Codes of Ethics and the Pursuit of Organizational Legitimacy: Theoretical and Empirical Contributions

The focus of this paper is to further a discussion of codes of ethics as institutionalized organizational structures that extend some form of legitimacy to organizations. The particular form of legitimacy is of critical importance to our analysis. After reviewing various theories of legitimacy, we analyze the literature on how legitimacy is derived from codes of ethics to discover which specific form of legitimacy is gained from their presence in organizations. We content analyze a sample of codes to consider the question of whether a strategic, self-interested rationale lies behind the adoption of a code of ethics. We propose that the process of employing codes of ethics in this strategic manner has become, through isomorphism, an institutionalized practice that itself confers a cognitive form of legitimacy to the organization and further distances the codes from their moral foundation.     

Organizational legitimacy of emerging multinational enterprises: An individual perspective

Drawing on the information processing perspective from psychology, the study builds and tests a conceptual model to explain how the country-of-origin image (COI) and media coverage are associated with the organizational legitimacy of emerging multinational enterprises (EMNEs), and how the relationships are moderated by the education level of individuals in a developed host country. This study investigates the relationships by highlighting the multidimensional nature of these concepts. Our findings suggest that affective COI is positively associated with both pragmatic and sociopolitical legitimacy, economic COI is positively associated with pragmatic legitimacy, and political COI is positively associated with sociopolitical legitimacy. The findings also demonstrate that media influence legitimacy; however, the extent to which media influence legitimacy depends on individuals’ education levels. These findings advance our understanding of organizational legitimacy and its antecedents, providing new insights into strategies for building legitimacy in foreign countries.     

企业社会责任的制度理性及行为逻辑:合法性视角

对企业社会责任的研究,学界一直是分歧多于应有的共识,主要原因是基于效率视角的经济理性分析主导着话语权,却过于注重技术环境和效率机制,而忽视了基于合法性视角的制度理性分析,忽视了制度环境和合法性机制。为揭示企业社会责任的行为逻辑,文章首先反思经济理性,并从新视角——合法性视角突出制度理性,指出制度理性是企业社会责任行为逻辑的起点。接着,按"制度环境—制度压力—企业行为"逻辑,着重分析了制度环境和制度压力对企业社会责任行为的作用机制,构建了合法性机制模型,其核心观点是制度环境对企业产生制度压力,通过规制机制、规范机制和模仿机制导致企业行为。最后,得出结论及其启示。     

基于合理性理论视角的来源国效应研究

文章基于制度理论中的合理性理论视角,对来源国效应进行了剖析,认为来源国效应本质上是通过合理性感知这一中介机制来发挥其对消费者态度和行为的影响的。消费者会分别基于来源国的绩效和制度形象形成对实用合理性和社会合理性两种判断,进而决定采取何种态度或行为。因此,企业可以通过绩效行为和制度行为来发展提升其来源国合理性的策略。     

组织制度的合法性起源研究

制度起源的效率论,由于自身的功利主义色彩,已无力解释新的组织现象。制度得以形成并维持,越来越需要得到社会的认可、接受和信任。当学者们质疑传统的效益观,重新思考组织制度的起源时,合法性概念成为研究的焦点。本文围绕组织制度是经合法建构的思想,首先回顾了合法性概念的演变,从中描述了合法性对组织制度的基础性作用,探讨了合法性的来源,接着对组织制度的理性进行分析,认为理性也是由社会建构合法存在的,最后对合法性研究进行了简要展望。     

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.     

Coffee as a Medium for Ethical,Social, and Political Messages: Organizational Legitimacy and Communication

