Over the last decade, scandals within the UK Financial Service sector have impacted their legitimacy and raised questions whether a compliance culture exists or not. Several institutional changes at the regulatory and normative levels have targeted stakeholders' concerns regarding compliance culture and led to changes in the legitimation process. This paper attempts to address a gap in the literature by asking the following question: How is the UK financial institutions' compliance culture shaped by the institutional environment and changing legitimacy claims? Towards achieving this objective, the paper draws on the institutional theory and pays attention to the various configurations of the legitimacy notion (property vs process Suddaby et al. Acad Manag Ann 11(1):451-478; 2017). The paper utilises a longitudinal interpretive design and undertakes a qualitative content analysis of fines issued by the UK regulator and the communicated response of violating firms as well as non-sanctioned firms. Our findings indicate that there is a cyclical 'evolutionary compliance' rather than the more widely recognised state of 'compliance culture'. This culture is fuelled by interchangeable isomorphic forces where the majority of violating firms are seen to issue similar responses to the regulators sanction to maintain their reputation and legitimacy in the market. Notably, legitimacy is now defined within an interactive process between the regulator and firms rather than being static and achieved by ticking the box.

PurposeThis paper seeks to investigate to what extent (and why) CSR reporting in developing countries reflect instrumental and/or “political CSR” motivations and the types of organisational legitimacy sought in these circumstances.Design/methodology/approachWe adopt a theoretical framework based on neo-institutional theory, “political CSR” framework and types of organisational legitimacy. This interpretive research is set in the Egyptian context post-2011 revolution. We first carry out a content analysis of web disclosures for 40 banks in 2013 and 2016 to ascertain the nature of CSR activities and any changes over time. Second, we draw on 21 interviews to tease out the implications of the change in societal expectations due to the revolution and to deepen our understanding of the organisational motivations underlying CSR reporting.FindingsFollowing the 2011 revolution, the banks’ CSR reporting practices have gradually shifted from a largely instrumental “business-case” perspective towards a more substantive recognition of a wider set of societal challenges consistent with a political CSR perspective. Overall, the maintaining/gaining of legitimacy is gradually bound to the communication of accounts about the multi-faceted socially valued consequences or structures performed by banks. Our interview data shows that participants reflected on the legitimation challenges brought by the revolution and the limits of transactional strategies involving traditional constituents, with a preference for pursuing consequential and structural forms of moral legitimacy.Research limitations/implicationsThis study demonstrates a constructive shift by businesses towards engaging with the new social rules in response to sociopolitical changes and the need to achieve moral legitimacy. Hence, policymakers and stakeholders could consider engaging with different economic sectors to foster more transparent, accountable, and impactful CSR practices.Originality/valueWe highlight the implications of Scherer and Palazzo’s political CSR approach for accountability and CSR reporting. CSR reporting in some developing countries has typically been seen as peripheral or a symbolic exercise primarily concerned with placating stakeholders and/or promoting shareholders’ interests. We suggest that researchers need to be instead attuned to the possibility of a blend of instrumental and normative motivations.

This paper examines whether the degree of religiosity in an institutional environment can stimulate the emergence of a robust corporate governance system. This study utilises the Nigerian business environment as its context and embraces a qualitative interpretivist research approach. This approach permitted the engagement of a qualitative content analysis (QCA) methodology to generate insights from interviewees. Findings from the study indicate that despite the high religiosity among Nigerians, religion has not stimulated the desired corporate governance system in Nigeria. The primary explanation for this outcome is the presence of rational ordering over religious preferences thus highlighting the fact that religion, as presently understood and practised by stakeholders, is inconsistent with the principles underpinning good corporate governance.

Short title: The role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Organisational IdentityConflict of Interest: Karim Sorour declares that he has no conflict of interest. Mark Boadu declares that he has no conflict of interest. Teerooven Soobaroyen declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Social media-led mass movements have dominated news headlines in recent times. The success stories of the Occupy movements, anti-globalisation demonstrations in the West, mass protests at Tahrir Square in Cairo and Taksim Square in Istanbul, demonstrations against sexual harassment in Delhi and the Shahbag Square uprising in Dhaka all underpin the fact that in both developed and developing societies, social media can potentially play an important role in organising large scale socio-political events. This ‘Behind the News’ article reflects on and analyses the recent ‘social-media-led’ political eruptions in two developing countries, Egypt and Bangladesh.