No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Contested Industry Dynamics
Abstract
Research on legitimacy in studies of organizations, institutions, and industries is marked by a proliferation of terms and categories and often confounds issues of evaluation, contestation, and legality, particularly in addressing industries and legitimacy. We connect an institutional conception of societal logics with standard conceptions of industry belief systems to present a framework and research strategy for examining the multilevel enactment of belief systems and discursive struggles central to the legitimacy dynamics of industries. We illustrate this framework with evidence from the U.S. tobacco and gambling industries to identify and interpret recurring legitimacy struggles. As such, we offer an example of how to better understand legitimacy issues by expanding the levels through which we examine processes of debate and evaluation.
... No matter whether focusing on the strategic or institutional perspective, the aforementioned literature is highly insightful in providing answers to organizational legitimacy dynamics and legitimation processes. However, it translates only in part to the questions of industry legitimacy (Galvin et al., 2004). Therefore, to apply such organization legitimacy theories to the level of an industry, further elaboration and/or explanation is necessary of some key arguments of this literature. ...
... Therefore, legitimacy is not an attribute of an 'industry' per se. Rather, contestation over its products, routines, strategies, and practices may change over time (Galvin et al., 2004;Rao, 2004). Such legitimacy struggles usually comprise complex organizational linkages, governance arrangements, and institutional logics (e.g., Phillips et al., 2004). ...
... Many of the strongly contested industries such as alcohol, tobacco, nuclear power, digital games, are typical examples of industries that suffer from core-stigma. The work on stigma management has contributed vastly to the understanding of different strategies that can be used in order to legitimate impacted industries (Galvin et al., 2004;Vergne, 2012) While insightful, the extant literature on industry legitimacy sheds little light on the geographical differences of legitimacy in the same industry, which might be socially more acceptable in some countries than in others, and how they influence multi-scalar legitimation strategies. This deficiency is especially relevant for mature contested industries, because in supportingan established contested industry such as video games, its products, services and practices must have been (partly) legitimized in pioneering regions or countries. ...
While economic geography has provided great insights in regional industrial development, knowledge is limited concerning how a contested local industry can be legitimized and who contributes to such legitimation process. The aim of this paper is to investigate the legitimation trajectory of a contested creative industry in Hamburg-the video games industry. The central argument is that the controversies of the focal industry mainly come from four aspects-the product ontologies, the boundary beliefs, the industry recipes, and the reputational rankings. These dimensions combined have led to dynamic societal evaluations of the industry over time. Moreover, the main stigmata related to the aforementioned dimensions may lie at different spatial scales, and thus require the differentiated legitimation efforts of actors at different levels. Overall, it is argued that in 2 normalizing a contested industry in a region, the legitimation process is not merely a local phenomenon, but global referencing and national legitimation are crucial, as well.
... Moins connue est la notion d' « illégitimité » organisationnelle, lorsque les organisations violent les normes sociales (Hudson, 2008 ;Devers et al. 2009). Un des défis théoriques que présente cette littérature est le fait que certaines organisations peuvent simultanément être légitimes et illégitimes (Hudson, 2008), comme le suggère la survivance d'organisations hautement illégitimes, par exemple dans les industries comme le tabac ou le jeu (Galvin, et al. 2004). Le fondement de ce travail de recherche est de montrer comment les évaluations de la légitimité et de l'illégitimité organisationnelles, de par leur nature principalement contextuelles, peuvent se confondre. ...
... Dans la lignée d 'Elsbach et Sutton (1992), cet article montre que légitimité et illégitimité sont intimement liées en théorisant la nature de cette relation, en particulier dans le contexte des industries contestées (Galvin, Ventresca et Hudson, 2004), qui sont pointées du doigt pour leur manque de conformité aux valeurs qui font consensus à l'échelle de la société. Certaines pratiques au niveau du champ institutionnel peuvent être simultanément perçues comme une violation de norme à l'extérieur de ce champ, et comme un signe d'adhérence pour les autres membres de ce champ. ...
... Les travaux sur l'illégitimité organisationnelle en sont devenus d'autant plus pertinents. La dichotomie légitimité-illégitimité est particulièrement intéressante dans le contexte des industries contestées : des industries comme le tabac ou le jeu survivent malgré la désapprobation dont elles font l'objet (Galvin, et al. 2004). Ce phénomène renforce le postulat selon lequel la légitimité d'une organisation dépend d'abord de l'audience qui l'évalue. ...
Cet article étudie le lien entre légitimité et illégitimité organisationnelles. Nous combinons analyse de contenu media et approches quantitatives pour explorer cette relation dans le contexte des banques d'investissement aux Etats-Unis. Parce que l'illégitimité peut paradoxalement signaler l'adhérence à des normes en vigueur dans un champ organisationnel, les banques les plus attaquées par la presse sont aussi considérées comme les plus prestigieuses par leurs pairs. Mots-clés : Légitimité et illégitimité organisationnelles, banques d'investissement, analyse de contenu media.
... Recent studies have sought to understand how firms strategize in such contested industries such as private military contracting (Baum and McGahan, 2013), big oil (Levy and Egan, 2003), big box retailing (Yue, Rao, and Ingram, 2013), and tobacco and gambling (Galvin, Ventresca, and Hudson, 2004). The social appropriateness of such industries is contested because their members either market goods and services that have questionable societal impact or market them in a way deemed inappropriate by industry outsiders (Hudson, 2008). ...
... R. Durand and J.-P. Vergne Stigmatized industries form a subset of the broad category of "contested industries" (Galvin et al., 2004), characterized not only by social contestation and targeted scrutiny but also by the presence of a deeply discrediting attribute-stigma. As such, some industries are contested but not stigmatized, such as big box retailing (Yue et al., 2013) and big oil (Levy and Egan, 2003). ...
... While the origin of stigma remains a subject of discussion in the social sciences, sociologists and psychologists have shown that stigmatization is nurtured by a cognitive association with physical danger, severe illness, or death (Goffman, 1963;Jones et al., 1984). This association explains why past studies examined stigma in such sectors as the funeral industry (Garden, 2001), the tobacco industry (Galvin et al., 2004), the cadaver trade (Anteby, 2010), ultimate fighting (Helms and Patterson, 2014), and among the "merchants of death" (Engelbrecht and Hanighen, 1934) operating in military production and contracting (Vergne, 2012). ...
In stigmatized industries characterized by social contestation, hostile audiences, and distancing between industry insiders and outsiders, firms facing media attacks follow different strategies from firms in uncontested industries. Because firms avoid publicizing their tainted-sector membership, when threatened, they can respond by divesting assets from that industry. Our analyses of the arms industry demonstrate that media attacks on the focal firm and its peers both increase the likelihood of divestment for the focal firm. Specifically, attacks on the focal firm are the most consequential, followed by attacks on peers in the same industry subcategory, and by attacks on peers in different subcategories. These findings shed new light on divestment as a response to media attacks in stigmatized industries and lead us to rethink impression management theory.
... The "appropriate practices" at the industry level, which potentially conflict with social norms, are derived from field-level institutional logics (Thornton and Ocasio, 2008). An industry's acceptability depends on the appraisal of its dominant logic, and industries originally build their legitimacy by translating established societal-level logic into their field: one example is the tobacco industry adopting practices derived from the freemarket logic (Galvin, Ventresca and Hudson, 2004). However, when societal-level logics evolve, for example because of economic crises, inconsistencies between the industry's logic and societal-level logics may arise (Seo and Creed, 2002). ...
... An industry is an inter-organizational field where legitimacy processes are rooted in "local" belief systems (Galvin, Ventresca and Hudson, 2004;Friedland and Alford, 1991). Strong boundary beliefs contribute to developing industry-specific logics of action in relation to various stakeholders (Galvin et al. 2004;Thornton and Ocasio, 1999). ...
... An industry is an inter-organizational field where legitimacy processes are rooted in "local" belief systems (Galvin, Ventresca and Hudson, 2004;Friedland and Alford, 1991). Strong boundary beliefs contribute to developing industry-specific logics of action in relation to various stakeholders (Galvin et al. 2004;Thornton and Ocasio, 1999). The emergence of an industry's collective identity leads to the development of logics-socially constructed systems of assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules-that prevail within the social group (Thornton and Ocasio, 2008;Thornton, et al. 2012). ...
The concept of organizational stigma has received significant attention in recent years. The theoretical literature suggests that for a stigma to emerge over a category of organizations, a “critical mass” of actors sharing the same beliefs should be reached. Scholars have yet to empirically examine the techniques used to diffuse this negative judgment. This study is aimed at bridging this gap by investigating Goffman’s notion of “stigma-theory”: how do stigmatizing actors rationalize and emotionalize their beliefs to convince their audience? We answer this question by studying the stigma over the finance industry since 2007. After the subprime crisis, a succession of events put the industry under greater scrutiny, and the behaviors and values observed within this field began to be publicly questioned. As an empirical strategy, we collected opinion articles and editorials that specifically targeted the finance industry. Building on rhetorical analysis and other mixed methods of media content analysis, we explain how the stigmatizing rhetoric targets the origins of deviant organizational behaviors in the finance industry, that is, the shareholder-value maximization logic. We bridge the gap between rhetorical strategies applied to discredit organizations and ones used to delegitimize institutional logics by drawing a parallel between these two literatures. Taking an abductive approach, we argue that institutional contradiction between field and societal-level logics is sufficient but not necessary to generate organizational stigma.