This research examines how an organization, Thanksgiving Coffee, establishes and maintains its legitimacy with its constituent publics. In line with Boyd’s (2000, Journal of Public Relations Research 12(4), 341–353.) concept of actional legitimacy, Thanksgiving Coffee demonstrates a legitimation strategy addressing social issues and by responding to ethical and political questions. Applying Fisher’s (1984, Communication Monographs 51, 1–18) concepts of narrative fidelity and probability, Thanksgiving Coffee’s policies and communication activities were found to alleviate the social issues to which they were addressed and therefore reinforce perceptions of legitimacy among publics. Viewing the influence of organizations from a different perspective, this study provides an example of how the policies of an organization can have a positive impact on the broader society in which it operates. Gregory G. De Blasio teaches courses related to business communication, public relations writing, and marketing communication campaigns. His research interests include the study of communication campaigns as they relate to social issues and organizational legitimacy. Dr. De Blasio joined the Communication Department at Northern Kentucky University in 2004. His Ph.D. in communication is from Wayne State University. He received his M.A. from the Pennsylvania State University and his B.A. from William Paterson University. A past International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) board member and chapter president in Detroit, Greg has provided public relations and marketing communication counsel to clients based in Detroit and elsewhere.     

Institutional forces in adoption of international joint ventures: Empirical evidence from British retail multinationals

In this study, we used institutional theory as a lens to understand the factors that influence the adoption of international joint ventures. Drawing on case evidence from British retail multinationals, we found MNEs adopting IJVs to manage a range of host market institutional pressures and to build legitimacy in foreign markets. Normative institutional legitimacy with customers, property agents and employees emerged as particularly salient for MNEs in our retail cases. The findings further indicated that IJV-derived legitimacy is central to market entry and development objectives. Finally, contrary to institutional theory's central assumption that MNEs seek to conform to institutional pressures, we find IJVs enabling MNEs to practice non-conforming responses, including negotiating and altering local social norms.     

Corporate Moral Legitimacy and the Legitimacy of Morals: A Critique of Palazzo/Scherer’s Communicative Framework

The article offers a critical assessment of an article on “Corporate Legitimacy as Deliberation” by Guido Palazzo and Andreas Scherer in this journal. We share the concern about the precarious legitimacy of globally active corporations, infringing on the legitimacy of democracy at large. There is no quarrel with Palazzo/Scherer’s diagnosis, which focuses on the consequences of globalization and ensuing challenges for corporate social responsibilities. However, we disagree with the “solutions” offered by them. In a first step we refute the idea of a legitimacy of morals, maintaining that morality is a premodern mode of creating legitimacy. Even worse, moral is becoming a dangerous commodity under conditions of fundamental global disagreements and antagonisms. We secondly refute the concept of the “politicized corporation”, maintaining that Palazzo/Scherer disregard the consequences of functional differentiation of modern societies and, in particular, disregard the wisdom of political restraint and constitutional guarantees for the autonomy of different spheres of society. Finally, we refute a seemingly romantic notion of deliberation, maintaining that deliberation and deliberative democracy is a worthy idea, which, however, has no place in the real world of globalized contexts. On the other hand, we also find enough common ground and common concern with Palazzo/Scherer to validate a fruitful discourse. Prof. Dr. Helmut Willke holds a chair for State theory and Global Governance at the Department of Sociology of the University of Bielefeld, Germany. He has published eighteen books, and in 1994 has been award the (German) Leibniz prize. His research areas are systems theory, system governance, global governance and knowledge management. Prof. Dr. Gerhard Willke is professor of economics at the University of Applied Sciences at Nuertingen, Germany. He has published six books and numerous articles. His research areas are economic theory, theory of capitalism, political economy and employment policy.     

The legitimacy of subsidiary issue selling: Balancing positive & negative attention from corporate headquarters

We consider how in issue selling, subsidiaries draw on different forms of legitimacy to attract corporate headquarters’ (CHQ) positive attention and minimise negative CHQ attention. Through case study evidence, we find that directing CHQ attention to subsidiary issues needs to be executed as a balancing act through forms of subsidiary legitimacy, namely; the personal legitimacy of key individuals at the subsidiary; consequential legitimacy vis-à-vis peer subsidiaries; and linkage legitimacy in the local environment. We develop a typology of subsidiary issue-selling roles and illustrate how negative CHQ attention results from a failure to legitimise issue selling.     

