Legitimation strategies for heterogeneous environments Managing legitimacy challenges imposed by stakeholders with conflicting interests
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2023-06-30
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en
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This research examined how organisations can use legitimation strategies to manage the legitimacy challenges that are imposed by stakeholders with conflicting interests. The research that has been conducted is done through qualitative research and followed an inductive approach. A single case study was conducted at Liander to research the legitimacy of the organisation in regard to transportation scarcity issues the organisation is currently facing. In this single case study, the stakeholders with conflicting interests were primarily high-volume clients who challenge the pragmatic legitimacy of Liander and on the other side the Dutch government who challenge the regulatory legitimacy of Liander. Data was collected through multiple sources. Firstly, 13 semi-structured interviews formed the main source of data. Interviews were conducted with employees of Alliander that are affiliated with the mentioned stakeholder groups. Documents were also used as a source of information. Since the empirical material from the interviews was new, the Gioia method was used to analyse the data. The findings show that Liander uses multiple legitimation strategies to manage the pragmatic and regulatory legitimacy challenges that are imposed by the stakeholders. This research builds on the existing literature and developed two additional strategies that can be used by organisations, being the strategy of transparency & openness and the strategy of collaborative alliances. These strategies can be used in combination with the existing legitimation strategies of moral reasoning, strategic manipulation and isomorphic adaptation, therefore following a paradox approach. This means that multiple legitimation strategies should be used at the same time. By adding the strategies of transparency & openness and of collaborative alliances, organisations have more options to manage their organisational legitimacy. Additionally, multiple stakeholders may see the organisation as legitimate, in contrast to only receiving support from one side.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen