Abstract
This article explores the following questions: what are the nature and the determinants of top executive legitimacy? What are the behaviors displayed by top executives which will increase or decrease their legitimacy in the eyes of their stakeholders? Building on the classical approach to legitimacy (Weber, 1978) as well as the recent work done on the psychology of legitimacy, this research makes two contributions: complementary to the institutional approaches to legitimacy in the fields of strategic management (Suchman, 1995) and ethics (Phillips, 2003), we put forward a behavioral approach to legitimacy and a theoretical model of the “managerial legitimacy” of top executives. Then, building on a qualitative analysis of 39 interviews with French executives in 5 companies, we review the productive and destructive practices in the making of top executive legitimacy as viewed by employees. This allows us to identify future directions in the study of top executive legitimacy.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Annual Meeting of the Society for Business Ethics |
| Place of Publication | San Antonio, Texas |
| Pages | 0-0 |
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 11 Aug 2011 |
| Event | Annual Meeting of the Society for Business Ethics - San Antonio, Texus, 2011 Duration: 11 Aug 2011 → … |
Conference
| Conference | Annual Meeting of the Society for Business Ethics |
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| Period | 11/08/11 → … |
Keywords
- legitimacy
- top executive power
- leadership ethics
- power