Stigma and Settling Up: An Integrated Approach to the Consequences of Organizational Misconduct for Organizational Elites

In this article, I address the question of the apportionment of the consequences of organizational misconduct to individual members of the organizational elite. I argue that this process can be best understood by marrying the behavioral aspects of stigma theory to the economic mechanisms of ex post settling up. Viewed in conjunction with stigmatization, ex post settling up following organizational misconduct can be seen as the result of attempts to avoid stigma by association. Efforts at stigma avoidance on the parts of various stakeholders produce the diminished social interaction associated with ex post settling up: departure from the focal firm, and loss of seats on other boards. This also suggests that the process of stigmatization, and hence ex post settling up, can be influenced by characteristics of social interaction unrelated to the misconduct itself. Jo-Ellen Pozner’s research addresses the social processes that differentiate what is legitimate from what is illegitimate in organizational practice, and how changing definitions of legitimacy affect organizations and individuals.     

Breathing Down Your Neck!: The Impact of Queues on Customers Using a Retail Service

While a rich body of research has examined the psychological costs and benefits of queuing, this research focuses on the customer currently using a retail service and examines how this customer is affected by lines forming at his or her back. Drawing on Social Impact Theory, we postulate that customers feel pressured by people waiting behind them and that this feeling of social pressure leads to more negative affective experiences, poorer participation in co-creation settings, and lower perceptions of service quality. Five field and controlled experimental studies tested these predictions and also explored how retailers can reduce the adverse impact of queues. Studies 1A and 1B show that the customer’s experience deteriorates as queue length increases and that perceptions of social pressure mediate this effect. Studies 2A and 2B show that this effect is moderated by customers’ own waiting time such that customers are more affected by queues forming at their backs when their own waiting time decreases. Finally, study 3 identifies two strategies to attenuate the negative effects of waiting lines, namely explicitly reassuring the focal customer that she need not feel pressured to be efficient and removing the waiting customers from the line of vision of the focal customer.     

The Role of NGOs in CSR: Mutual Perceptions Among Stakeholders

This paper explores the role of NGOs in corporate social responsibility (CSR) through an analysis of various stakeholders’ perceptions and of NGOs’ self-perceptions. In the course of qualitative research based in Spain, we found that the perceptions of the role of NGOs fall into four categories: recognition of NGOs as drivers of CSR; concerns about their legitimacy; difficulties in the mutual understanding between NGOs and trade unions; the self-confidence of NGOs as important players in CSR. Each of these categories comprises the various elements analysed in the paper. We found some discrepancies between the perception of others and the self-perceptions of NGOs, which explains why their role is often controversial. The research confirms that secondary stakeholders, such as NGOs, are key players in CSR, but their role is still regarded as controversial and their legitimacy contested. Deep-seated misunderstandings and mistrust among various stakeholder groups (particularly between NGOs and trade unions) are a possible hurdle to the integration of social and environmental concerns in business activity and corporate governance in Spain. The study finds that business managers need to take a less firm-centric and a more contextual approach, and look more closely into the relationship with and among stakeholder groups. For NGO managers, the research shows that NGOs are not always aware of the stereotypes they generate and the problems caused mainly by what is seen as ambivalent roles: critic and counsellor, accuser and judge, idealist and fund raiser.

Constructing a legitimate history: crisis,legitimacy, and the atlantic schools of Business Conferences

The Atlantic Schools of Business (ASB) conference is one of the longest running academic business conferences in Canada. It continued without the structure of an organizing committee for 34 years. In its 35^th year, however, a formal structure was adopted. The adoption of formal structure provides an opportunity to look critically at the change process from various perspectives. This paper takes three interrelated approaches: reviews of archival material to provide context; surveys of ASB membership to ascertain individual perceptions of the organization's purpose; and interviews with key individuals involved in the change process to examine the decision to formalize. Our analysis shows that perceived organizational crisis and a search for enhanced legitimacy can precipitate isomorphism and exclude alternative avenues for change. Copyright © 2008 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The value of social presence in mobile communications

Texting via mobile devices is used as a primary means for day-to-day communications among an increasing number of consumers and, as a result of this trend, more companies are engaging with consumers and addressing service complaints using social media platforms, such as Facebook. This study addresses the use of two-way mobile texting via Facebook to resolve service complaints with applications from social presence theory. Research shows that marketers’ warm emotions are important in addressing service complaints, yet prior works mainly focus on the significance of human warmth in face-to-face contexts. Therefore, this study uses an experimental design to investigate the value of social presence in mobile texting as a means for providing service recovery. In triangulating the data, we use focus groups in confirmatory analysis. The findings show that social presence cues add human warmth to text messages with respect to two-way communication perceptions, control perceptions, responsiveness perceptions, satisfaction, attitudes, and repurchase intentions. The article concludes with a discussion of the importance of social presence cues in improving customers’ experiences and overall satisfaction.     

