly remained on a conceptual level, this study empirically advances the understanding of visual discursive legitimation.
Highlights
New ventures are usually characterized by a lack of track record and reputation that weakens their potential to attract the support of resource-provider audiences, such as investors, employees, and consumers (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Elsbach & Kramer, 2003; Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001; Überbacher, 2014)
This study shows that the specific features of the visual mode of communication are especially well suited to sustain the pursuit of legitimacy, detailing two distinct potentials for legitimation
This is precisely why this case of Lovia is suited to unveiling discursive legitimation expressed in the visual mode of communication; Lovia can be regarded as a “critical” case (Yin, 2013)
Summary
New ventures are usually characterized by a lack of track record and reputation that weakens their potential to attract the support of resource-provider audiences, such as investors, employees, and consumers (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Elsbach & Kramer, 2003; Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001; Überbacher, 2014). To overcome this weakness, these organizations need to be considered legitimate, that is, as proper and understandable in their fields (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001; Suchman, 1995). Most of the current research on legitimation continues to be essentially focused on verbal texts, that is, language-based communication, reflecting an enduring tradition in the organization and management domain
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