In search of the right fusion recipe: the role of legitimacy in building a social enterprise model

Social enterprises, as typical hybrid organisations, are embedded in a plural institutional environment in which some stakeholders regard achieving social goals as fundamental, while others see economic profit as the priority. A great challenge for social enterprises is dealing with the conflicts resulting from the diverse expectations of stakeholders. Based on the existing works on organisational legitimacy and the social business model, we propose a legitimacy‐based social enterprise model composed of three main phases, namely, legitimacy proposition, legitimacy strategy planning, and legitimacy strategy implementation. Our model is meant to serve as an effective legitimacy‐building tool for social enterprises of various kinds.     

The art of rhetoric: Host country political hostility and the rhetorical strategies of foreign subsidiaries in developing economies

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) often pay close attention to host country environments and prudently manage relationships with host country stakeholders. However, little attention has been paid to how the foreign subsidiaries of developed country multinational enterprises (DMNEs) communicate with host country stakeholders in developing economies. This paper investigates how host country political hostility influences DMNE subsidiaries’ rhetorical strategies. Using 485,496 Sina Weibo posts by subsidiaries of 71 DMNEs between 2010 and 2018, this paper demonstrates that political hostility has a negative influence on subsidiaries’ rhetorical emotionality and corporate social responsibility (CSR) rhetorical intensity, and has a positive effect on rhetorical clarity. Both bilateral trade and local subsidiary top executive strengthen the influence of political hostility on rhetorical emotionality and rhetorical clarity. The findings shed new light on how DMNE subsidiaries gain and maintain legitimacy in developing economies and how subsidiaries deploy post-entry rhetorical strategies as a response to host country political hostility.     

Word-of-mouth rhetorics in social media talk

Although researchers and practitioners have access to a growing body of evidence on the effects of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) frequency and valence, a more detailed understanding of eWOM content is needed in order to better influence these social media-enabled conversations. Based on an ethnomethodological analysis of community conversations in a popular parenting online forum, we reveal that eWOM is a powerful social act in which consumers use a broad repertoire of eWOM rhetorical methods. The repertoire for advice-seeking talk includes five components: seeker's legitimacy, topic legitimacy, request formulation, solicitation of responders, and requested response framing. The repertoire for advice-giving includes four components: foundation of authority, advice framing, advice focus, and advice scheme. For each of these components in the two repertoires, we identify corresponding rhetorical methods that can be used in the conversation (over 30 methods in total). Preliminary evidence also suggests that rhetorical alignment between advice-seekers and givers drives effectiveness of eWOM advice. The proposed rhetorical framework has relevance and implication for the many areas where social media and marketing meet.     

Responsible Marketing: Can Social Enterprises Show the Way?

In this article, the authors present a new perspective on responsible marketing. We discuss if and how social enterprises can present a new understanding of responsible marketing. Relevant publications (14 on social entrepreneurship, 40 on marketing in non-profit organizations and social enterprises and 41 papers on marketing) are selected and reviewed. The result of the literature analysis and synthesis show that social enterprises can gain from a more formal, systematic approach to marketing. Since social enterprises prioritize social goals over business results, successful adoption of marketing policies and practices can help then create a blueprint for responsible marketing. Marketing of socially relevant products and services by social enterprises thus create a new paradigm of responsible marketing. Such models can also be useful for larger corporations who look at social business and shared value creation as part of their business and marketing strategy.     

The evaluative legitimacy of social entrepreneurship in capitalist welfare systems

Social entrepreneurs start ventures to tackle social problems, and these ventures have the potential to outperform other social service providers in welfare states. We leverage theories of legitimacy and Varieties of Capitalism to examine national experts’ (N = 361) assessments of the efficiency of social enterprises relative to state and civil society. Our multilevel analysis across 11 welfare states shows that social enterprises are perceived as a more efficient solution to social problems when a liberal or socialist logic dominates a given state’s market coordination and social welfare provision. However, when institutional logics are in conflict, the assigned legitimacy of social entrepreneurship is diminished.     

