The Dynamics of Legitimacy in Integrative Bargaining Over Restructuring

By applying institutional theory in retail and COVID-19 settings, this paper investigates the impact of legitimacy dimensions on customer loyalty, considering the moderating effect of the perceived COVID-19 threat. The data collected by a consumer survey in Japan and Croatia were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. The results from both samples reveal that moral and cognitive legitimacy are critical loyalty drivers. The perceived COVID-19 threat moderated the relationship between cognitive legitimacy and loyalty. The study also reveals some differences between the countries. The impact of pragmatic legitimacy is significant only in Croatia, while perceived threat negatively moderates the relationship between moral legitimacy and loyalty only in Japan. The study provides recommendations for managers on how to gain loyalty through actions supporting legitimacy.

This article aims to analyse legitimacy of military crisis management operations carried out by the EU in support of the UN in sub-Saharan Africa by using Mark Suchman’s typology of organizational legitimacy including pragmatic, moral and cognitive legitimacy. These three types of legitimacy are tested through analysing four cases in which EU has engaged in sub-Saharan Africa in support of the UN: Operation Artemis (2003), EUFOR RD CONGO (2006), EUFOR Tchad/RCA (2008-2009) and EUFOR RCA (2014-2015). In terms of pragmatic legitimacy, the EU enjoys high level of legitimacy, because these operations served both institutional interests of the EU and self-interests of some member states, particularly France. With regard to moral legitimacy, the EU suffers from a legitimacy deficit. Although declared motives for the launch of these operations was to help the UN in fulfilling its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, indeed, EU engagement in these crisis management operations was to a significant degree driven by the institutional interests of the EU and interests of some individual member states. Moreover, all operations were UN-mandated autonomous EU military operations rather than integrated EU troops in UN-led operations. Thus, real motivation for launching the operations and their modalities undermined moral legitimacy of these operations, because it casted doubts on whether these operations has served the global common good or not. Furthermore, EU’s utilitarian, selective and self-interested use of its crisis management tool puts limit on the EU’s future reliability and taken-for-grantedness as a UN partner in protecting and promoting international peace and security, and thus resulted in cognitive legitimacy deficit.

Seeking legitimacy for new assurance forms: The case of assurance on sustainability reporting

Background: Legitimacy of the welfare state is a requirement for efficient functioning. In the current political climate of Norway creating new co-governance models under the umbrella of New Public Governance (NPG). NPG draws resources from the public, the private as well as the volunteer sector. In the European welfare states pressure is building due to demographic ageing, globalization and disturbances in the social order which affect the social contract between citizen and state. This article aims to explore how citizens legitimize the Norwegian welfare state drawing on perspective of institutional theory. Why do or don’t the participants support the current form of the welfare state? The interviews were analysed focusing on the assumptions and reasons on which the participants based their view of the welfare state. Although the method has been used on exploring the epistemic dimension of discretion, it allows for identification of the cognitive aspects of decision making, hence the ability to identify core assumptions and beliefs. The findings from the interview are analysed using Schuman’s analytical categories of pragmatic, moral and cognitive legitimacy create the framework for analysing the argumentation which the participants use to legitimize their current view of the Norwegian welfare state, and where it is heading. Contrary to most institutional research this paper does not attempt to see the big picture, but rather explore legitimacy through the informant’s perception of the welfare state. Methods: This is a qualitative study. We conducted individual interviews with one woman and one man in each 10-year, thus representing ages from 20 to 80. We also interviewed two senior experts at research centres and two politicians. These interviews were thematically analysed and coded in NVivo. In order to analyse the informant’s arguments further this paper utilizes Anders Molander’s interpretation and use of Toulmin which sees discretion as a process in which a person legitimizes their own argument statements through expressing core concepts, values and understandings. Results and Lessons learned: This is an ongoing study and the results will be presented and discussed at the conference. The preliminary analysis shows that moral legitimacy tends to outweigh pragmatic legitimacy. This implies that legitimacy is a key concept in achieving integrated services. This may indicate that cooperative models such as NPG in combination with people’s perspective of “what is the right thing to do” is key to reaching ideals promised in tailoring of services from people’s perspective. Limitations and suggestions for future research: Legitimacy as a concept on the micro level may be a key element in understanding how to integrate services and increase quality of services from people’s perspective. Moral legitimacy tends to create support despite to achieving peoples wishes. To a certain extent, the upcoming results will be of relevance for a better understanding of the complexity of organising and supporting welfare services. Keywords: Welfare state, legitimacy, NPG, Co-governance, integration,

