Negotiations of Internal Legitmacy in the Wake of an External Legitimacy Crisis

• In Event: Organizational Communication Research Escalator - Extended Session

Abstract

This study of narratives in and around a public railway service, E-rail, has the ambition of contributing with a micro-level perspective on legitimacy negotiations. It aims to link conceptions of external and internal legitimacy – while also bridging micro-level accomplishments of legitimacy with more macro-level understanding of ceremonial adoption and decoupled process. The analysis of the story work of 20 ticket inspectors bear evidence that ceremonial adoption may not be a deliberate strategy, as argued by Meyer and Rowan (1977) but rather the outcome of employees’ storytelling practices cynically disregarding managerial initiatives while creating an alternative institutional memory (Linde, 2001) of ‘who we are’ and ‘what we do’. Understanding the micro-level pursuits of (re) establishing legitimacy thus proposes a new perspective to understand how ceremonial adoption emerges in organizations.

Author

• Sanne Frandsen, Copenhagen Business School