Web-based social movements contesting marketing strategy: The mobilisation of multiple actors and rhetorical strategies

Abstract

Previous studies suggest that marketing strategy is developed and used to mobilise and configure the actions of firm actors, creating a set of stabilising activities focused on the firm–customer dyad. Destabilising forces precipitated by the Internet and associated digital technologies involving contention and disruption by multiple actors are much less prevalent in the marketing literature. The central point we advance is that rather than marketing strategy being a controlled and stabilising force for firms in their relationships with customers, it can often lead to socially produced spaces where consumers and, importantly, other multiple actors form a social movement to actively attempt to destabilise it and contest its legitimacy. Using an innovative research approach, the findings of this study show how social movements proactively enrol and mobilise a wide range of relevant actors into a network of influence. Critical to this are rhetorical strategies, acting as important levers in attempts to destabilise and delegitimise a dominant firm’s marketing strategy.     

Exploring the multi-level processes of legitimacy in transnational social enterprises

Transnational entrepreneurship has emerged as a form of migrants' participation in the social, economic, and political lives of both their countries of origin and of residence. Leveraging increasing evidence about migrants' involvment in transnational social enterprises, we examine the multi-level processes through which organizational legitimacy is molded by transnational entrepreneurs to reflect country-level institutional settings, and how organizational-level legitimacy affects entrepreneurs' social status. We longitudinally examine the multi-level processes of legitimation in a transnational social enterprise operated by Ghanaian migrants across Italy and Ghana. We analyze secondary and ethnographic data for two years, observing how transnational social enterprises harvest moral and pragmatic legitimacy from the institutional contexts in which they operate. We study how entrepreneurs construe their social status through pragmatic legitimacy obtained from their transnational ventures, and their institutional environments inspired by micro- and meso legitimacy reconfigurations. We discuss theoretical implications for social and transnational entrepreneurship and practical contributions for policy-making.     

The social construction of global corporate citizenship: Sustainability reports of automotive corporations

What does global corporate citizenship mean? In the absence of formal definitions, a place where understandings of corporate citizenship can be found is corporate texts. From the perspectives of sociological institutional theory and strategic legitimacy theory, we utilized critical discourse analysis as a methodology to study the corporate sustainability reports of multinational automotive corporations. We observed isomorphic themes that constitute socially constructed expectations of global corporate citizenship regarding climate change. We also observed heterogeneity in how these themes are manifested. We examined the rhetorical features of these reports as ways that corporations strategically position themselves in the global marketplace.     

Consumers as legitimating agents: How consumer‐citizens challenge marketer legitimacy on social media

Previous research has shown that consumers increasingly challenge the legitimacy of marketers and unsolicited marketing communication in online contexts. Based on a qualitative study, this article examines how and for what reasons consumers challenge marketer legitimacy—the perceived appropriateness of marketers and their activities—in the empirical context of Reddit, a popular social news and community website. The study suggests that consumers challenge or accept marketer legitimacy in online communities based on particular, community and situation specific, legitimacy criteria that reflect and reproduce the values and norms of the community. In doing so, it is argued, consumers play a role as legitimating agents—consumer‐citizens that have the power to confer or deny legitimacy in the context of business‐society relations. Overall, the study advances knowledge in the field of consumer studies in two ways. First, it builds a symbolic interactionist perspective on consumer‐citizens as legitimating agents who enact their active citizenship role in the marketplace by assessing and constructing marketer legitimacy in online communities. Second, it offers an empirically grounded account of how and for what reasons consumer‐citizens challenge or accept the legitimacy of marketers and unsolicited marketing communication in online communities.     

To Pay or Not to Pay? Dynamic Transparency and the Fight Against the Mafia’s Extortionists

This article presents the results of the longitudinal study of Addiopizzo, a successful anti-bribery organization founded in Sicily in 2004. It analyzes how this organization has used information disclosure as a strategy to fight adverse environmental conditions and the immoral activities of the Sicilian Mafia. This article extends the business ethics and corporate social responsibility literature by showing how multi-level strategic information disclosure processes can help gain organizational legitimacy in adverse social environments and successfully fight against social resistance to change, low levels of moral imagination and attacks from criminal organizations. This article provides an additional contribution to the literature by linking the three research streams on corporate transparency, the fight against corruption, and organizational legitimacy. The results of this research also contribute to the special issue of the EBEN AC 2010, “Which values for which organizations”, since it provides a unique example of an organization capable of spreading the values of social justice and honesty in a difficult social environment plagued by Mafia.     

Proactiveness,legitimation via ISO certification and the growth of SMEs in China

According to the literature on entrepreneurial orientation (EO), proactive firms are more likely to achieve first-mover advantage and higher performance. The neoinstitutionalism, however, suggests that enterprises with more legitimacy will acquire more growth opportunities. Usually, the first mover might face more legitimacy obstacles. To date, there has been little research on how proactive firms cope with legitimacy constraints and achieve firm growth. Integrating the legitimacy perspective and the EO literature, this research examines the roles of ISO certification as a strategy for seeking legitimacy of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies, and the relationship between proactiveness and firm performance. In particular, it hypothesizes that ISO certification has a mediating effect on the relationship between proactiveness and firm growth. We test the hypothesis using a sample of 632 firms collected from a nationwide survey on SMEs conducted by the Chinese SME Association. The results reveal that ISO certification partially mediates the relationship between proactiveness and firm growth, suggesting that proactive firms tend to use legitimation via ISO certification to enhance firm growth. Our paper contributes to the literature by shedding light on the important relationship between seeking legitimacy, entrepreneurial orientation and firm growth in SMEs in an emerging economy.     

The Contribution of Environmental and Social Standards Towards Ensuring Legitimacy in Supply Chain Governance

Increasingly, companies implement social and environmental standards as instruments towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) in supply chains. This is based on the assumption that such standards increase legitimacy among stakeholders. Yet, a wide variety of standards with different requirement levels exist and companies might tend to introduce the ones with low exigencies, using them as a legitimacy front. This strategy jeopardizes the reputation of social and environmental standards among stakeholders and their long-term trust in these instruments of CSR, meaning that all expenses for their implementation are of no avail for the companies. Therefore, this paper highlights which criteria are important for the selection, implementation and improvement in order to achieve a company's aim, but also to strengthen the legitimacy of social and environmental standards. This research is based on conceptual thought and some existing empirical research, comparing four different social and environmental standards, revealing weaknesses and strengths. It exposes the basic conditions for the success of such standards among stakeholders and identifies the need for more empirical data.     

CSR-Based Political Legitimacy Strategy: Managing the State by Doing Good in China and Russia

The state is a key driver of corporate social responsibility across developed and developing countries. But the existing research provides comparatively little knowledge about: (1) how companies strategically manage the relationship with the state through corporate social responsibility (CSR); (2) how this strategy takes shape under the influence of political institutions. Understanding these questions captures a realistic picture of how a company applies CSR to interacting with the state, particularly in countries where the state relationship is critical to the business operation. This article draws on political legitimacy as a useful concept to directly address both strategic and politically embedded natures of CSR. This work extends the currently under-specified political implication of the strategic view of CSR and provides fresh insights to the political legitimacy research by specifying a typology of CSR-based legitimacy strategies and its contextual variation. China and Russia are the focal settings. A qualitative analysis of business?Cstate interaction cases is done using a database that contains the majority of CSR reports published in Chinese and Russian as the end of 2009. As a result, this paper identifies four qualitatively different types of CSR-based political legitimacy strategies and reveals how the adoption of these strategies differs across Chinese companies, Russian companies, and multinational corporations.     

Striving for Legitimacy Through Corporate Social Responsibility: Insights from Oil Companies

Being a controversial industry, oil companies turn to corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a means to obtain legitimacy. Adopting a case study methodology, this research examines the characteristics of CSR strategies and CSR communication tactics of six oil companies by analyzing their 2011–2012 web site content. We found that all six companies engaged in CSR activities addressing the needs of various stakeholders and had cross-sector partnerships. CSR information on these companies’ web sites was easily accessible, often involving the use of multimedia technologies and sometimes social media platforms. Furthermore, to boost the credibility of their CSR messages, these companies utilized a variety of tactics, such as factual arguments and two-sided messages. In sum, this research unveils the interconnectedness among business strategy, CSR practices, and CSR communication in oil companies’ attempt to gain legitimacy in an environment of controversy. The article ends with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the research findings.     

