Justifying Social Impact as a Form of Impression Management: Legitimacy Judgements of Social Enterprises’ Impact Accounts

Abstract

This paper investigates how social enterprises construct accounts to gain legitimacy from the social impact generated by their products and operations. The paper finds that social impact accounts are framed to appeal to two distinct forms of judgement about legitimacy: cognitive and evaluative. Cognitive forms of judgement qualify how well an enterprise shares attributes with an individual's schemas of established actors or roles in society. Evaluative forms of judgement tend to operate more analytically to make comparisons of the relative appropriateness and desirability of multiple enterprises to achieve an audience's goals. The findings show that although legitimizing the social aspects of an enterprise involved justifications aimed at both forms of judgement, legitimizing an enterprise's professionalism relied almost exclusively on evaluative judgements. Moreover, the justifications created to appeal to evaluative judgements relied almost exclusively on financial and operational data, using operational scale as a proxy.

Dogmatic, instrumental and paradoxical frames: A pragmatic research framework for studying organizational sustainability

“…Some scholars implied that this frame is superior to instrumental frames, though one of the most cited articles on this topic provides both the pros and cons of the paradoxical frame . Some critical voices have highlighted how the paradoxical frame has been used as rhetoric (Gaim et al, 2019), reflecting the impression management efforts of organizations (Molecke & Pinkse, 2020). However, various scholars have associated the paradoxical frame with superior outcomes, for example, as illustrated by Hahn et al (2018, p. 245): 'A paradox perspective has the potential to unshackle research on corporate sustainability from the hegemony of the business case.…”

“…Frames are also discussed outside the scope of corporate sustainability. For instance, they impact the mission drifts of hybrids such as social enterprises (Bruneel et al., 2020; Ramus et al., 2018; Siegner et al., 2018) and the legitimization strategies of sustainability entrepreneurs as they juggle competing frames (Dahlmann & Grosvold, 2017; Molecke & Pinkse, 2020). Finally, frames also affect the relationship between for‐profit organizations (FPOs) and non‐profit organizations (NPOs) since they impact partner selection (Dzhengiz, 2018) and the maintenance of partnerships (Ahmadsimab & Chowdhury, 2021; Ashraf et al., 2019; Klitsie et al., 2018; Zimmermann et al., 2021).…”

Envisioning legitimacy: visual dimensions of NGO annual reports

“…Moreover, Davison (2007) and K€ apyl€ a and Kennedy (2014) find that imagery enables NGOs to engage their audiences at an affective level to draw them in through vivid and emotive portrayals. Second, outside of the accounting mainstream (see Deegan, 2019), the literature on legitimacy recognizes that the type of an organization plays a key role in shaping its legitimacy dynamics (Molecke and Pinkse, 2020;Pallas et al, 2015;Vestergaard, 2014). Vestergaard (2014, p. 512) explains that while commercial organizations present "offers to the public", NGOs present "claims"basic moral claims as to the worthiness of beneficiaries for assistance and the common humanity of the publics to whom the claim is made.…”

“…Moreover, Davison (2007) and Käpylä and Kennedy (2014) find that imagery enables NGOs to engage their audiences at an affective level to draw them in through vivid and emotive portrayals. Second, outside of the accounting mainstream (see Deegan, 2019), the literature on legitimacy recognizes that the type of an organization plays a key role in shaping its legitimacy dynamics (Molecke and Pinkse, 2020; Pallas et al. , 2015; Vestergaard, 2014).…”

Technology Legitimation: A Product‐Level Examination Across the Technology Lifecycle

“…Moral legitimacy involves stakeholders’ evaluations about whether an entity aligns with wider societal values and norms. Cognitive legitimacy concerns stakeholders’ evaluations of how an entity aligns with their mental models and focuses on comprehensibility (Molecke and Pinske, 2020). Thus, pragmatic legitimacy involves evaluations based on utility (Golart and Sillince, 2007), which is consistent with strategic explanations of acceptance such as those based on the diffusion of innovation model.…”