Fixing the Game? Legitimacy, Morality Policy and Research in Gambling

It is a truism that some industries are controversial either because the processes employed or the resulting products, for instance, can potentially harm the well-being of people. The controversy that surrounds certain industries can sharply polarise public opinion and debate. In this article, we employ legitimacy theory and morality policy to show how one industry sector (the electronic gaming machine sector as part of the wider gambling industry) is subject to this reaction. We suggest that the difficulty in establishing legitimacy surrounding CSR practices in this sector is related to morality policy, whereby ideology and personal values play important roles in dividing opinion. Thus, gambling is often framed as an activity that is morally and ethically problematic. To show how this can manifest, we examine the veracity of two state-funded studies in Australia used in the development of gambling policy and their subsequent adoption in academic research. We highlight methodological, analytical and reporting issues in these studies that normally should be identified by those using such findings. The significance is that when morality policy and conflict surrounding legitimacy are involved, then it can explain why adherence to normative research standards is potentially lowered. Our theoretical posture leads us to further speculate that the adoption and communication of CSR in electronic gambling will be contested by opponents of the industry.     

Global Insights on TMT Gender Diversity in Controversial Industries: A Legitimacy Perspective

Journal of Business Ethics - Firms in controversial industries such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, weapon, and nuclear power suffer organizational legitimacy problems. These firms, therefore, adopt...     

Combinative capabilities and organizational learning in latecomer firms: the case of the Korean semiconductor industry

The emergence of firms from East Asian countries in advanced high-technology sectors such as semiconductors, is one of the striking features of world business developments over the course of the past decade. Explanations for the successes of such firms are commonly given in terms of transient, external or contingent factors, such as low costs or government subsides or just plain luck. In this paper an alternative account is given, based on resource leverage and organizational learning undertaken by the latecomer firms themselves. The paper develops a model of technological learning by latecomer firms, and then demonstrates its applicability in the case of the creation of a semiconductor industry in Korea. Data is presented to support the proposition that it is indeed single-loop and double-loop organizational learning that underpins these firms’ successful entry strategies. This approach sheds light on the strategies to be followed by firms in advanced countries when they seek to enter knowledge-intensive, high-technology sectors.     

Managing Institutional Complexity: A Longitudinal Study of Legitimacy Strategies at a Sportswear Brand Company

Multinational corporations are operating in complex business environments. They are confronted with contradictory institutional demands that often represent mutually incompatible expectations of various audiences. Managing these demands poses new organizational challenges for the corporation. Conducting an empirical case study at the sportswear manufacturer Puma, we explore how multinational corporations respond to institutional complexity and what legitimacy strategies they employ to maintain their license to operate. We draw on the literature on institutional theory, contingency theory, and organizational paradoxes. The results of our qualitative longitudinal study show that managing corporate legitimacy is a dynamic process in which corporations adapt organizational capacities, structures, and procedures.     

Accounting for the Unaccountable: Biodiversity Reporting and Impression Management

This paper explores the strategies organizations use to demonstrate their accountability for biodiversity and legitimize their impact in this area through the use of techniques of neutralization. Neutralization aims to manage stakeholder impressions on very socially sensitive issues. Based on the content analysis of 148 sustainability reports from mining organizations, the study sheds light on the successful use of rhetoric in reports on non-measurable and potentially unaccountable issues. Specifically, the study shows that mining organizations use four main techniques of neutralization when they explain their impact on biodiversity. When they address stakeholders, they defend their social legitimacy and environmental responsiveness using one of the four techniques: they claim of a net positive or neutral impact on biodiversity, they deny that they have a significant impact, they distance themselves from the impact of their actions, and they play down their responsibilities. The study contributes to the literature on corporate sustainability and accounting for stakeholders. It focuses on under-researched issues such as the management of biodiversity and the tactics used to rationalize negative impacts. The study also bridges the gap between theories about organizational legitimacy, impression management, and techniques of neutralization.     

Exploring the determinants of organizational emergence: A legitimacy perspective

In an attempt to explain why some nascent organizations become new organizations while others do not, we contend that the process of organizational emergence can be understood and predicted by viewing it as a quest for legitimacy. We subsequently find empirical evidence to suggest that the actions a nascent organization takes (or strategic legitimacy) may be more important than its characteristics (or conforming legitimacy) in explaining organizational emergence. Such a conclusion is important in that it provides a theoretical framework with which to understand organizational emergence and in so doing advances our knowledge of this important process.     