Whose voice is heard? The influence of user-generated versus company-generated content on consumer scepticism towards CSR

ABSTRACT

Social media is increasingly used to communicate corporate social responsibility (CSR). Stakeholders respond to CSR messages with user-generated content (UGC), signalling approval or disapproval, potentially shaping consumers’ perceived legitimacy and scepticism towards CSR. Few studies have explored how UGC shapes these consumer responses. In the context of the UK food retail industry, this study explored what makes UGC more or less believed than company-generated CSR communication on social media. Through qualitative inquiry, the study identified that unique characteristics of social media, such as system-generated cues, lead UGC to be more believed than company-generated content, shaping perceived legitimacy. The study indicates the risks of communicating CSR through social media may be greater than previously suggested. It identifies recipient-related conditions under which these risks can be minimised.     

Exploring professional human brand identity through cultural and social capital: a typology of film director identities

ABSTRACT

Our research focuses on film director human brands. It addresses the issue of human brand identity construction through the social valuation of identity attributes linked to cultural capital. Based on Bourdieu’s theory of cultural and social capital, we examine the identity attributes on which human brand identities are built through the acquisition of legitimacy. We conduct a qualitative study combining three context levels of analysis (external, internal and individual). Our results reveal the existence of four human brand identity types (i.e. chameleon conformist, niche archetypecast, mass archetypecast, cultural influencer), thus enriching and extending previous research. Each identity type is characterised by a set of culturally valued identity attributes, associated with legitimacies – specific, bourgeois, popular and institutional – bestowed by human brand constituencies.     

Can Social Media Campaigns Backfire? Exploring Consumers' Attitudes and Word-of-Mouth Toward Four Social Media Campaigns and Its Implications on Consumer-Campaign Identification

In response to the unprecedented growth of social media, companies are continuously creating unique social media campaigns encouraging customers to share their advertising messages. However, many of these social campaigns end up backfiring. The purpose of this study is to examine consumers' preferences toward 4 social media campaigns and to investigate the impact of positive and negative word-of-mouth and social value on consumer-campaign identification. Using a sample of 525 respondents in Australia, the results show social media campaigns that contain negative messages are more likely to receive negative word-of-mouth while partnering with non-profit organizations may help generate positive word-of-mouth. This study will assist marketing managers to better understand the consumers' perceptions on recent social media campaigns in Australia.     

Does expert trust and factual knowledge shape individual's perception of science?

Explaining how individuals form their risks and benefit perceptions with regard to new technologies is a key issue in order to understand how new information disseminates. This paper examines the effect of knowledge, social values and trust in experts as shaping perceptions of risks and benefits of new technologies. Given that individual's perceptions of a technology is affected by unobserved heterogeneity, we use a methodology to disentangle the effect of a joint estimation of risks and benefit perceptions, namely seemingly unrelated probit, and we draw upon evidence from a representative survey carried out in Spain. Our findings suggest that factual knowledge and trust in experts increase perceptions of benefit of new technology developments and jointly reduce the perceptions of risk. Furthermore, reliance on traditional social values only appears to affect perceptions of benefits but does not influence risk perceptions.     

Corporate Transparency and Green Management

How can firms support their customers’ collaborative, social responsibility initiatives – and especially pro-environmental, firm–customer collaborations? Does corporate transparency affect customers’ willingness to undertake pro-environmental collaborative programs? This study addresses these questions in relation to the US residential electricity market. It focuses on the impact of customers’ perceptions of the utility’s degree of transparency and on the willingness to engage in pro-environmental behavior (PEB) related to electricity consumption. The responses of 1257 interviewees from US households to questions related to their electricity suppliers are analyzed through structural equation models (SEMs) using latent variables. Results show that customers’ perceptions of an electricity utility’s transparency affect their willingness to collaborate in environmental programs, and that the degree of perceived transparency of the utility is related to customers’ environmental awareness.