description
Organisations are said to be legitimate when their existence is widely accepted, and the group is believed to serve useful functions. Legitimacy thereby depends on an organisation adhering to the norms of the society they are embedded within, and the organisation operating in a way that people would expect it to. The perception of legitimacy can be harmed, for example if an organisation engages in criminal behaviour. In such cases, organisations may respond by trying to repair their legitimation through communication about their criminal behaviour. They may do this by trying to convince the public that the organisation is legitimate in specific domains, with two of the primary forms of legitimation being pragmatic and moral legitimacy. Pragmatic legitimacy is about demonstrating that the organisation produced tangible instrumental benefits or is well run. For example, the organisation directly confers benefits upon the public, and so their negative behaviour should be tolerated. Moral legitimacy argues that any violation of social norms or morals can be excused due to specific circumstance, for example because a higher moral value justified their behaviour. However, very little is known about how effective these communications are in persuading the public, and even less is known about how effective these communications are when the organisations concerned are overtly criminal (e.g. organised criminal groups). The aim of this project would be to begin to explore how effective legitimation attempts about criminal activities may be.
Research questions
Exact research questions will be determined based on student interests after discussion. Example research questions include:
1. What form of legitimation communication is more effective in changing public opinion about a criminal group?
2. Does the effectiveness of the communication depend upon the type of criminal action performed
3. Does the effectiveness of communication differ depending upon the legal status of the organisation? (E.g. legitimate vs illegitimate businesses)
4. How might individual differences in the beliefs and attitudes of the public change how effective different types of legitimation are?
Research method
Most likely this research will use an online experiment. A mixed methods approach is possible.
Data-analysis
The data of this study will be analysed using quantitative data analysis programs such as R.
Literature
Johnson, C., Dowd, T. J., & Ridgeway, C. L. (2006). Legitimacy as a Social Process. Annual Review of Sociology, 32(Volume 32, 2006), 53-78. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.32.061604.123101
Siraz, S. S., Claes, B., De Castro, J. O., & Vaara, E. (2023). Theorizing the Grey Area between Legitimacy and Illegitimacy. Journal of Management Studies, 60(4), 924-962. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12901
Schoultz, I., & Flyghed, J. (2020). From “We Didn’t Do It” to “We’ve Learned Our Lesson”: Development of a Typology of Neutralizations of Corporate Crime. Critical Criminology, 28(4), 739-757. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-019-09483-3
Information
This project is open to 1 student.
Are you interested in this topic for your thesis? Please contact the theme coordinator Lynn Weiher: l.weiher@utwente.nl