制度压力下平台型企业合法性获取演化研究——以滴滴出行为例

合法性资源是平台型企业生存和发展的保障，但现有研究并未对平台型企业成长过程中如何获取合法性、合法性的类型进行系统研究。文章采用案例研究的方法，分析滴滴出行的合法性获取演化过程，探析平台型企业在不同阶段的制度压力约束下如何获取发展所需的不同类型合法性资源。研究发现：平台型企业成长的不同阶段所需要的合法性资源的类型不同，初创期需要认知合法性、震荡期需要规范合法性和稳定期需要规制合法性；制度压力是主导合法性获取与选择的决定因素，平台型企业依托“嵌入制度-顺从制度-构建制度”的路径动态获取各类合法性资源，逐步实现合法化的演化。     

Up,up and away: social marketing breaks free

Abstract

The social marketing literature has been dominated by questions about the field’s legitimacy along with the ethical and other implications of its relationship with commercial marketing. In reviewing social marketing’s origins and considering its future, this paper acknowledges then moves beyond these concerns, enabling a focus on the opportunities created for this vibrant field in the current environment. Three thematic areas frame the paper’s discussion: the legitimacy of social marketing as a field in its own right; the broadening and deepening of the field and the consequences for social change; and the strengths and opportunities arising out of social marketing’s relationship with mainstream marketing. The paper reviews social marketing’s origins, before considering how the field might draw on the turbulent environment and the dynamic developments taking place within marketing to shape its future.     

Competing orders of worth in extraordinary consumption community

This article argues that tension and conflicts during consumption can be analysed through the lens of convention theory, which is preoccupied with the justification of action under the condition of fragmented institutional environments. Central to the perspective is the co-presence of consumption regimes with incompatible orders of worth which result in disagreements about the legitimacy of modes of justification in consumption communities. Whereas prior research tends to focus on protagonist–antagonist tensions or disputes over how to consume, our results from studying an extraordinary consumption community contribute to an understanding of how heterogeneity emerges when consumers dispute over multiple criteria for justification. We discuss how the order of worth perspective contributes with mundane controversies to a research field that tends to focus on “grand” conflicts and, as such, extend what it might mean to understand consumption communities and their tensions and conflicts.     

The Link Between Responsibility and Legitimacy: The Case of De Beers in Namibia

This article investigates the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and the reasons for which legitimacy is ascribed or denied. It fills a gap in the literature on CSR and legitimacy that lacks empirical studies regarding the question whether CSR contributes to organisational legitimacy. The problem is discussed by referring to the case of De Beers’s diamond mining partnership with the Government of Namibia. A total of 42 interviews were conducted—41 with stakeholders and one with the focal organisation Namdeb. The 41 stakeholder interviews are analysed with regard to cognitive, pragmatic and moral legitimacy as defined by Suchman (Acad Manage Rev 20(3):571–610, 1995). The main finding is that the majority of statements on organisational legitimacy refer to moral legitimacy and most issues raised in this context challenge the company’s legitimacy despite its comprehensive CSR engagement. The study demonstrates that legitimacy gaps can be a result of communication practices that raise unrealistic stakeholder expectations and that the legitimacy gained by CSR engagement in one area cannot substitute legitimacy losses caused by failures in another.     

Toward a More Coherent Understanding of the Organization–Society Relationship: A Theoretical Consideration for Social and Environmental Accounting Research

In this study we analyze the overlapping perspectives of legitimacy theory, institutional theory, resource dependence theory, and stakeholder theory. Our purpose is to explore how these theories can inform and be built upon by one another. Through our analysis we provide a broader theoretical understanding of these theories that may support and promote social and environmental accounting research. This article starts with a detailed analysis of legitimacy theory by bringing some recent critical discussions on legitimacy and corporations in the management literature into accounting research. The notion forwarded by legitimacy theory then serves as an overarching concept to examine the relationship between and among theories. We conclude that two theoretical considerations are important for future social and environmental accounting research. First, it must be acknowledged that some business entities initiate social activities based on direct interactions with stakeholders, whereas others may also undertake similar activities to manage their societal level of legitimacy. Second, from analyzing the perspectives of legitimacy theory, institutional theory, resource dependence theory, and stakeholder theory, it is possible to reach compatible interpretations of business social phenomena, and the selection and application of these theories should depend upon the focus of study.     

民营企业必须实现三个战略转变

20世纪90年代中期中国经济由短缺经济过渡到买方市场,是民营企业遭遇的一次经营环境的变化,21世纪初的“民工荒”是民营企业在国内遭遇的又一次经营环境的巨变。环境的变化严重冲击民营企业现行的低工资战略、用工策略、经济战略(指以低价销售劣等品、赚取微薄利润的战略),如果不及时实现战略转变,不少民营企业会被淘汰。为了成功迎接挑战,民营企业需要实现战略转变,从低工资战略向效率工资战略转变、从导致员工与企业对立的透支性用工向员工与企业双赢的人力资源管理战略转变,从经济战略向低成本战略或最优成本战略转变。