To fully understand legitimacy as a complex construct, it is necessary to capture both
collective perceptions and individual judgments. Much of the empirical research on …

Recent research has conceptualized legitimacy as a multi‐level phenomenon comprising
propriety and validity. Propriety refers to an individual evaluator's belief that a legitimacy …

I develop a theoretical framework that specifies the content underlying legitimacy judgments
and a model of the process by which these judgments develop and change. I argue that …

In this chapter I focus on perceptions of organizational legitimacy. Organizational legitimacy
may be defined as" a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are …

Research on the microfoundations of social evaluations requires microtranslation of
concepts and measures used in macro-organizational research. The development of valid …

Legitimacy has emerged as a pivotal but often confusing construct in management theory.
Defined as a “generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are …

Measuring organizational legitimacy has become a challenge for researchers because they
face a multilevel construct, where diverse terminologies, approaches, and evaluators …

This article synthesizes the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy,
highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional …

Measures of organizational legitimacy fall in three categories, based, respectively, on the
observation of code adoption, firm linkages, and media coverage. Such variety reflects the …

Legitimacy is widely invoked as a condition, cause, and outcome of other social
phenomena, yet measuring legitimacy is a persistent challenge. In this article, I synthesize …