How organizations legitimate their actions under conditions of institutional change is a central yet little understood question. To address this gap, this paper investigates how incumbent firms legitimate investments in both novel and conventional technologies during periods of institutional and technological transition. We examine the rhetorical strategies that energy incumbents employ to gain legitimacy for their investments in renewable (legitimacy-gaining or novel) and non-renewable (legitimacy-losing or conventional) technologies. Employing a mixed-method content analysis of 483 press releases on strategic energy investments, published by the world’s largest energy firms during the time period 2010 to 2015, we find that incumbents utilize two different types of hybrid rhetoric to justify their investments. For investments in non-renewables, incumbents use pragmatic blending, appropriating the clean rhetoric traditionally associated with challenger technologies and combining it with justifications highlighting performance-oriented outcomes. The rhetoric used for investments in renewables involves visionary blending, combining rhetoric related to corporate strategy with sustainability rhetoric. We furthermore argue that these hybrid rhetorical strategies are observed when the legitimacy trajectories of two technologies intersect. Our study contributes to the research on rhetorical institutionalism, incumbents’ role during institutional change, and technology legitimacy.
AshforthB. E.GibbsB. W. (1990). The double-edge of organizational legitimation. Organization Science, 1(2), 177–194.
2.
BarrosM. (2014). Tools of legitimacy: The case of the Petrobras corporate blog. Organization Studies, 35, 1211–1230.
3.
BergB. L.LuneH.LuneH. (2004). Qualitative research methods for the social sciences (vol 5). Boston, MA: Pearson.
4.
BitektineA.HaackP. (2015). The “macro” and the “micro” of legitimacy: Toward a multilevel theory of the legitimacy process. Academy of Management Review, 40, 49–75.
5.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance (2015). New Energy Outlook.
6.
Ceres. (2014). Benchmarking Utility Clean Energy Deployment, 2014.
7.
ChristensenC. (1997). Making strategy: Learning by doing. Harvard Business Review, 75, 141–156.
8.
CialdiniR. B.BordenR. J.ThorneA.WalkerM. R.FreemanS.SloanL. R. (1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 366–375.
ColyvasJ.PowellW. (2006). Roads to institutionalization: The remaking of boundaries between public and private science. Research in Organizational Behavior, 27, 305–353.
11.
CornelissenJ. P.DurandR.FissP. C.LammersJ. C.VaaraE. (2015). Putting communication front and center in institutional theory and analysis. Academy of Management Review, 40(1), 10–27.
12.
CornelissenJ.WernerM. (2014). Putting framing in perspective: A review of framing and frame analysis across the management and organizational literature. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 181–235.
13.
CrillyD.HansenM.ZolloM. (2016). The grammar of decoupling: A cognitive-linguistic perspective on firms’ sustainability claims and stakeholders’ interpretation. Academy of Management Journal, 59, 705–729.
14.
DavidP. A. (1985). Clio and the economics of qwerty. American Economic Review, 75, 332–337.
15.
DeephouseD. L.SuchmanM. (2008). Legitimacy in organizational institutionalism. In GreenwoodR.OliverC.SahlinK.SuddabyR. (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 49–77). London: SAGE Publications.
16.
DesaiV. M. (2011). Mass media and massive failures: Determining organizational efforts to defend field legitimacy following crises. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 263–278.
17.
DewaldJ.BowenF. (2010). Storm clouds and silver linings: Responding to disruptive innovations through cognitive resilience. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 34, 197–218.
18.
DiMaggioP. J.PowellW. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147–160.
DunningT., (1993). Accurate methods for the statistics of surprise and coincidence. Computational Linguistics, 19(1), 61–74.
21.
ElsbachK. (1994). Managing organizational legitimacy in the California cattle industry: The construction and effectiveness of verbal accounts. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39, 57–88.
22.
ErkamaN.VaaraE. (2010). Struggles over legitimacy in global organizational restructuring: A rhetorical perspective on legitimation strategies and dynamics in a shutdown case. Organization Studies, 31, 813–839.
23.
EtzionD.FerraroF. (2010). The role of analogy in the institutionalization of sustainability reporting. Organization Science, 21, 1092–1107.
24.
GalaskiewiczJ. (1985). Interorganizational relations. Annual Review of Sociology, 11, 281–304.
25.
GarudR.GehmanJ.KarnøeP. (2010) Categorization by association: Nuclear technology and emission-free electricity. Research in the Sociology of Work, 21, 51–93.
26.
GolantB. D.SillinceJ. A. (2007). The constitution of organizational legitimacy: A narrative perspective. Organization Studies, 28, 1149–1167.
27.
GreenS. E. (2004). A rhetorical theory of diffusion. Academy of Management Review, 29, 653–669.
28.
GreenwoodR.SuddabyR. (2006). Institutional entrepreneurship in mature fields: The big five accounting firms. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 27–48.
29.
GreenwoodR.RaynardM.KodeihF.MicelottaE. R.LounsburyM. (2011). Institutional complexity and organizational responses. Academy of Management Annals, 5, 317–371.
30.
GuérardS.BodeC.GustafssonR. (2013). Turning point mechanisms in a dualistic process model of institutional emergence: The case of the diesel particulate filter in Germany. Organization Studies, 34, 781–822.
31.
