Managing Organizational Legitimacy: Communication Strategies for Organizations in Crisis

Abstract

Crisis situations can cause internal and external stakeholders to question the legit-imacy of organizations. When faced with a crisis, organizations are compelled to communicate strategically with stakeholders to manage legitimacy. This study syn-thesizes literature on organizational legitimacy, crisis management, and niche-width theory to provide an investigation of the effects of crisis-response strategies on per-ceptions of organizational legitimacy. Using a quasi-experimental, 2 X 2 X 4 design, the study tests the hypotheses that (a) organizations that produce consis-tent crisis responses across stakeholders will enhance their legitimacy, while organ-izations that produce inconsistent crisis responses will reduce theirs; (b) generalist organizations are perceived as being more legitimate than specialist organizations; and (c) when combined, niche-width and crisis-response consistency will produce differing effects on organizational legitimacy. Conclusions drawn from the investi-gation support these hypotheses.