ACQUIRING ORGANIZATIONAL LEGITIMACY THROUGH ILLEGITIMATE ACTIONS: A MARRIAGE OF INSTITUTIONAL AND IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT THEORIES.
Open accessAbstract
This article links institutional and impression management perspectives in a process model of how controversial and possibly unlawful actions of members of organizations can lead to endorsement and support from key constituencies. This model is grounded in interview, archival, and observational data concerning eight illegitimate actions attributed to members of two social movement organizations. We found that institutional conformity and decoupling illegitimate activities from legitimate structures facilitated spokespersons’ efforts to use impression management tactics that shifted attention away from the controversial actions and toward the socially desirable goals endorsed by broader constituencies. As a result, these organizations used publicity generated by illegitimate actions to obtain endorsement and support from those constituencies. We discuss the implications of the model for other kinds of organizations and derive testable propositions. We also consider implications for institutional and impres...
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Impression management becomes more important when organizations defend against reputational threats.
“using impression management tactics becomes increasingly important in defending against challenges or threats to an organization's reputation”
From Strategic Silence: Withholding Certification Status as a Hypocrisy Avoidance Tactic (2018) · cites this paper as Elsbach and Sutton, 1992
Cites
The Double-Edge of Organizational Legitimation
Ashforth, B. E., & Gibbs, B. W. (1990) · Organization Science · doi:10.1287/orsc.1.2.177 · Cited by 2,228 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Managing Legitimacy: Strategic and Institutional Approaches
Suchman, M. C. (1995) · The Academy of Management Review · doi:10.2307/258788 · Cited by 19,903 · see citing works
Psychological Perspectives on Legitimacy and Legitimation
Tyler, T. R. (2006) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.57.102904.190038 · Cited by 2,381 · see citing works
The Mutual Knowledge Problem and Its Consequences for Dispersed Collaboration
Cramton, C. D. (2001) · Organization Science · doi:10.1287/orsc.12.3.346.10098 · Cited by 1,916 · see citing works
From smoke and mirrors to walking the talk: Decoupling in the contemporary world
Bromley, P., & Powell, W. W. (2012) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/19416520.2012.684462 · Cited by 1,656 · see citing works
The dark side of organizations: mistake, misconduct, and disaster.
Vaughan, D. (1999) · Annual Review of Sociology · doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.25.1.271 · Cited by 1,072 · see citing works
Configuring management control systems: Theorizing the integration of strategy and sustainability
Gond, J.-P., Grubnic, S., Herzig, C., & Moon, J. (2012) · Management Accounting Research · doi:10.1016/j.mar.2012.06.003 · Cited by 630 · see citing works
Creed, W. E. D., Scully, M. A., & Austin, J. R. (2002) · Organization Science · doi:10.1287/orsc.13.5.475.7814 · Cited by 614 · see citing works
Strategic Silence: Withholding Certification Status as a Hypocrisy Avoidance Tactic
Carlos, W. C., & Lewis, B. W. (2018) · Administrative Science Quarterly · doi:10.1177/0001839217695089 · Cited by 393 · see citing works
ORGANIZATIONAL PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT
Elsbach, K. D. (2003) · Research in Organizational Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0191-3085(03)25007-3 · Cited by 277 · see citing works
Self-citationCorporate Social Responsibility Reporting and Organizational Stigma: The Case of “Sin” Industries
Grougiou, V., Dedoulis, E., & Leventis, S. (2016) · Journal of Business Research · doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.06.041 · Cited by 275 · see citing works
Reputation and Status: Expanding the Role of Social Evaluations in Management Research
George, G., Dahlander, L., Graffin, S. D., & Sim, S. (2016) · Academy of Management Journal · doi:10.5465/amj.2016.4001 · Cited by 161 · see citing works
Haines, E. L., & Jost, J. T. (2000) · Social Justice Research · doi:10.1023/a:1026481205719 · Cited by 120 · see citing works
Cooke, F. L. (2025) · Human Resource Management · doi:10.1002/hrm.22318 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
- Authors
- Elsbach, K. D., & Sutton, R. I.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- ORCID
- Elsbach, K. D.
- Venue
- Academy of Management Journal
- Publisher
- Academy of Management
- Published
- 1992-10-01
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 699-738
- ISSN
- 0001-4273 (ISSN-L)
- 1948-0989
- OpenAlex
- W2156843631
- Cited by
- 1,208
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 39 · 2022: 70 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 53 · 2019: 61 · 2018: 50 · 2017: 49 · 2016: 58 · 2015: 65 · 2014: 47 · 2013: 75 · 2012: 47
- FWCI
- 17.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Academy of Management Journal (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management and Organizational Studies
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Corporate Identity and Reputation
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Organizational Strategy and Culture
- Keywords
- organizational legitimacy, impression management, institutional theory, social movement organizations, institutional decoupling, institutional conformity, spokespersons, publicity, process model
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