... Stigmatization seeks to vilify, devalue, and deindividuate (Devers et al., 2009) organizations or industries. As a process, stigmatization has two "moments", that of labeling (Devers et al. 2009; see also Lashley and Pollock 2020;and Galvin, Ventresca, and Hudson 2004), and that of enactments of stigmatization that seek to induce conformity or have the organization go away (Hudson and Okhuysen 2009;Pescosolido and Martin 2015). ...
... The recent review by Zhang and colleagues (2021) highlights the importance of approaching the process of stigmatization through multiple levels instead of limiting our study to a single level of analysis. The authors point out the fact that we often focus on either individual (the traditional Goffmanian perspective), organizational (what we explore in this special issue) or field-level stigma (such as in the work on contested industries (Galvin, Ventresca, and Hudson 2004;Vergne 2012)) 1 . Yet, we could benefit from more clearly connecting those levels of analysis in the same studies, especially as the sources of stigma and taint are usually non-specific to a level of analysis. ...
Since its introduction as a concept, organizational stigma has become central to explaining how organizations or industries become tainted, and how they overcome and manage such taint. In this introduction to the Special Issue on organizational stigma, we start by exploring the origins of the concept, providing basic definitions and reviewing the existing research on stigmatization, stigma transfer and experienced stigma. The papers in this issue flesh out our understanding of what causes organizational stigma and its implications at different levels. The remainder of this introduction takes stock of this recent work to explore future research opportunities around the micro‐ and macro‐foundations of organizational stigma, the links with scandals, controversies and other negative social evaluations and research methods. As the concept of organizational stigma reaches a new stage, we argue that its explanatory power can be harnessed to explore new and increasingly relevant phenomena and contexts.
... Legitimacy deficiency leads to stakeholders questioning the very existence of the organisation ensuing limited customers, financing sources, and community support. As a result, small organisations from contested market categories are stuck in a micro framework, which turns into a constant struggle for survival (Galvin, Ventresca, and Hudson 2004;Ruffo et al. 2018). Hybrid micro-organisations are confined by lack of both resources and legitimacy. ...
... In line with the literature, managers' skills and abilities are other important factors increasing legitimacy (Tornikoski and Newbert 2007;Überbacher 2014;Ruffo et al. 2018;Wang, Stewart, and Castro 2017). This is particularly relevant in a contested category context, as the competence and credibility of managers may be crucial in promoting and creating a favourable image of the organisation (Galvin, Ventresca, andHudson 2004, Überbacher 2014). ...
The organisational literature privileges objective performance indicators often selected by researchers. There is scarce research on legitimacy challenged hybrid and micro-organisations and on perceived success under exigent conditions. To fill in this gap, the study, conducted among complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) micro-organisations, explores success as a subjective measure originating from managers' perceptions. For the purpose, it integrates Cognitive Mapping and Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)-a methodological contribution to construct a subjective success framework that can be helpful for contested hybrid micro-organisations. Seven factors emerged, of which human capital is recognised as critical while external factors are considered unimportant.
... Legitimacy deficiency leads to stakeholders questioning the very existence of the organization ensuring limited customers, financing sources, and community support. As a result, small organizations from contested market categories are stuck in a microframework, which turns into a constant struggle for survival (Galvin et al., 2004;Ruffo et al., 2018). Hybrid microorganizations are confined by lack of both resources and legitimacy. ...
... In line with the literature, managers' skills and abilities are other important factors increasing legitimacy (Tornikoski & Newbert, 2007;Überbacher, 2014;Ruffo et al., 2018;Wang, Stewart, & Castro 2017). This is particularly relevant in a contested-category context, as the competence and credibility of managers may be crucial in promoting and creating a favorable image of the organization (Galvin et al., 2004;Überbacher, 2014). ...
This research explores hybrid micro-entrepreneurs’ founding motivations and the transformation of those motivations into visions of success, by applying multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA). We find that entrepreneurs of hybrid micro-enterprises are driven mostly by noneconomic goals and that those influence their vision of success. The success framework consists of seven indicators (training, professional development, marketing, management, external factors, infrastructures, and organizational aspects). Human capital is perceived as the most important for success – translating the professional motivations for founding. Reversely, external factors, which are usually considered crucial to attain legitimacy, are perceived the least important factors. Given the findings, are hybrid micro-entrepreneurs ready to succeed?
... Contested industries face numerous challenges to the appropriateness of their products or services, operational practices, strategies and/or forms. Such challenges typically play a critical role in shaping an industry during its early development (DiMaggio, 1991; Rao, 1994) or after it experiences a transformative shock (Galvin et al., 2004;Madsen and Walker, 2007;Sine and David, 2003). But contestation is not limited to a single point in time. ...
... All industries face challenges to the appropriateness of their products or services, operational practices, strategies and/or forms though the number and level varies widely. This phenomenon, known as contestation, has been identified as a critical dimension shaping industries during their early development (DiMaggio, 1991;Rao, 1994) or after they experience a transformative shock (Galvin et al., 2004;Madsen and Walker, 2007;Tushman and Anderson, 1986;Sine and David, 2003). But contestation is not limited to a single point in time. ...
Contested industries face numerous challenges to the appropriateness of their products or services, operational practices, strategies and/or forms. Such challenges typically play a critical
role in shaping an industry during its early development (DiMaggio, 1991; Rao, 1994) or after it experiences a transformative shock (Galvin et al., 2004; Madsen and Walker, 2007; Sine and
David, 2003). But contestation is not limited to a single point in time. Contestation is a process, rather than an event, and is a permanent aspect of all industries though the intensity and impact
will differ depending upon its characteristics. However, when an industry is characterized by multiple conflicting normative, regulatory and cognitive sources of contestation as well as heterogeneous actors who are endogenous and exogenous to the industry, it may be more
susceptible to ongoing contestation. Under these conditions, persistent heterogeneity among actors and initiatives may impede an industry’s development and growth. How do these
multiple, conflicting and persistent sources of contestation affect an industry’s development and growth? We explore this question in an industry that has encountered considerable societal
attention and regulatory debate, the U.S. Marijuana industry.
... Lastly, there was some support for the concept of industry recipe evolution in the work on 'industry belief systems' (Galvin et al., 2004;Porac et al., 2002;Sneddon et al., 2009;Tikkanen et al., 2005). This literature deals with industry-level knowledge about how an industry functions. ...
This book offers new insights into the process by which individuals in
a firm combine their knowledge to create new products and services.
Typically, previous research have attempted to explain the management
of knowledge integration through the perspective of how various
problem characteristics make a problem more or less difficult to solve.
In contrast, this study explores the strategic dimension of knowledge
integration as a process of a purposeful combination of knowledge.
|| The study was undertaken with a case study research design, in which
the single case (“Omega”) was a joint venture between two participants
in the automotive industry. The purpose of Omega was to develop and
commercialize active safety technology for advanced driver assistance
systems (‘ADAS‘) and autonomous driving (‘AD‘), colloquially referred
to as ‘self-driving cars.’
|| A central theme in the empirical material was that individuals appeared to synthesize three thematic kinds of knowledge (technological, organizational, and commercial) to solve problems in alignment with the objectives of Omega. Moreover, this kind of knowledge typically involved references to both firm-specific and industry-specific aspects of how to manage knowledge integration. This prompted the approach of applying additional theory regarding the business idea (including business models) and industry recipe in a knowledge integration framework. The resulting analysis produced several findings which are quite novel, relative to prior research on knowledge integration. First, the study explores the knowledge-foundation of the business idea and the industry recipe. Second, the study illustrates how this kind of knowledge was applied by individuals for the purpose of solving problems in alignment with the objectives of a firm. Third, the novel
concepts of ‘business idea evolution’ and ‘industry recipe evolution’ were developed to capture how such knowledge was observed to continually evolve during the Omega-case. Fourth, the approach of applying literature on the business idea, business model, and industry recipe in a knowledge integration framework was found to have benefits in both directions.
|| The resulting picture is a more strategic perspective on the management of knowledge integration. A conclusion from this study, therefore, is that the conventional approach of studying the influence from various problem characteristics (the ‘characteristic-driven mode’) needs to be complemented by an alternative mode of explaining the management of knowledge integration: the ‘objective-driven mode.’ In this objective-driven mode, a firm’s ‘strategic context’ (i.e., the objectives and the circumstances for achieving these objectives) is central to the question of how and how not to integrate knowledge effectively.
... Concretely, collective memories might be filled with negative experiences in that ancestral organizational presence might be associated with social woes like public drunkenness and domestic violence. The values that have historically defined contested industries can then become resources to be drawn upon by stakeholders seeking to challenge the industry's legitimacy (Galvin, Ventresca, & Hudson, 2004). ...
What makes social movements successfully deter entry in contested industries? We develop a contingency framework explaining how their success depends on the internal fit between movements’ private and public politics strategies with the tactics of mass and elite mobilization. We also highlight the importance of how these tactics fit with external conditions like the cognitive legitimacy of the industry and industry countermobilization. When movements rely on a private politics strategy to condemn an industry in the eyes of the public, social movement mass will be decisive. Alternatively, when movements use a public politics strategy to push for regulatory intervention, the mobilization of elites is crucial. We develop our understanding of external contingency factors by exploring how cognitive legitimacy residuals from local ancestral populations affect both mass-driven private politics and elite-driven public politics, and how national-level industry countermobilization efforts affect elite-driven public politics strategies. We test these ideas in a historical study of the Scottish whisky distilling industry during the rise of temperance movements (1823-1921). We contribute to the social movements literature by showing how movements’ entry deterrence in contested industries depends on the internal fit between their strategies and mobilization tactics, as well as on their engagement with external contingencies.
... For example, there are differences in the social acceptance of gaming as a "normal" creative industry between countries and regions (Dyer-Witheford & de Peuter, 2009). Further, contestation over products, routines, strategies, and practices can change over time (Galvin et al., 2004). It is also possible to gain legitimacy for contested industries by making for example the whole product category socially accepted (Humphreys, 2010). ...
This paper investigates the influence of corporate social responsibility on firm performance by integrating simultaneously the moderating effects of the firm size and its industry profile. To conduct our study, we use annual environmental, social and governance (ESG) data on 407 European firms listed in STOXX Europe 600 Index during the period 2002–2018. Results reveal that the moderating effect of size is positive for environmentally sensitive industries and negative for environmentally non-sensitive industries. We conclude that in environmentally non-sensitive industries, large firms engage in symbolic CSR practices, while smaller ones implement substantive CSR actions. However, in environmentally sensitive industries, in order to meet stakeholders’ requirements, large firms engage in effective CSR initiatives, while smaller ones, being forced to involve in costly CSR practices, would be harmed and lose all interest in CSR implementation. This study has implications for policymakers, investors and corporate managers in various industries for evaluating and controlling the effectiveness of CSR practices and initiatives.
... A key theoretical perspective explaining stigmatization as such is labeling theory (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995). This perspective demonstrates how organizational categories are stigmatized given associations with certain pejorative labels and stereotypes (Durand & Vergne, 2015), describing, for instance, the vilification of "sin industries" (Grougiou, Dedoulis, & Leventis, 2016) such as arms manufacturing (Vergne, 2012), tobacco (Galvin, Ventresca, & Hudson, 2004), or medical cannabis (Lashley & Pollock, 2020). Belonging to stigmatized categories results in stakeholders stereotyping an organization "such that it is defined in terms of the attributes of this category, rather than as a unique entity" (Devers et al., 2009: 157). ...
We explore the global fossil fuel divestment movement to show how climate activists worked to stigmatize the fossil fuel industry using analogy. In doing so, we develop a model that illustrates how constructing a “moral dualism” is central to stigmatizing an organizational category. This involves concurrently establishing “stigmatizers” (ingroup) as morally superior and amplifying the deviancy of the fossil fuel industry (outgroup), both in relation to analogical contexts. Stigmatizers strategically employed two types of analogy: “deep” and “surface.” Deep analogies produce emotive power, facilitating the moralization of the ingroup through the transfer of affective meanings from a source context to a target domain. Surface analogies generate causal power to inform wider audiences of the target’s deviance through association with already-stigmatized organizational categories. Analogical power underpinning the morally dualistic nature of stigmatization can therefore empower fringe actors to stigmatize an incumbent as they appropriate meanings from analogical source domains.
... At an organizational level, Hudson (2008: 253) attributed "core" stigma "to the nature of an organization's core attributes-who it is, what it does, and whom it serves." It also applies to industries, such as abortion centers (Augustine & Piazza, 2020;Hudson, Wong-MingJi, & Loree, 2000), tattoo parlors (Velliquette, 2000), and the gambling and tobacco industries (Galvin, Ventresca, & Hudson, 2004). Regardless of level, the more central the source of stigma to an actor's identity, the greater the resultant stigmatization. ...
Stigma has become an increasingly significant challenge for society. Recognition of this problem is indicated by the growing attention to it within the management literature which has provided illuminating insights. However, stigma has primarily been examined at a single level of analysis: individual, occupational, organizational, or industry. Yet, cultural understandings of what is discreditable or taboo do not come from the individual, occupation, organization, or industry that is stigmatized; on the contrary, they come from particular sources that transcend levels. As such, we propose that current silos within the literature may not only be preventing engagement with insights from different levels of analysis, but, importantly, may be preventing us from truly understanding stigmatization as a social process. To address this issue, we review the stigma literature and then present an across level integrative framework of the sources, characteristics, and management strategies. Our framework provides a common language that integrates insights across these levels and enables a shift in attention from how actors respond to stigma to broader processes of stigmatization.
... In highlighting a divergence or negative discrepancy from established social norms and values, stigmas impugn a target's or bearer's moral virtue, conjuring collective perceptions of deviance or of a fundamental, deep-seated flaw (Devers, Dewett, Mishina, & Belsito, 2009;Kurzban & Leary, 2001;Link & Phelan, 2001). Whether it is an individual associated with a stigmatized social category (Allison, 1998;Flack et al., 1995;Pontikes, Negro, & Rao, 2010), an organization whose actions or core features are perceived by some audiences as somehow morally suspect or untrustworthy (Carberry & King, 2012;Hudson, 2008;Hampel & Tracey, 2017), or an industry whose activities are contested or seen as inherently harmful (Galvin, Ventresca, & Hudson, 2004;Lashley & Pollock, 2020;Vergne, 2012), stigmatization tends to come at a "significant price not only to the stigmatized but to society itself" (Ashforth, 2019: 25). ...
... Prior research has examined organizational stigmas in the context of for-profit firms embroiled in scandals (Pauly and Hutchison 2005), and of organizations offering stigmatized services such as abortion or HIV treatment (Galvin, Ventresca, and Hudson 2004;Hudson and Okhuysen 2009;Phillips et al. 2012). Insights gleaned from these works suggest that organizational stigmas cause leaders to concentrate on impression management and stigma management strategies (e.g., decoupling, professionalization, etc.), to improve public and government perceptions of organizational legitimacy and moral accountability (Devers et al. 2009). ...
Existing research on the incorporation of immigrants generally celebrates immigrant organizations (IOs) as essential conduits for political mobilization, civic integration, and transnational engagement. Less attention, however, has been given to the external contexts or conditions that can constrain IOs. In this article, I introduce the concept of ascriptive organizational stigma (AOS) and examine how domestic and geopolitical contexts contribute to the stigmatization and constraining of Pakistani immigrant organizational capacities. Data come from 59 in-depth interviews conducted with leaders and members of Pakistani IOs in New York City and London. Findings suggest Pakistani IOs in both cities experienced AOS, and that external pressures to prioritize stigma management over core missions, impeded efforts to serve domestic and homeland constituents. Findings also indicate the stigmatization of ascriptive status markers can contribute to the conflation of immigrants’ group and organizational indentities. This article contributes to existing scholarship by revealing how external contexts can lead to the constraining of immigrants’ domestic and homeland-oriented organizational capacities.
... These are defined as the critical components that complete a recipe (Spender, 1996). These can be actions or developed products that contribute to the completion of the overall recipe (Spender, 1989;Galvin et al., 2004;Monaghan and Tippmann, 2018). For example, in the HFI, 3D digital animation software is a critical ingredient to create an animated feature film. ...
This paper creates a theoretical construct through the synthetization of industry recipes in the Hollywood film industry and scenario planning's intuitive logics approach. It illustrates how the incumbent-challenger paradox coupled with the industry recipes framework can provide a robust scenario narrative. Through a multiple case study approach, an industry recipe is constructed, the industry recipe factors are identified. Then the intuitive logics approach is blended with the industry recipe factors through the creation of scenario recipe factors and represented in a theoretical framework. The underlying premise of the paper purports that exploration of the industry recipes framework can help advance the intuitive logics approach through narrative development.
... typically take the form of contests over the societal appropriateness and evaluation of industry practices, strategies, and forms" (Galvin, et al., 2004, p.57). Typical examples of contested industries include arms industry (Vergne, 2012), tobacco and gambling industries (Galvin et al., 2004), nuclear power (Arentsen, 2006), psychotropic drugs (Geels et al., 2007), videogaming (Yousafzai et al., 2014), etc. What distinguishes a contested industry from a 'normal' industry is that the former suffers more from legitimacy deficits. ...
The question of how an industry develops differently in different regions is an interesting topic in economic geography. Scholars have contributed enormous knowledge concerning various relatedness, the role of multiple actors and their agencies, and regional industrial preconditions, in contributing to local industrial path development. However, our knowledge on the agency-structure relations present in local industrial development is limited, if not totally lacking, not mentioning how such relations influence the industrial development trajectories and ultimately the overall competitiveness of the local industry. Based on such reflections, this thesis aims to fill such an ‘agency-structure’ gap in local industrial development by looking at the developmental trajectories of one creative industry—online games industry, in two regions that belong to different countries (Shanghai in China and Hamburg in Germany). In both cases, all sorts of misalignments between the focal industry and the institutional frameworks (including both formal and informal institutional elements) could be observed during the industrial development processes. It is under such industry-institution misalignments that the agency and activities of multiple actors have been analyzed. By comparing the two trajectories in different institutional contexts, the research contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, this research gives due attention to the structural forces, such as the formal and informal institutional structures, that affect local industrial development. Secondly, it contributes to a nuanced analysis of agency in local industrial development. Finally, it reveals the dynamic agency-structure relations, which serve as the causal mechanisms leading to different developmental outcomes in the games industry in the two selected cities.
... Il settore a cui appartengono, insieme alle aziende della lavorazione e commercializzazione del tabacco, è stato definito controverso e stigmatizzato: da un lato, perché i prodotti che contengono tabacco, al pari degli alcoolici o del gioco d'azzardo, possono creare dipendenza psicologica e problemi di salute (Wilson & West, 1981, p. 92); dall'altro, e come conseguenza di quanto appena detto, le imprese del settore sono spesso oggetto di contestazioni sociali e di controlli (Galvin, Ventresca, & Hudson, 2004). Il core business delle tabaccherie, come sottolineano alcuni, è vendere prodotti che possono causare malattia e morte (Durand & Vergne, 2015). ...
L’orientamento al futuro è un fattore chiave di successo per le imprese
famigliari. Questo capitolo presenta le evidenze empiriche e discute se e
come le PMI italiane preparino il passaggio generazionale, e come vengono
gestiti il trasferimento e la condivisione delle competenze tra le generazioni.
... A historical theorisation depicts a new practice as the outcome of a gradual development, making it familiar to the audience, akin to the 'business as usual' frame so often adopted by those accused of dubious financial practices. Depicted as normal business (see also Galvin et al., 2004), these practices are no longer new when they become the subject of public debate. According to the historical literature surveyed, critics often tended to indirectly question the acceptability of common practices by emphasising their calamitous effect on investor interests and the economy (or even society) at large. ...
This perspectives article surveys publications in business history and constructs a conceptual framework for researching fraud and other dubious financial practices, their determinants and their consequences. The prevalence and nature of the practices studied are mainly determined by individual traits, firm governance and control, the economic environment, and regulation. Contemporaries make sense of dubious practices by constructing narratives, possibly framing them as scandals, which are likely to lead to attempts at regulatory change. It is primarily the socio-economic impact of dubious practices that determines whether regulation becomes fundamentally stricter. Existing agendas for reform strongly influence the substance of regulatory responses.
... Il settore a cui appartengono, insieme alle aziende della lavorazione e commercializzazione del tabacco, è stato definito controverso e stigmatizzato: da un lato, perch i prodotti che contengono tabacco, al pari degli alcoolici o del gioco d'azzardo, possono creare dipendenza psicologica e problemi di salute ( ilson est, 1981, p. 92) dall'altro, e come conseguenza di quanto appena detto, le imprese del settore sono spesso oggetto di contestazioni sociali e di controlli (Galvin, entresca, udson, 2004). Il core business delle tabaccherie, come sottolineano alcuni, è vendere prodotti che possono causare malattia e morte (Durand ergne, 2015). ...
... Il settore a cui appartengono, insieme alle aziende della lavorazione e commercializzazione del tabacco, è stato definito controverso e stigmatizzato: da un lato, perch i prodotti che contengono tabacco, al pari degli alcoolici o del gioco d'azzardo, possono creare dipendenza psicologica e problemi di salute ( ilson est, 1981, p. 92) dall'altro, e come conseguenza di quanto appena detto, le imprese del settore sono spesso oggetto di contestazioni sociali e di controlli (Galvin, entresca, udson, 2004). Il core business delle tabaccherie, come sottolineano alcuni, è vendere prodotti che possono causare malattia e morte (Durand ergne, 2015). ...
Il lavoro propone lo studio e l’approfondimento della specificità dell’impresa familiare e delle sue traiettorie di crescita sul versante dell’internazionalizzazione e dell’innovazione, per conoscere meglio un fenomeno economicamente rilevante anche per le politiche na- zionali e le azioni a supporto dello sviluppo del family business. Nel- lo specifico, obiettivo del lavoro è rileggere le traiettorie di crescita alla luce del ruolo che le famiglie imprenditoriali hanno nella gestio- ne del family business e della loro specificità di governance. Com- pletato il quadro degli aspetti definitori e di governance, il lavoro analizza le traiettorie di crescita con riferimento a due importanti dri- ver della competitività delle imprese familiari, ovvero internaziona- lizzazione ed innovazione. Inoltre, il lavoro offre lo studio approfon- dito del caso Cantine Nicosia, attraverso il quale le riflessioni teori- che degli autori trovano verifica e approfondimento. Il lavoro è, infi- ne, arricchito da un’appendice contenente gli extended abstracts dei lavori presentati al Research Development Workshop di IFERA tenutosi dal 2 al 4 febbraio 2016 a Catania dal titolo “Family, Firms and Institutional Context: Analyzing the role of the context in the de- velopment of the family unit for Family Business Research” e di cui gli autori del presente lavoro monografico sono stati co-organizers.
... In a similar vein, some corporate donors will appear as more tainted in the eyes of peers. Looking at the industry membership of benefactors thus enables us to distinguish more or less tainted categories of corporate donors (Galvin, Ventresca, & Hudson, 2004). Consequently, the split in the industry membership of donors will provide a variance in the perception of the ties cultural organizations form with them as a group of stakeholders. ...
... Instead, with a paradox, as we have presented in this paper, capture might be a more effective means of dealing with discourses that threaten the status quo. A similar strategy was adopted by the tobacco industry as they captured anti-smoking campaigns to frame smoking as healthy (Galvin, Ventresca, & Hudson, 2004). Somewhat more subtlety, and probably to a lesser extent, the fossil fuel industry are similarly capturing climate change by framing themselves as the solution. ...
This paper explores how the European oil and gas supermajors (BP, Shell and Total), through organizational discourse, symbolically overcome the apparent paradox between producing and marketing fossil fuels and engaging in climate change mitigation due to institutional pressures. By analyzing CEO-speak of European supermajors from 1997-2014, we find that these companies create a ‘discourse of transcendence’, which represents an amalgamation of three discursive frames that we have categorized as: climate technocentrist, economic environmentalist and mixed capitalist. Loosely referred to as the energy challenge by the European supermajors, this discursive construct constitutes talking about paradox as if there is no paradox. By means of deconstructing the rhetorical appeals made by the supermajors, we show how ‘the energy challenge discourse’ largely dissolves tension between being a fossil fuel company, and a need to address climate change; a process that we argue occurs through ‘discursive capture’ - i.e., colonizing of the subversive. This research contributes to the literature on organizational paradox by highlighting how a discourse of transcendence is created, including its often-overlooked distortive consequences. In addition, we contribute to research on tensions regarding corporate sustainability, by emphasizing the constitutive discursive effects of transcending tensions between economic and environmental dimensions.
... Most studies of the relationship between social movements and markets conceptualize the relationship as antagonistic -value-rational social movement organizations oppose the negative impact and externalities of instrumentally rational economic actors (e.g., gamson & Modigliani, 1989). in these cases, social movement organizations construct and deploy morally charged frames in order to stigmatize specific organizations or industries for their negative effects on society (galvin, ventresca, & hudson, 2004;Weber et al., 2009). recently, scholars have shown how market proponents can use strategic frames and moral suasion to develop legitimacy for markets by valorizing normal "amoral" markets and destigmatizing morally contested markets (hampel & tracey, 2017; lounsbury, ventresca, & hirsch, 2003). ...
How can organizations use strategic frames to develop support for illegal and stigmatized markets? Drawing on interviews, direct observation, and the analysis of 2,497 press releases, I show how pro-cannabis activists used distinct framing strategies at different stages of institutional development to negotiate the moral boundaries surrounding medical cannabis, diluting the market’s stigma in the process. Social movement organizations first established a moral (and legal) foothold for the market by framing cannabis as a palliative for the dying, respecting moral boundaries blocking widespread exchange. As market institutions emerged, activists extended this frame to include less serious conditions, making these boundaries permeable.
... In a similar vein, some corporate donors will appear as more tainted in the eyes of peers. Looking at the industry membership of benefactors thus enables us to distinguish more or less tainted categories of corporate donors (Galvin et al., 2004). Consequently, the split in the industry membership of donors will provide a variance in the perception of the ties cultural organizations form with them as a group of stakeholders. ...
Does corporate philanthropy have an indiscriminately positive effect on recipients? Our baseline argument asserts that relationships with stakeholders outside the field, such as corporate donors, can be perceived as a deviation from the dominant logic at the industry level, and thus as a negative signal by peers. How can recipients mitigate this adverse effect on social evaluations? To answer this question we study how corporate benefaction affects the process of peer recognition in the context of Russian theaters (2004-2011). Firstly, we engage in a qualitative exploration of our setting to contextualize our hypotheses and understand how relationships with corporate donors, depending on their characteristics, affect peer recognition. We then quantitatively test our hypotheses and confirm that the salience of the relationship with extraneous stakeholders - operationalized as the number of corporate donors - has a negative effect on peer recognition. This effect however can be mitigated if theaters choose to limit the breadth, depth and negative valence of the relationship. We contribute to both the institutional logics and stakeholder literature by bringing in a signaling perspective: we show that peer recognition, upon which the maintenance of a dominant logic lies, is directly impacted by the nature of relationships with extraneous stakeholders.
... At any given time, some audiences may judge an organization to be legitimate, while others do not hold this view. Second, following Galvin, Ventresca, and Hudson (2004), we are careful to be explicit about the form of legitimacy with which we are concerned and to specify what it means in the context of our particular empirical setting. Thus we focus on audiences' conferral of moral legitimacy, which hinges on an organization gaining normative approval. ...
Based on an in-depth historical study of how Thomas Cook’s travel agency moved from stigmatization to legitimacy among the elite of Victorian Britain, we develop a dialogical model of organizational destigmatization. We find that audiences stigmatize an organization because they fear that it threatens a particular moral order, which leads them to mount sustained attacks designed to weaken or eradicate the organization. Our model suggests that an organization that experiences this form of profound disapproval can nonetheless purge its stigma and become legitimate through a two-step process: first the organization engages in stigma reduction work designed to minimize overt hostility among audiences by showing that it does not pose a risk to them. Second it engages in stigma elimination work designed to gain support from stigmatizers by showing that it plays a positive role in society. Our study therefore reorients organizational stigma research from a focus on how organizations can cope with the effects of stigma, and considers instead how they can eradicate the stigma altogether. We also shed light on much neglected audience-level dynamics by examining the process through which audiences construct stigma and why these constructions change.
... Des travaux plus récents complètent ces analyses et montrent que les médias en général et les médias sociaux en particulier jouent un rôle important à la fois dans la mobilisation des parties prenantes mais également dans l'évolution des comportements des entreprises concernées (Clemente & Roulet, 2015;McDonnell & King, 2013;Roulet, 2015). Mais les dynamiques collectives à l'oeuvre sont d'une grande complexité comme l'illustre le cas des industries contestées (tabac, jeux, armement, pornographie…) qui génèrent de très importantes externalités mais qui arrivent à se maintenir en dépit d'une vigilance accrue et d'une forte critique sociale et médiatique à leur égard (Durand & Vergne, 2015;Galvin, Ventresca, & Hudson, 2004;Roulet, 2014). Roulet montrent que des entreprises qui sont fortement contestées par leurs parties prenantes et la représentation médiatique peuvent survivre et prospérer en dépit d'une forte critique sociale « ce qui suggère que l'illégitimité dont elles font l'objet à l'extérieur de leur champ institutionnel ne leur nuit que de manière marginale » (Roulet, 2015, p. 44). ...
... Potential clients who are convinced by this argument perceive control loss: there is knowledge for superior solutions that they do not possess. In this way, consultants increasingly Wnd clients in small and medium-sized companies, the bureaucracies of the public sector, and not for proWt organizations such as hospitals, universities, theatres, and churches (Galvin et al. 2004). ...
In order to assess what kind of knowledge consultants and management researchers can contribute to support managers' decisions, one first has to find out how managers make decisions. Hence, this article starts by discussing some results on decision making by managers. It then analyzes what kind of knowledge consultants produce and how they produce it. The article also asks why there has been such an enormous growth in the demand for consulting. This growth seems to indicate that managers appreciate the consultants' contributions to their decision making. Then the article argues that the system of science follows its own logic and dynamics and thus necessarily produces a rigor relevance gap: the problems that management researchers analyze are not the problems that managers experience.
... At any given time, some audiences may judge an organization to be legitimate, while others do not hold this view. Second, following Galvin, Ventresca, and Hudson (2004), we are careful to be explicit about the form of legitimacy with which we are concerned and to specify what it means in the context of our particular empirical setting. Thus we focus on audiences' conferral of moral legitimacy, which hinges on an organization gaining normative approval. ...
Based on an in-depth historical study of how Thomas Cook's travel agency moved from stigmatization to legitimacy among the elite of Victorian Britain, we develop a dialogical model of organizational destigmatization. We find that audiences stigmatize an organization because they fear that it threatens a particular moral order, which leads them to mount sustained attacks designed to weaken or eradicate the organization. Our model suggests that an organization that experiences this form of profound disapproval can nonetheless purge its stigma and become legitimate through a two-step process: first the organization engages in stigma reduction work designed to minimize overt hostility among audiences by showing that it does not pose a risk to them. Second it engages in stigma elimination work designed to gain support from stigmatizers by showing that it plays a positive role in society. Our study therefore reorients organizational stigma research from a focus on how organizations can cope with the effects of stigma, and considers instead how they can eradicate the stigma altogether. We also shed light on much neglected audience-level dynamics by examining the process through which audiences construct stigma and why these constructions change.
... Norms regarding appropriate corporate behaviors -which evolve at a macro level -act as mediators between economic constraints and engagement in CSA (Campbell, 2007). What firms consider acceptable and beneficial in corporate behaviors is inspired by business-relevant subsets of societal-level ideologies (Galvin, Ventresca & Hudson, 2004). Ultimately, the likelihood to greenwash, or in other words to design CSA to maximize legitimacy gains at the expense of societal benefits, is influenced by national contexts and shared cultural beliefs. ...
Previous literature has shown contradictory results regarding the relationship between economic liberalism at the country level and firms’ engagement in corporate social action. Because liberalism is associated with individualism, it is often assumed that firms will engage in mostly symbolic rather than substantive social and environmental actions; in other words, they will practice ‘greenwashing’. To understand how cultural beliefs in the virtues of liberalism affect the likelihood of greenwashing, we disentangle the effects of the distinct and co-existing beliefs in the virtues of economic liberalism. We begin by conducting an exploratory qualitative analysis of managers’ sentiments on this matter, based on a focus group methodology. We then use these investigative elements to articulate a comparison of the conflicting theoretical arguments: in liberal contexts, are firms, as social entities, inherently selfish or pro-active when it comes to corporate social actions? We empirically test our hypotheses on a large-scale dataset. Finally, we show paradoxically that in countries where beliefs in the virtues of competition are strong, firms are more likely to greenwash, while in countries where beliefs in the virtues of individual responsibility are prominent, firms are more likely to focus on concrete actions. These findings suggest that in contexts where weak governments are seen as ideal, firms might feel the need to step in to fill institutional voids, in contexts in which competitive mindsets dominate, this tendency is counterbalanced.
Adopting a place-based approach to categorization, we explore how and why institutional actors in the US and the UK have categorized e-cigarettes differently, namely as tobacco products in the US and as non-tobacco consumer products in the UK. Our inquiry identified the historical contingencies generating two different perspectives informing these differential categorizations—precautionary in the US and harm-reduction in the UK. Embedded in these two perspectives are different future imaginaries to address the harm from cigarettes and e-cigarettes to the different population groups at risk (i.e., smokers versus youth and non-smokers). Data also show institutional actors across the two countries offering justifications for or against e-cigarettes by deploying facts from different scientific research. We theorize these findings and conclude the paper by discussing the importance of adopting a place-based approach to categorization.
Stigmatized organizations are generally assumed to face a variety of unique operational challenges. This paper examines the survival of stigmatized organizations in light of such challenges. Specifically, we investigate how patterns of opposition and support from multiple external stakeholders and audiences affect organizational survival within the context of abortion provision in the United States. We use a fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine the causal linkages between the above factors and the survival outcomes of the full identifiable industry of 983 abortion clinics that were in operation in the U.S. between 2011 and 2017. Our results reveal the existence of multiple paths to survival, based primarily on either the absence of overt opposition or the presence of factors like political support that enabled organizations to overcome other threats to survival. Our findings show how socio‐political factors affect the survival of organizations in stigmatized industries.
In this study we examine how a firm’s corporate philanthropic behavior may affect its subsequent acquisitions. Drawing upon stakeholder theory, we argue that firms may strategically use philanthropic donations to obtain support or approval from stakeholders so as to advance subsequent acquisitions, suggesting a positive relationship between corporate giving and corporate acquisitions in terms of both acquisition number and value. We further contend that stakeholders’ support for acquisitions would be even more critical for firms with negative or conservative attitudes to external stakeholders. Therefore, it is expected that both negative media coverage and controversial industry sectors will strengthen the positive relationship between corporate giving and subsequent corporate acquisitions. Analyses of publicly listed manufacturing firms in China during 2004–2015 largely support our predictions. This study deepens our understanding about the drivers of corporate giving and highlights its role in corporate acquisitions.
