Corporate Legitimacy Across Cultural Contexts: Mapping the Cultural Schemata of Religio-Institutional Actors
The goal of this research is to deepen the conceptual understanding of the relationship between economic actors such as the multinational corporation (MNC) and the religio-institutional environments in which they transact. The influence of culture as embodied by religion, religious ideologies and organizations upon the corporation is of considerable importance – especially to those corporations that operate in a diversity of religious environments. The processes by which individuals of different nationalities and religions perceive and judge economic actors are of great import to managers who seek legitimacy across a diversity of religious and national contexts. Attaining legitimacy in an institutional environment secures access to resources and therefore creates an easier path to strategic success (Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975; Hannan & Freeman, 1977; Kostova & Zaheer, 1999; Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Therefore, I have extended upon the recent developments and challenges to neo-institutional theory proposed by Kostova, Roth, and Dacin (2008) to examine how religious leaders interpret and influence the institutionalized rule systems governing corporate behavior. This study also contributes to recent work in the management literature that studies discursive legitimation strategies of organizations which are critical to successfully negotiating the institutional environment (Hardy, Palmer, & Phillips, 2000; Phillips, Lawrence, & Hardy, 2004; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005; Vaara & Tienari, 2008). The theoretical contribution of this project is to enhance the conceptual clarity and scope of corporate legitimacy as perceived and evaluated by social agents external to the firm.
To achieve this goal, this research analyzes how corporate legitimacy is perceived and evaluated by powerful religio-institutional actors across three national and cultural contexts. Specifically, I use long semi-structured qualitative interviews to investigate how religious actors from four countries (Egypt - Islam, Israel - Judaism, Sweden-Secular Humanism, and United States-Christianity) understand and evaluate the legitimacy of corporate activity. The important constructs in this normative evaluation are identified and described in detail for each context. General schematic models of corporate legitimacy are then proposed for each national context. Finally, the models are compared across national contexts to illustrate how contextual idiosyncrasies influence the overall normative model of corporate legitimacy.
The findings of this research consist of detailed thick descriptions and theoretical models that illustrate the cognitive schematic contours of pro- and anti-legitimacy tendencies within the three national contexts. Additionally, I offer a full examination of the cross-national similarities and differences that are relevant to the evaluation of corporate legitimacy. Naturally the full findings are much too long to report fully in this abbreviated abstract, however some highlights are worth noting. Three dominant and universal constructs were found to influence this evaluation throughout all national contexts and they were Money (UNIV_01), Globalization (UNIV_02), and Business (UNIV_03). Second, in each national context I examined the concepts and themes that contribute to the formation of each universal construct. Direct quotes were taken from the interviews that highlighted the main facets of each discovered theme. Third, within each national context I also evaluated the concepts and themes to determine if they supported a pro- or anti-corporate legitimacy tendency. Therefore, for each national context I propose two schematic maps – one that would be characteristic of a pro-legitimacy evaluation, and one that would be characteristic of an anti-legitimacy evaluation. Finally, I compared the differences and idiosyncrasies of each universal construct across all three national contexts.
In addition to the findings outlined above I will also describe what I consider to be two of the most important and overriding narratives or metonyms that are common to all participants and contexts. These central socio-cultural metonyms are present in all analyzed countries with only context-dependent variations to differentiate between them. The first central metonym is that in each national context there exists a traditional affirmation of the business enterprise when conducted appropriately. Within each context this affirmation-metonym supports the legitimacy of productive economic activity.
The second overriding metonym is that society must moderate the acquisitive nature of business. This is an extension of the first metonym in that it expands upon the condition of what is considered appropriate. This theme was consistently expressed in every context using a variety of different discursive characters and techniques. From a social evolutionary perspective this moderation-metonym is unsurprising. Society, in abstract, has evolved in response to ongoing historical events to generate a complex system of formal and informal institutions that enable and constrain behavior to promote the ongoing survival of society. Specifically, social institutions – of which religion is a prime example – largely encourage pro-social behavior and discourage anti-social behavior. The moderation-metonym for this research is expressed as an explicit social recognition of the potentially self-interested and harmful nature of corporate activity and a subsequent impulse to moderate, restrict, or control that acquisitive nature in order to bring it in line with social norms and expectations.
In conclusion the primary contribution of this research has been to significantly deepen our understanding about how corporate legitimacy is perceived and evaluated by religio-institutional actors in and across three national contexts.