A Process Model of Internal and External Legitimacy

Abstract

We report the results of a longitudinal case study depicting the relationship between internal and external legitimacy at Orion, an emergent creative professional firm. We address the following questions: How do different types of legitimacy emerge, and how do they interact to shape organizational evolution? Introducing a staged process model, we demonstrate that organizational legitimacy is a product of action, which is continually reproduced and reconstructed by members of an organization in concert with external legitimation activities. Internal and external legitimacy evolve through a process of emergence, validation, diffusion and consensus, sometimes recursively repeating the cycle when imbalances result in conflict and friction.

New Game, Old Rules? Mechanisms and Consequences of Legitimation in Boundary Spanning Activities

“…the organization's own managers) or external (e.g. regulators, partners and other external stakeholders) to the organization (or field) from which boundary spanners originate (Bourdieu, 1991;Drori & Honig, 2013). Although the acceptance of legitimacy has an appearance of consensus (Johnson, Dowd, & Ridgeway, 2006), it often involves several coexisting legitimation narratives (Landau et al, 2014;Sanders & Harrison, 2008) reflecting intergroup competition over capital within the field and potentially implicating peripheral agents in power struggles between the groups (Bourdieu, 1991(Bourdieu, , 2000.…”

How policy instruments are chosen: patterns of decision makers’ choices

“…Different disciplinary areas-political philosophy (Beetham 2013), political science (Barker 1990;Ansell 2001) and organization theory (Drori and Honig 2013)-assume that legitimacy may be based on two different kinds of source, that is, sources that are either external or internal to the specific field of application (Pizzorno 1986).…”

Balancing “what matters to me” with “what matters to them”: Exploring the legitimation process of environmental entrepreneurs

“…Our research responds to calls for a more process-oriented approach to understanding (new venture) legitimation (Barley, 2008;Drori and Honig, 2013;Garud et al, 2014;Überbacher, 2014;Voronov et al, 2013). Our process-oriented approach helps explain how entrepreneurs We also explained the importance of the development of perspective taking which allowed our entrepreneurs to accommodate the perspective of their audiences in their legitimation work.…”

“…Unfortunately although the literature alludes to it Voronov, 2011, Drori andHonig, 2013;Townsend and Hart, 2008), we still do not know how entrepreneurs' values and beliefs shape the new venture legitimation process nor do we know how the unfolding new venture legitimation process affects entrepreneurs (and their dreams).…”

“…Legitimacy judgments have been defined as the substantive perceptions, values and beliefs that underlie an individual's assessment of the extent to which an entity is deemed appropriate for its social context (i.e., is legitimate) (Tost, 2011: 690). If new venture legitimation is a negotiated social process (Bitektine and Haack, 2015), then not accounting for how the legitimacy seeker's values and beliefs shape the legitimation process is an important omission because we know that entrepreneurial behavior is partly shaped by the entrepreneur's own values and beliefs (Drori and Honig, 2013;Fauchart and Gruber, 2011;Rindova et al, 2009). …”