Growing acknowledgement that food systems require transformation, demands comprehensive sustainability assessments that can support decision-making and sustainability governance. To do so, assessment frameworks must be able to make trade-offs and synergies visible and allow for inclusive negotiation on food system outcomes relevant to diverse food system actors. This paper reviews literature and frameworks and builds on stakeholder input to present a Sustainability Compass made up of a comprehensive set of metrics for food system assessments. The Compass defines sustainability scores for four societal goals, underpinned by areas of concern. We demonstrate proof of concept of the operationalization of the approach and its metrics. The Sustainability Compass is able to generate comprehensive food system insights that enables reflexive evaluation and multi-actor negotiation for policy making.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how responsible gambling policies are communicated and presented as a legitimation strategy to different stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based primarily on 49 semi-structured interviews with internal and external stakeholders of Macao’s gambling industry in 2011. This study draws on Reast et al.’s (2012) legitimacy-seeking strategy framework.
Findings
The findings indicate that these organisations use construing and earning legitimacy strategies to ensure passive support and acquiescence from certain stakeholder groups, and they deploy bargaining and capturing legitimacy strategies to generate active support for this morally contested industry. As a means of attaining long-standing legitimacy in the industry, gambling operators engage symbolically rather than substantively in responsible gambling to minimise the legitimacy gap.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of the study pertain to a unique setting and might not be suitable for generalisation.
Practical implications
In the absence of stringent legal mechanisms and strong external stakeholder pressure, the 12th Five-Year Plan of the People’s Republic of China aims to transform Macao into a “World Centre of Tourism and Leisure”, and gambling companies may soon face much stronger pressures from the Chinese Government and the Macao Government.
Social/implications
Voluntary responsible gambling initiatives are liable to be used only in symbolic fashion, without offering genuine engagement or full commitment to the most vulnerable stakeholder group.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on social and accounting literature by providing an in-depth case study of how organisations in the gambling industry use different communication strategies to shape and respond to controversial issues.
Why does professional misconduct persist in the face of media scrutiny? In this study, we explain how professional norms can be at odds with societal norms and how the behaviours they trigger can be perceived as misconduct. Most audiences tend to disapprove of wrongdoings, but specific stakeholders may interpret this disapproval as an indication of the focal organization’s level of adherence to professional norms. Building on mixed methods, we explore the case of the investment banking industry during the financial crisis and suggest that corporate customers were favourably biased by the reporting of banks’ misconduct in the print media as they linked it to the banks’ quality of service. We capture the extent to which banks are associated with misconduct, signalling their adherence to negatively perceived professional norms. We then look at how such signalling affects the likelihood for banks to be invited into initial public offerings syndicates. Our findings show that the more banks are disapproved of for their wrongdoings, the more likely they are to be selected to join a syndicate. This study suggests that the coverage of misconduct can actually act as a positive signal providing banks with incentives to engage in what is broadly perceived as professional misconduct.
Audiences frequently change how they evaluate organizations, and these judgments often have a moral basis. For example, audiences may shift their evaluation from stigmatization to legitimacy or vice versa. These radical shifts in audience evaluation can have a major impact on organizations, yet organization theory struggles to account for them. We offer a solution to this problem by proposing a spectrum of moral evaluation that situates key moral judgments relative to each other. Our core argument is that integrating stigmatization and moral legitimacy into a broader spectrum of moral evaluation provides organization theorists with a much-needed toolkit to explore the consequential normative transformations often experienced by contemporary organizations. Specifically, it allows for a graded conception of moral evaluation, connects concepts – stigma and legitimacy – that are often considered in isolation, and offers opportunities for theoretical cross-fertilization.
Stigmatized markets are those where either the products/services, or the consumers, or both, have been collectively, negatively stereotyped and devalued by one or more stakeholder audiences in ways that discredit the overall market. Many stigmatized markets exist, and many flourish, yet little systematic attention has focused on entry into such markets. Our article addresses this gap by conceptualizing various strategies for entering stigmatized markets. We further present propositions regarding the market-level factors that can influence which of these strategies firms will choose to employ. The contributions include: conceptually clarifying the nature of stigmatized markets; identifying additional types of entry strategies relevant for entering stigmatized markets; theorizing the conditions under which firms would choose one entry strategy over another; and opening up for consideration the effects that market entry may have on stigmatized actors in targeted markets. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Globally active companies are involved in the discursive construction of moral legitimacy. Establishing normative conformance is problematic given the plurality of norms and values worldwide, and is particularly difficult for companies operating in morally controversial industries. In this paper, we investigate how organizations publicly legitimize the trade of human tissue for private profit when this practice runs counter to deep-seated and widespread moral beliefs. To do so, we use inductive, qualitative methods to analyze the website discourse of three types of organizations that trade in human tissue and are associated with different degrees of moral controversy with respect to tissue procurement and use. Our analysis reveals an object-oriented approach to moral legitimizing centered on the human tissue as a morally disputed good. We find that the website discourse translates human tissue into technology, constructs normative meaning around a dominant instrumental value associated with human-tissue-as-technology, and reproduces and stabilizes this meaning by six discursive mechanisms that amplify and anchor it. Moreover, the use of amplifying and anchoring discourse was greater in organizations associated with greater controversy. The results are consistent with an object-oriented sociality.
In many countries governments and labor unions have contested the post-war rise of temporary agency work, arguing that this innovation infringed on workers' rights and security. We investigate the rhetorical strategies used by Dutch temporary work agencies (TWAs) to gain legitimacy for their business between 1961 and 1996. Our conclusion is that the TWAs' trade association ABU developed a sophisticated rhetoric of “self-restraint” to legitimize the deployment of a non-standard labor arrangement. The core message was that – if applied properly - agency work did not threaten permanent employment. The complexity of the inclusive nature of this rhetorical approach, aiming to acknowledge the concerns of multiple stakeholders, was reflected in ABU's difficulty in aligning its claims of socially responsible behavior with an effective defense of the sector's economic interests. Still, the consistent focus on restraint lent credibility to the claimed function of “allocating” workers to their jobs that eventually gained the TWA industry fundamental acceptance as a responsible labor market actor.
Organizations are increasingly confronted with legitimacy threats related to the perceived social costs of their business activities. Despite a significant amount of research on the responses of individual organizations, surprisingly limited attention has been paid to the collective activities firms may engage to address such issues. In this paper, we use institutional theory as a lens for an exploratory case study of Issue-Based Industry Collective (IBIC) action in the alcohol industry. Our findings identify a new organizational form, the IBIC and inspire new research avenues at the intersection of business collective action, social issues, and institutional theory. Copyright © 2017 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
The idea of 'pornography' is often employed to invoke titillation, anger, and disgust. Stigma and the Shaping of the Pornography Industry explores the effects that this stigmatized identity has on the pornography industry itself. From the video era to the emergence of the internet, to trade shows, white-collar workers, technological innovation, and industry-wide characteristics, this book looks beyond content production to explore how stigma has shaped the structures, practices, norms, and boundaries of the wider sector. By drawing on concepts such as dirty work, core-stigmatized industries, and outlaw innovation, this book offers rich insights into the ways in which stigma is socially constructed and managed, and the deep structural effects that it has on the industry.
This paper attempts to investigate how and why organisations in Macao’s gambling industry engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). It is based on an in-depth investigation of Macao’s gambling industry with 49 semi-structured interviews, conducted in 2011. We found that firms within the industry were emphasising pragmatic legitimacy based on both economic and non-economic contributions, in order to project positive images of the industry, while glossing over two domains of adverse externalities: problem gambling among visitors, and the pollution and despoliation of the environment. By engaging symbolically rather than substantively in CSR, the gambling firms were diverting attention away from issues of moral legitimacy, in order to be allowed to continue to pursue “business as usual” as a means of obtaining substantial financial returns in a social, cultural and socio-political context that was exerting relatively little public pressure to improve corporate social and environmental performance. We conjecture that the gambling firms were feeding on borrowed time.
This study examines the nature of the revelation–concealment dialectic faced by Nevada’s legal brothels as these organizations work to strategically build visibility despite external pressures to keep them hidden and internal desires to protect the privacy of certain organizational stakeholders. In addition, in instances of organizational visibility, we examine brothels’ strategies for managing core-stigma while attempting to project a socially acceptable public image. Brothels address this revelation–concealment dialectic by adopting stigma-management strategies of distancing themselves from identities they perceive as socially undesirable and aligning themselves with nonstigmatized industry practices. At the same time, the brothels construct selectively permeable organizational boundaries through the invitation of controlled outsider boundary-crossings and through the promotion of their own community-engagement efforts. These results extend research on hidden organizations to consider the particular image-management challenges faced
by shadowed organizations.
Cette thèse propose d'étudier les changements de modes d’interprétation des professionnels de santé en France depuis ces dernières années. Plusieurs travaux en théorie des organisations expliquent « le changement » compte tenu des évolutions du contexte dans lequel ils s'inscrivent (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007). Récemment, le concept de logiques institutionnelles séparant les individus selon leurs valeurs en plusieurs catégories (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Lounsbury, 2002; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012), offre une grille de lecture novatrice permettant de comprendre l'agencement des individus au cours du temps. Le modèle présenté par les auteurs rend compte à la fois du pouvoir des discours, mais insiste aussi sur l’encastrement dans la pratiques de leurs actions, des usages et des objets. Pourtant, alors que les analyses s'instruisent des modes discursifs des acteurs, peu de travaux se concentrent sur le rôle de la matérialité. Plusieurs observations exploratoires démontrent pourtant que les individus emploient des objets distincts selon la logique à laquelle ils appartiennent (ex: Jones, Boxenbaum, & Anthony, 2013; Raviola et Norbäck, 2013).