Do Environmental CSR Initiatives Serve Organizations’ Legitimacy in the Oil Industry? Exploring Employees’ Reactions Through Organizational Identification Theory

Little is known about employees’ responses to their organizations’ initiatives in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Academics have already identified a few outcomes regarding CSR’s impact on employees’ attitudes and behaviours; however, studies explaining the underlying mechanisms that drive employees’ favourable responses to CSR remain largely unexplored. Based on organizational identification (OI) theory, this study surveyed 155 employees of a petrochemical organization to better elucidate why, how and under which circumstances employees might positively respond to organizations’ CSR initiatives in the controversial oil industry sector. Findings first support that perceived CSR (i.e. environmental CSR) positively relates to employees’ OI which is known as an important antecedent of employees’ outcomes (Riketta, J Vocat Behavior, 66(2):358, 2005). Furthermore, results highlighted that the relationship between perceived CSR and employees’ OI is mediated by organizational trust. Finally, this study also revealed that some contingency factors such as employees’ attributions of self-centred motives to their organization’s investment in environmental issues can moderate the relationship between perceived CSR and organizational trust. Based on these findings, it is argued that CSR initiatives can support organizations’ efforts to maintain a strong relationship with their employees, and gain their support even in a controversial industry sector.     

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.     

The Evolution of Business Groups’ Corporate Social Responsibility

Although establishing gender equality in board and managerial positions has recently become more important for organizations, companies with low levels of gender diversity seem to perceive an ethical dilemma regarding the ways, in which they attempt to attain it. One way that organizations try to move toward gender equality is through the use of their corporate websites to manage potential applicants’ impressions of their current levels of, and actions to improve, gender diversity. The dilemma is whether to truthfully communicate their low level of gender diversity, conceal it, or exaggerate it. On the one hand, organizations that are truthful may find it difficult to achieve equality because women are less attracted to companies that lack diversity. On the other hand, organizations that are untruthful risk their moral legitimacy. The present work investigates gender diversity-related communication on the corporate websites of 99 major German companies. Based on theoretical work on minority attraction, we apply an organizational impression management taxonomy to guide our in-depth content analysis. With this approach, we hope to advance the understanding of how the issue of gender diversity is presented on corporate websites, which is useful for both organizational decision makers as well as diversity researchers. We found that although gender diversity-related communications on corporate websites contain both assertive and defensive organizational impression management tactics, as well as a third type of tactic we refer to as “acknowledgement,” assertive tactics were used more frequently. We argue the existence of a paradox whereby organizations use assertive impression management tactics to maintain pragmatic legitimacy but compromise their moral legitimacy by doing so. Furthermore, we argue that moral legitimacy can be maintained or restored through the sincere use of defensive impression management tactics and acknowledgement.     

Exploring the Role of CSR in the Organizational Identity of Hospitality Companies: A Case from the Spanish Tourism Industry

Recently, organizational identity is being given more attention than ever before in the business world. This notion has grown substantially in importance in the hospitality industry. Facing increased competition, hospitality companies are driven to project a positive image to their stakeholders. Therefore, these organizations have begun to develop new organizational identity programs as part of their strategies to achieve their desired identities. This study analyzes the role of corporate social responsibility in the definition of the Organizational Identity of these organizations, employing a qualitative research methodology based on an illustrative case study. Particularly, the authors analyze the case of Meliá Hotels International, a leading hotel company in Spain with a presence in 27 countries. The findings indicate that the company has formally integrated CSR into its strategy to align its actual identity with its desired and conceived identity in view of the critics in its local community. Moreover, the interest of the firm toward its stakeholders suggests that the company understands its conceived identity as an important link in understanding its organizational identity. This paper demonstrates that firm’s organizational identity is a set of several elements. When analyzing Meliá Hotels International’s identity, we see that the firm defines this concept as that which is most central, enduring, and distinctive about the organization. In this sense, the company appears to follow the vision-driven approach by referring to the organizational mission and vision statements, organizational philosophy, and core values as the basis of organizational identity.     

Leaders and Laggards: The Influence of Competing Logics on Corporate Environmental Action

We study the sources of resistance to change among firms in the Canadian petroleum industry in response to a shift in societal level logics related to corporate environmental performance. Despite challenges to its legitimacy as a result of poor environmental performance, the Canadian petroleum industry was divided as to how to respond, with some members ignoring the concerns and resisting change (i.e., laggards) while others took action to ensure continued legitimacy (i.e., leaders). We examine why organizations within the same institutional field responded differently, delaying the industry response. We found that one population of firms was aligned with increasing pressures from its stakeholders for improved environmental performance, and the other was influenced by local cultural, political, and economic ideals less demanding of environmental actions. Our results reveal that several factors both at the institutional field level and the organizational level affected how these two populations reacted to a changing societal logic. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.     

Diversity Identity Management: An Organizational Perspective

Organizations are faced with the challenge of responding to increasing pressures to promote diversity in various ways. We draw attention to one possible proactive organizational response—the incorporation of diversity in organizational identity. This initial response necessarily evokes subsequent tasks of managing the changed identity. Therefore, this article also addresses the management of diversity identity within organizations, and relevant organizational outcomes. Our theoretical model is grounded in institutional theory, and we propose that the management of diversity identity can impact both perceptions of legitimacy as well as diversity identity. Adequate, inadequate, and optimal management of diversity identity have differential effects on legitimacy and diversity identity. We contribute to the literature by a) unbundling initial and later firm responses to promoting diversity at the organizational level, and b) offering a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of managing diversity identity within organizations.     

Factors Affecting Individual Decisions Based on Business Legitimacy

In this paper, we study customer's legitimacy preferences from the perspective of individual social profiles. By doing this, we aim to determine the influence of the social context on decision-making processes that derive from organizational legitimacy perceptions. Through data collected from a sample of 258 individuals, we relate five individual characteristics to four business legitimacy typologies using regression analysis techniques. Results show that individuals with higher social consciousness are prone to make decisions about organizations that take into account moral and regulatory legitimacy perceptions. However, low-trust customers and customers with high decision visibility are more likely to assess organizations based on cognitive and pragmatic legitimacy considerations.     

Developing Measurement Scales of Organizational and Issue Legitimacy: A Case of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concepts of issue legitimacy and organizational legitimacy, providing a new measure of each construct. The scales were developed and tested using data collected through a statewide survey of Alabama residents. Assessments of issue legitimacy were based on perceptions of direct-to-consumer advertising, whereas assessments of organizational legitimacy were based on perceptions of the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. The findings provide evidence that organizational legitimacy can be reliably measured using a five-item scale and issue legitimacy can be reliably measured using a six-item scale. The implications of the results and potential uses of the scales are discussed.     

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.     

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.     

Competitive Strategy,Environmental Characteristics and Performance in African Emerging Economies: Lessons from Firms in Ghana

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impact of the implementation of competitive strategy on organizational performance in response to economic liberalization policies using survey data from organizations in Ghana. We also examine how the perceived intensity of industry competition and industry sector moderate the relationship between competitive strategy and organizational performance. The results show that the implementation of the competitive strategies of low-cost, differentiation, and integrated low-cost and differentiation were all positively related to performance (return on assets and return on sales). We also find that both industry competition and industry sector moderate the relationship between differentiation strategy and return on assets. Moreover, industry competition moderates the relationships between both low-cost and differentiation strategies and return on sales. The results indicate that implementing a clearly defined competitive strategy is beneficial to organizations experiencing significant changes in the environment due to economic liberalization. The findings also suggest that while low-cost strategy is more beneficial to organizations in a highly competitive industry, differentiation strategy is more beneficial to firms in lowly competitive industry. At the same time, organizations in the manufacturing sector benefit more than those in the service sector when they implement the differentiation strategy. Managerial implications are presented.     

Be bad but (still) look good: Can controversial industries enhance corporate reputation through CSR initiatives?

Even though the link between perceived corporate social responsibility fit (PCSR‐fit) and corporate reputation has received much attention from scholars, this tradition has ignored that the underpinnings of this association vary depending on the particular characteristics of each industry under study. To delve into this matter, we investigate in the increasingly relevant context of controversial industries (CIs) how PCSR‐fit could enhance corporate reputation and which are the mediating mechanisms of this association. Our academic contribution is twofold. First, we find that controversial sectors indeed can increase corporate reputation through CSR activities. However, we find that to achieve this goal, the nature of PCSR‐fit should be different than what extant literature indicates, because companies in these settings should directly focus on avoiding or reducing their inherent controversial harm or impact. Second, we evidence that “CSR initiatives' legitimacy” and “situational skepticism” mediate the PCSR‐fit and corporate reputation relationship in CIs. Therefore, we further unravel the underpinnings of this association to advance what we know on the matter and aid practitioners in this particular context.     

Technological change and human resource development practices in Asia: a study of Singapore‐based companies

Technological change is a constant phenomenon in contemporary organizations. How to prepare employees for technological change has increasingly become an issue for human resource development theory and practice. This study investigated the human resource development practices of organizations in Singapore, where companies are continuously responding to rapid technological changes in order to remain competitive. The results show similar patterns of responses across business sectors; however, some differences were found in the transport and communications sectors. On‐the‐job training was reported as the most frequently used training method to address organizational change needs. The discussion and recommendations focus on the need for improved change management approaches.     

Learning to perform? A comparison of learning practices and organizational performance in profit‐ and non‐profit‐making sectors in the UK

To date, much of the research on employee development activities and organizational performance has been conducted in private sector organizations, with the largely untested assumption that the same findings will apply to other sectors. This paper addresses the deficit by describing a study comparing differences in the use of employee learning practices between profit‐making and non‐profit‐making organizations, and examining the relationship between these learning practices and multiple dimensions of organizational performance. The study data was gathered through conducting structured telephone interviews with senior training and development managers in 368 UK organizations from a range of sectors. It was found that non‐profit‐making organizations had greater engagement in individual employee learning practices than profit‐making organizations, but no differences were found in terms of team learning practices or engagement in strategic needs analysis and evaluation activities. The analyses also indicated that individual learning practices showed a stronger relationship with performance in the non‐profit‐making organizations, whereas team learning practices were more significant for the profit‐making companies. The learning practices collectively accounted for greater variance in organizational performance in the non‐profit‐making organizations. The study implies that the functional aims of organizations need to be taken into account when examining the learning practice–organizational performance relationship.