This article explores complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) organisations' legitimation efforts that face extra obstacles as they are subject to more than one institutional logics (hybrids) and operate in a contested organisational space (hostile environment). CAM organisations espouse the health and market logics and their practices are questioned at an institutional level. The study is conducted in Portugal, where the legalisation of CAM therapies was a contested process over 10years. Taking an abductive approach and drawing on qualitative interviews, the authors analyse CAM managers' efforts to legitimise their practices and build viable organisations despite hostile conditions. Contrary to prior studies of hybrid healthcare organisations, CAM organisations derive moral legitimacy from the market logic rather than the health logic. The findings show that relationships, trust-building and consumer education appear to be the primary vehicles for establishing pragmatic legitimacy. Thus, pragmatic legitimacy relies on the health logic. The market logic dominates the pursuit of moral legitimacy through financial sustainability, human capital, marketing communications and partnerships, and advocating complementarity with biomedicine. We propose a model through which organisations use pragmatic legitimacy to enhance moral legitimacy and to create recursive feedback between moral and pragmatic legitimacy on the path to cognitive legitimacy.

Mission Accomplished? Balancing Market Growth and Moral Legitimation in the Fair Trade Moral Market

The aim of this research consists in analysing to what extent personal characteristics have an influence on the assessment process of organizational legitimacy. For this purpose, a questionnaire was used which examines the effect of five personal characteristics on four types of legitimacy. Subsequently, regression analysis was applied on a sample of 258 individuals. The results have shown that the persons with higher social awareness are more prone to make decisions about organizations taking into account the moral, regulatory and cognitive legitimacy. This type of assessment also occurs when the fear of receiving a social sanction increases. Likewise in the perception of a higher economic risk inherent to the result of a decision, people are more likely to make decisions based on cognitive and pragmatic legitimacy. Future research projects may confirm if the results of this investigation are repeated among different activity sectors and different sociodemographic environments. Accordingly, it would be possible to design a conceptual framework where the legitimacy preferences of interest groups are explained by sectors and personal characteristics. The results of this study extend the knowledge in the field of Institutional Theory about the origin of organizational legitimacy and the causes which condition it. It also facilitates improving the strategic planning of organizations by displaying the legitimacy preferences based on each person’s profile.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought attention to the delicate balance between individual privacy concerns and the governance of public health emergencies. Governments are leveraging a wide range of digital methodologies to acquire individual-level data for purposes such as contact tracing, isolation protocols, and surveillance, all aimed at effectively mitigating the deleterious consequences of the epidemic. However, the surrender of individual health information depends on individuals’ perception of the legitimacy of governance. In this research, our objective is to examine how individuals’ perceptions of the legitimacy of governance impact their decisions regarding privacy disclosure. This study stands out by dissecting cognitive and moral legitimacy of governance, uniquely examining their influence on individuals’ altruistic privacy disclosure during a crisis. Unlike previous research, our approach offers a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between governance legitimacy and privacy concessions. From July 15th to August 14th, 2022, amid the 2022 lockdown in Shanghai, China, this study utilizes surveys with established measurement scales, alongside structural equation modeling (SEM), to explore the relationship between individuals’ perceptions of government legitimacy in managing the pandemic and their willingness to compromise health information. The study distinguishes between moral legitimacy (pathos) and cognitive legitimacy (logos). The results find that both cognitive and moral legitimacy positively influence altruism, thus enhancing the efficacy of voluntary disclosure of personal health information to government agencies for pandemic governance. However, it is noteworthy that education level moderates the impact of these two dimensions of legitimacy on altruism. This research provides empirical evidence to enhance our understanding of how different dimensions of citizens’ perceptions of governance legitimacy in crisis situations shape their attitudes and behaviors towards privacy trade-offs.

abstractWe examined the discursive processes through which a new professional role identity for registered nurses was legitimized by analysing introductory textbooks over time. We theorize five ways of rhetorically legitimizing a new professional role identity: naturalizing the past, normalizing new meanings, altering identity referents, connecting with the institutional environment, and referencing authority. In contrast to previous research focused on legitimizing new practices, we contribute to the institutional literature by showing that legitimizing a professional role identity requires the incremental development of new arguments where the past is not delegitimized. Our findings also indicate that instead of a progression from moral and pragmatic legitimacy to cognitive legitimacy, legitimizing a new role identity may focus only on moral legitimacy. Finally, our study highlights the importance of interactions between the professional task environment and the wider institutional environment as part of the process of legitimizing a professional role identity.