L'objectif est dans un premier temps de rendre compte des différences matérielles des logiques institutionnelles au sein d'un champ, puis, dans un second temps de comprendre les conséquences induites par l'usage de ces objets. L’étude des pratiques sociomaterielles dans la profession médicale offrent plusieurs contributions:
L’ancrage dans la théorie du changement institutionnel couplée à la mobilisation de la sociomatérialité pour étudier l’aspect micro des logiques institutionnelles est une contribution théorique en soi. L’enseignement à tirer de cette conceptualisation est la prise en compte des interactions sociales des individus à plusieurs niveaux. En premier lieu, il clarifie entre autres les fondations micro de la dynamique conjointe des logiques institutionnelles (McPherson & Sauder, 2013). En second lieu, l’existence de deux logiques conflictuelles contenant des systèmes de croyances communs peut être associée à une nouvelle forme de structure hybride complexe du champ (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Jay, 2013; Pache & Santos, 2013).
D'un point de vue empirique, cette thèse souligne l’évolution des modes cognitifs des professionnels de santé au sein du contexte français. Jusqu’à présent les analyses de champ s'attardent sur des pays anglo-saxons. Par ailleurs, le phénomène d’indépendance fait aussi écho à d’autres travaux empiriques. Les chercheurs reportent l’apparition de logiques similaires dans d’autres contextes comme celui de la finance (Dorado, 2010) ou de la vente (Tracey et al., 2011).
In many countries governments and labor unions have contested the post-war rise of temporary agency work, arguing that this innovation infringed on workers' rights and security. We investigate the rhetorical strategies used by Dutch temporary work agencies (TWAs) to gain legitimacy for their business between 1961 and 1996. Our conclusion is that the TWAs' trade association ABU developed a sophisticated rhetoric of "self-restraint" to legitimize the deployment of a non-standard labor arrangement. The core message was that - if applied properly -agency work did not threaten permanent employment. The complexity of the inclusive nature of this rhetorical approach, aiming to acknowledge the concerns of multiple stakeholders, was reflected in ABU's difficulty in aligning its claims of socially responsible behavior with an effective defense of the sector's economic interests. Still, the consistent focus on restraint lent credibility to the claimed function of "allocating" workers to their jobs that eventually gained the TWA industry fundamental acceptance as a responsible labor market actor.
We argue that entrepreneurship research would benefit from a practice perspective, and drawing from Bourdieu's work, we envision entrepreneurship as a profoundly socially embedded process connected to entrepreneurs' positions in structures of power relations. In taking an initial step in the development of a practice perspective of entrepreneurship, we focus on one domain of entrepreneurial action, that is, the gaining of legitimacy by newcomers entering a field, which we conceive as the enactment of entrepreneurial habitus. We question the assumption that a newcomer entering a field automatically is deemed an entrepreneur and instead argue that he or she must be 'legitimized' as an entrepreneur by enacting taken-for-granted yet conflicting expectations about 'fitting in' with field rules and 'standing out' as a rule breaker. We discuss how newcomers' cultural and symbolic capital shape their ability to attain legitimacy and, in turn, how the interplay between newcomers' legitimacy and success influences the extent to which the structure of fields becomes reinforced or transformed.
We argue that the processes underlying institutionalization have not been investigated
adequately and that discourse analysis provides a coherent framework for such
investigation. Accordingly, we develop a discursive model of institutionalization that
highlights the relationships among texts, discourse, institutions, and action. Based on
this discursive model, we propose a set of conditions under which institutionalization
processes are most likely to occur, and we conclude the article with an exploration of
the model’s implications for other areas of research.
This study examines the role of professional associations in a changing, highly institutionalized organizational field and suggests that they play a significant role in legitimating change. A model of institutional change is outlined, of which a key stage is "theorization," the process whereby organizational failings are conceptualized and linked to potential solutions. Regulatory agencies, such as professional associations, play an important role in theorizing change, endorsing local innovations and shaping their diffusion.
In this study, we argue that media-provided information affects investors' impressions of newly public firms. In 225 initial public offerings (IPOs), the volume of media- provided information had a negative, diminishing relationship with underpricing and a positive, diminishing relationship with stock turnover on the first day of trading. The relationship between the tenor of media-provided information and underpricing in- creases at a nonlinear rate, and decreases similarly for turnover. Findings provide important evidence that publicly available information not only reflects IPOs' legiti- macy, but also adds to their legitimacy and influences investor behavior. In the last 20 years, an increasing amount of research on markets has been conducted from a social constructionist perspective, emphasizing how social structures enhance the flow of useful and credible information that market participants use to reduce the uncertainty of market exchanges (e.g., Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Zuckerman, 1999). Fur- ther, recent organizational research has begun to stress the influence of information intermediaries, such as financial analysts and the media, on mar- kets (Deephouse, 2000; Rao, Greve, & Davis, 2001; Rindova & Fombrun, 1999; Zuckerman, 1999). Within organizational research, two views of infor- mation mediaries, or "infomediaries," can be iden- tified: Economists view infomediaries as expert monitors that facilitate exchanges between buyers and sellers (Biglaiser, 1993; Croson, 1996). Institu- tional theorists, on the other hand, emphasize how infomediaries legitimate firms by influencing stakeholder perceptions of the desirability and ap- propriateness of firm actions and characteristics
Current scholarship on how science affects law's legitimacy in advanced capitalist democracies yields inconsistent predictions and findings. This article resolves inconsistencies and provides new insights by constructing a general framework relating law's legitimacy to the mix of legal and scientific rationalities in law. Consistent with dualistic visions of structure as both rules/schemas and resources, the theory specifies how competing legal and scientific rule/resource sets shape action and produce order and change through conflict in and over legal institutions. The theory's guiding orientations illuminate legitimacy processes, order, and change in other institutions including the economy, the polity, and education.
By framing the economics versus environment debate as a mixed-motive situation, opportunities become visible that allow greater benefits to all interests in the debate. Yet, social, cultural, and institutional arrangements frame how these interests see these opportunities, creating a barrier to mixed-motive analyses. In this article, the authors use an institutional perspective to analyze how the economics versue environment debate emerges from institutions as presently structured. They present an analysis of its present framing based on three aspects of institutions—regulative, normative, and cognitive—and consider the prescriptive implications they expose at the managerial and organizational level of action. The authors conclude with an analysis of possible solutions to overcome them.
In this article, the authors make the case for using frame analysis, an analytical tool commonly used in empirical work on social movements and social policy debates, as a strategy for organizational research. Using two sample texts—representing opposite stands on how the socially responsible investing movement should view investing decisions based on corporate handling of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered workplace issues—they illustrate several important methodological and epistemological concerns for organizational scholars considering this technique. They examine four key issues in particular that arise in thinking about how and why to use frame analysis: (a) using frame analysis to sort out underlying logics; (b) situating frames in context; (c) surfacing politics, subjugated voices, and implicit ideologies; and (d) making mindful choices as organizational researchers. They give special attention to the problem of how our reflexive positions and claims about knowledge have implications for conducting and reading frame analyses.
This study examined the impact of institutional linkages on the failure of child care service organizations in Metropolitan Toronto, Canada, between 1971 and 1987. A dynamic analysis shows that organizations with institutional linkages exhibited a significant survival advantage that increased with the intensity of competition. The effectiveness of institutional linkages in contributing to survival also depended on the characteristics of organizations that established ties and the external legitimacy of the ties themselves. Institutional linkages also had a significant moderating influence on the relationship between organizational transformation and the risk of failure. The findings of this study suggest that efforts to establish the prepotency of institutional versus ecological explanations of organizational survival should not preclude inquiry into the causal consistencies and interactions between these theories' predictions.
ABSTRACT Through a series of three inductive and deductive studies, I describe how spokespersons from the California cattle industry constructed and effectively used verbal accounts to manage perceptions of organizational legitimacy following controversial events. Findings of Study 1 suggest that organizational accounts are constructed by linking two forms of accounts: acknowledgments,or denials, with two contents of accounts: references to institutionalor technical characteristics of the organization. Findings of Studies 2 and 3 suggest that, in protecting organizational legitimacy (1) acknowledgments are more effective than denials, (2) references to institutionalized characteristics are more effective than references to technical characteristics,and (3) accounts combining acknowledgments,with references to institutionalized characteristics are more effective than accounts with only one of these components. Effectiveness appears to depend on audiences' perceptions of the controversy, expertise in the area of controversy, and expectations of organizational responses. Overall, findings suggest that concepts from institutional and impression management theories may be combined,to improve our understanding of organizational accounts and thus enhance models of symbolic management. • 3
The authors investigate the coevolution of organizations and institutions - they study how institutional definitions, rules, and expectations unfold in tandem with the organizational structures and processes that embody those institutions. The research site is the early thrift industry. Changes in thrifts' technical environment (the rise of a transient and heterogeneous population) and institutional environment (the rise of Progressivism) propelled this coevolutionary process. The coevolution of thrift organizations and institutions proceeded primarily through selection. Adaptation was constrained by both institutional factors (it was difficult to adopt a novel institutional logic) and technical factors (early thrifts were generally small, so entry and exit were easy).
This article synthesizes the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches. The analysis identifies three primary forms of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based on normative approval: and cognitive, based on comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness. The article then examines strategies for gaining, maintaining, and repairing legitimacy of each type, suggesting both the promises and the pitfalls of such instrumental manipulations.
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
Using data on 143 hospital organizations, this article examines the antecedents and effects of two forms of organizational legitimacy (managerial and technical) over a 46-year period. Results show that both the managerial and technical forms provide notable improvements in organizational survival chances but that the strength of each effect varies over time depending on the nature of the institutional environment. Variation also appears in the antecedents of legitimacy - for example, the ability of a hospital to secure approval for its managerial practices depends on the correspondence between its mission and the logic of the surrounding institutional environment. The results suggest that a multidimensional model can reveal nuances of organizational legitimacy that are missed by more unitary conceptions.
While the "new institutionalism" has emerged as a dominant theory of organization-environment relations, very little research has examined its possible limits. Under what circumstances might the neoinstitutional predictions regarding organizational inertia, institutional isomorphism, the legitimacy imperative, and other fundamental beliefs be overshadowed by more traditional sociological theories accentuating organizational adaptation, variation, and the role of specific global and local technical environmental demands? We analyze longitudinal data from 1971 to 1986 for 631 private liberal arts colleges facing strong institutional and increasingly strong technical environments. Our findings reveal surprisingly little support for neoinstitutional predictions: (1) Many liberal arts colleges changed in ways contrary to institutional demands by professionalizing or vocationalizing their curricula; (2) global and local technical environmental conditions, such as changes in consumers' preferences and local economic and demographic differences, were strong predictors of the changes observed; (3) schools became less, rather than more, homogeneous over time; (4) schools generally did not mimic their most prestigious counterparts; (5) the illegitimate changes had no negative (and often had positive) performance consequences for enrollment and survival. Our results suggest that current research on organization-environment relations may underestimate the power of traditional adaptation-based explanations in organizational sociology.
While many sociologists have noted that organizational legitimacy is important for organizational survival, legitimacy has been infrequently empirically examined. This paper presents a conceptual framework in which organizational legitimacy is defined as the congruence between the values associated with the organization and the values of its environment. Challenges to organizational legitimacy and responses to these challenges are illustrated in a discussion of the American Institute for Foreign Study. Corporate philanthropic contributions, the composition and size of boards of directors, and the content of annual reports and other organizational communications are presented as efforts on the part of organizations to achieve legitimacy. The focus on processes of organizational legitimation can be used in analyzing a variety of organizational behaviors that are components of organization-environment interaction.
This study tests a central proposition of institutional theory, that organizational isomorphism increases organizational legitimacy. Results show that isomorphism in the strategies of commercial banks is related to legitimacy conferred by bank regulators and the media, even in the presence of organizational age, size, and performance.
Argues that the formal structure of many organizations in post-industrial society dramatically reflect the myths of their institutional environment instead of the demands of their work activities. The authors review prevailing theories of the origins of formal structures and the main problem which those theories confront -- namely, that their assumption that successful coordination and control of activity are responsible for the rise of modern formal organization is not substantiated by empirical evidence. Rather, there is a great gap between the formal structure and the informal practices that govern actual work activities. The authors present an alternative source for formal structures by suggesting that myths embedded in the institutional environment help to explain the adoption of formal structures. Earlier sources understood bureaucratization as emanating from the rationalization of the workplace. Nevertheless, the observation that some formal practices are not followed in favor of other unofficial ones indicates that not all formal structures advance efficiency as a rationalized system would require. Therefore another source of legitimacy is required. This is found in conforming the organization's structure to that of the powerful myths that institutionalized products, services, techniques, policies, and programs become. (CAR)
The biotechnology and pharmaceutical fields are rife with a wide range of collaborative relationships intended to access knowledge, skills, and resources that cannot be produced by organizations internally in a timely fashion. As more firms rely on external relationships for knowledge, the ability to process, transfer, and transmit knowledge gained in one context to other activities becomes critical. This article examines the capability for learning both how and what to learn in the context of these inter-organizational relations, and it surveys various practices developed by companies for accessing and distributing knowledge. The key challenge in innovation-intensive fields is to develop organizational routines for learning that are robust, flexible, and durable.
Although social movements are often presumed to cause change, the dominant theoretical accounts lead to the opposite conclusion. To explain how challenging movements do produce institutional change, this article introduces the concept of organizational repertoires. Groups marginalized by existing political institutions have an incentive to develop alternative models of organization. These alternative models, in turn, are more likely to be adopted by other political actors to the extent that they embody familiar, but previously nonpolitical, forms of organization. This argument is illustrated with an analysis of political innovation by women's groups in the United States at the turn of the century.
Cultures are dynamic, shared mindsets that, in organizational settings, are usually believed to be nationally or organizationally based. In this paper, the existence of industry cultures is explored. Previous studies of industry-based cognitive constructs have narrowly focused on top managers' mental models for strategic decision making. Here, broad-based assumption sets comprising the cultural knowledge widely shared among organizational participants within two industries (fine arts museums and California wineries) are surfaced and compared. A cognitive definition of culture and a modified ethnographic methodology frame the inquiry. The research process balances the requirements of the inductive method with the logistics of doing research in settings as broad in scope as “industry” and into issues as amorphous as “culture in modern organizations.” This process involves the selection and in-depth interviewing of 96 informants in 12 organizations, representing a cross-section of members of these two industries. The distinct assumption sets that surface for each industry demonstrate, among other things, substantial differences in conceptualizations of membership, competition, the origins of “truth,” the purpose of work, and the nature of work relationships. The findings suggest that the current narrow focus in research on industry-based cognitive constructs can be productively broadened to include a fuller range of cultural elements and a wider set of industry participants. The surfacing of distinct industry mindsets reinforces the emerging belief that a multiplicity of dynamic, shared mindsets exist within an organization's environment. A new cognitive lens—that of industry —is offered, through which scholars and managers alike can view behavior in organizational settings.
This article uses qualitative and quantitative data to examine the institutional change of an interest association. Interest associations are unique institutions in that they may be more concerned with membership growth than with economic gain. However, these associations play a vital role in the social control and evolution of organizational fields. After a discussion of the theoretical literature on institutional change, I examine the change of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as it competed for dominance in the US collegiate athletic field with a contender institution, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. I hypothesize, and find support for the claim that to contend with the competing institution, the NCAA changed by changing its membership criteria. In the early period of the NCAA, it was a place for only high-status schools. After 1952, the NCAA attracted lower-status schools, which were previously not interested in joining the NCAA. This study advances institutional theory using qualitative and quantitative evidence to examine how a major interest association emerged and transformed itself in order to maintain control over field structuration.
In this article, a cognitive approach to the problem of competitor definition is outlined, which begins with a discussion of the information-processing demands implied by current models of competitive strategy. How decision makers simplify the competitive environment by using a mental model of competitive groups is then discussed. Finally, the implications of a cognitive approach for the classifying organizations and organizational adaptation are commented on.
Ownership contests for control of large American corporations have become increasingly problematic and public with the advent of the "hostile takeover." This article examines the diffusion of this once "deviant" innovation. Its focus is on the relationship between changing business practices and American business culture; more specifically, on how the processes of the normative framing of hostile takeovers facilitated their diffusion and legitimation, helping to recreate or sustain order despite the disruptions engendered by takeovers. Three eras in the diffusion of this deviant innovation are delineated. Each is characterized by a language and argot that serve to cushion the hard fact of status loss by acquired executives. Neither culture nor social structure is seen here to dominate this interactive process. The provision of incentives to remain within the institution while career goals and pathways are redefined constitutes a case study of institutional reintegration, within a subsystem of society seld...
This article explores the social processes that produce penalties for illegitimate role performance. It is proposed that such penalties are illuminated in markets that are significantly mediated by product critics. In particular, it is argued that failure to gain reviews by the critics who specialize in a product's intended category reflects confusion over the product's identity and that such illegitimacy should depress demand. The validity of this assertion is tested among public American firms in the stock market over the years 1985-94. It is shown that the stock price of an American firm was discounted to the extent that the firm was not covered by the securities analysts who specialized in its industries. This analysis holds implications for the study of role conformity in both market and nonmarket settings and adds sociological insight to the recent "behavioral" critique of the prevailing "efficient-market" perspective on capital markets.
In this paper we argue that market boundaries are socially constructed around a collective cognitive model that summarizes typical organizational forms within an industry. This model is produced when firms observe each other's actions and define unique product positions in relation to each other. Our study examines the question of how firms define a reference group of rivals when market cues are ambiguous and interorganizational variety is high and identifies the industry model underlying rivalry among Scottish knitwear producers. The data suggest that a six-category model of organizational forms best describes the common sense of competition in the industry and that an ensemble of attributes involving size, technology, product style, and geographic location forms the foundation for this ordering. The results also show how this industry model is reproduced within the rivalry network structuring imperfect competition in the industry.