This article explores possible legitimacy-building mechanisms for social enterprises with difficult-to-measure outcomes and hostile contexts. Interviews were developed with managers of enterprises offering complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) services, taken as an example of social enterprises in a hostile context. Our findings indicate that CAM enterprises rely on relationship building and consumer education to establish pragmatic legitimacy; the quest for moral legitimacy is expressed through the hybrid organizational form, human capital and professionalization attempts, formalization of procedures, and strategic alliances. Building on Suchman’s (Academy of Management Review 20:371–610) three levels of legitimacy, we propose a mechanism through which enterprises use pragmatic legitimacy to enhance moral legitimacy and to create a feedback effect between moral and pragmatic legitimacy so that ultimately cognitive legitimacy can be achieved.

In the special institutional conditions of China, social enterprise faced unfavorable normative and regulatory environments for creating social and economic value under resource-strapped; the growth of social enterprises was essentially equal of the acquisition of legitimacy. More and more social enterprises adopted a hybrid structure including businesses, foundation and NGOs to acquire legitimacy. In this article, employing an in-depth case study, we presented our observations and conceptualization adopted by Canyou initiatives—an 18 years old establish social enterprise to acquire and nurture legitimacy through its Conglomeration in China. The findings highlight how Conglomeration helped the social enterprise to acquire legitimacy throughout three major aspects: the regulative legitimacy, the moral legitimacy and cognitive legitimacy. As an innovation of social enterprises under the external legal constraints, Conglomeration also increases the internal coordination and management performance of the organization.

This mixed-method case study explored teacher union members’ beliefs about the teacher union and their reasons for being active or inactive in the union. Findings suggest that teacher unions have gained pragmatic and cognitive legitimacy (Chaison and Bigelow in Unions and legitimacy. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2002), but that participants’ perceptions of the union’s moral legitimacy (Chaison and Bigelow in Unions and legitimacy. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2002) influenced their beliefs about the union. Specifically, participants’ beliefs about the union’s role in job protection, especially the protection of ineffective teachers, and social-professional supports (or lack of) strongly influenced their decisions to be active or inactive in the teacher union. These findings have implications for how effectively teacher unions are able to engage current members and sustain member engagement in the future.

Understanding how the professional ideals and values of partners influence lawyers’ everyday life is a relatively unexplored area given the inherent difficulties of gaining access to lawyers. This case study sheds light on the professional ideals and ethical values of partners and lawyers in a mid-tier Sydney law firm. Semi-structured interviews with partners and lawyers/legal clerks reveal how partners’ professional ideals and ethical values play a pivotal role in: (1) upholding positive normative evaluations of lawyer/firm propriety (moral legitimacy), (2) stressing the importance of a balanced working life (cognitive legitimacy) and (3) satisfying younger lawyers’ needs for personal support, autonomy and responsibility (pragmatic legitimacy). The principled actions of partners are portrayed as the cornerstone of shaping a moral community in legal practise.

Purpose – An international joint venture (IJV) helps multinational enterprises (MNEs) overcome the “liability of foreignness.” However, in the presence of institutional voids, MNE’s overreliance on the local partner can result in the MNE unwittingly becoming involved in a corporate scandal. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the causes, impacts and outcomes on the MNE’s legitimacy following a corporate scandal. Design/methodology/approach – Using secondary data, this paper presents a qualitative case study of the Fonterra-Sanlu milk-powder scandal in China. Findings – The paper identifies the institutional voids that contributed to the scandal. It also examines the effects of the scandal on the MNE’s legitimacies and evaluates the appropriateness of its actions in China during the formation, erosion and repair stages of its legitimacy. Research limitations/implications – It contributes to legitimacy literature by discussing the importance of MNE’s active commitment when entering the emerging market. It argues that the building of pragmatic legitimacy is not sufficient, and explains why attendance to moral obligations is part of building moral and cognitive legitimacy. Originality/value – This unique case study of a corporate scandal offers deep insights into how, what and why questions regarding how the three forms of legitimacy are necessary for improving IJV performance by MNEs operating in emerging economies. It particularly highlights the importance of moral legitimacy as a mechanism for overcoming institutional voids.

This study investigates the influence of business strategy on green total factor productivity (GTFP), focusing on the mediating effect of digital transformation and the moderating effect of organizational legitimacy. Leveraging micro-data from China’s listed industrial enterprises spanning from 2011 to 2021, findings reveal: (1) Prospector strategies exhibit a greater propensity to enhance GTFP compared to defender strategies. (2) Digital transformation partially mediates between business strategy and GTFP. (3) Organizational legitimacy moderates between business strategy and GTFP. Specifically, when a company possesses robust financial standing (pragmatic legitimacy), a better environmental track record (moral legitimacy), and establishment of Environmental Management System certification (cognitive legitimacy), the positive relationship between business strategy and GTFP is strengthened. (4) Further research indicates that business strategy exerts a more pronounced effect on enhancing GTFP for companies with larger scales and weaker political connections, as well as those situated in regions characterized by high fiscal revenue and favorable legal environments.