GursesK.OzcanP. (2015). Entrepreneurship in regulated markets: Framing contests and collective action to introduce pay TV in the US. Academy of Management Journal, 58, 1709–1739.
32.
HaackP.SchoenebornD.WickertC. (2012). Talking the talk, moral entrapment, creeping commitment? Exploring narrative dynamics in corporate responsibility standardization. Organization Studies, 33, 815–845.
33.
HahnT.PinkseJ.PreussL.FiggeF. (2016). Ambidexterity for corporate social performance. Organization Studies, 37, 213–235.
34.
HardyC.MaguireS. (2010). Discourse, field-configuring events, and change in organizations and institutional fields: Narratives of DDT and the Stockholm Convention. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 1365–1392.
35.
HargadonA. B.DouglasY. (2001). When innovations meet institutions: Edison and the design of the electric light. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 476–501.
36.
HarmonD.GoodnightT.GreenS. (2015). A model of rhetorical legitimation: The structure of communication and cognition underlying institutional maintenance and change. Academy of Management Review, 40, 76–95.
37.
HendersonR. M.ClarkK. B. (1990). Architectural innovation: The reconfiguration of existing product technologies and the failure of established firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 9–30.
38.
HoeferR. L.GreenS. E. (2016). A rhetorical model of institutional decision making: The role of rhetoric in the formation and change of legitimacy judgments. Academy of Management Review, 41, 130–150.
39.
HumphreysA. (2010). Megamarketing: The creation of markets as a social process. Journal of Marketing, 74, 1–19.
40.
IEA (2014). Energy technology perspectives 2014: Harnessing electricity’s potential. Paris: International Energy Agency.
41.
JoutsenvirtaM.VaaraE. (2015). Legitimacy struggles and political corporate social responsibility in international settings: A comparative discursive analysis of a contested investment in Latin America. Organization Studies, 36, 741–777.
42.
MadsenT. L.WalkerG. (2007). Incumbent and entrant rivalry in a deregulated industry. Organization Science, 18, 667–687.
43.
MaguireS.HardyC. (2009). Discourse and deinstitutionalization: The decline of DDT. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 148–178.
44.
ManningC.SchützeH. (1999). Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
RaffaelliR.GlynnM. A. (2014). Turnkey or tailored? Relational pluralism, institutional complexity, and the organizational adoption of more or less customized practices. Academy of Management Journal, 57, 541–562.
50.
RaoH. (2002). Tests tell: Constitutive legitimacy and consumer acceptance of the automobile: 1895–1912. New Institutionalism in Strategic Management, 19, 307–335.
51.
RussoM. V. (2001). Institutions, exchange relations, and the emergence of new fields: Regulatory policies and independent power production in America, 1978–1992. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 57–86.
52.
SchalteggerS.Lüdeke-FreundF.HansenE. G. (2016). Business models for sustainability: A co-evolutionary analysis of sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and transformation. Organization & Environment, 29, 3–10.
53.
ShortJ. C.BrobergJ. C.CogliserC. C.BrighamK. H. (2010). Construct validation using computer-aided text analysis (CATA): An illustration using entrepreneurial orientation. Organizational Research Methods, 13, 320–347.
54.
StuartT. E. (1998). Network positions and propensities to collaborate: An investigation of strategic alliance formation in a high-technology industry. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43, 668–698.
55.
SuchmanC. (1995). Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review, 20, 571–611.
UnruhG. C. (2000). Understanding carbon lock-in. Energy Policy, 28, 817–830.
59.
VaaraE.MoninP. (2010). A recursive perspective on discursive legitimation and organizational action in mergers and acquisitions. Organization Science, 21, 3–22.
60.
VaaraE.TienariJ. (2008). A discursive perspective on legitimation strategies in multinational corporations. Academy of Management Review, 33, 985–993.
61.
VaaraE.TienariJ.LaurilaJ. (2006). Pulp and paper fiction: On the discursive legitimation of global industrial restructuring. Organization Studies, 27, 789–810.
62.
VaccaroA.PalazzoG. (2015). Values against violence: Institutional change in societies dominated by organized crime. Academy of Management Journal, 58, 1075–1101.
63.
Van LeeuwenT.WodakR. (1999). Legitimizing immigration control: A discourse-historical analysis. Discourse Studies, 1(1), 83–118.
64.
Van WijkJ.StamW.ElfringT.ZietsmaC.den HondF. (2013). Activists and incumbents structuring change: The interplay of agency, culture, and networks in field evolution. Academy of Management Journal, 56, 358–386.
65.
VergneJ. (2012). Stigmatized categories and public disapproval of organizations: A mixed-methods study of the global arms industry, 1996–2007. Academy of Management Journal, 55, 1027–1052.
66.
VolberdaH.LewinA. (2003). Co-evolutionary dynamics within and between firms: From evolution to co-evolution. Journal of Management Studies, 40, 2111–2136.
67.
WainsteinM.BumpusA. (2016). Business models as drivers of the low carbon power system transition: A multi-level perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production, 126, 572–585.
68.
WeberK.HeinzeK. L.DeSouceyM. (2008). Forage for thought: Mobilizing codes in the movement for grass-fed meat and dairy products. Administrative Science Quarterly, 53, 529–567.
69.
WernerM. D.CornelissenJ. P. (2014). Framing the change: Switching and blending frames and their role in instigating institutional change. Organization Studies, 35, 1449–1472.
70.
ZimmermanM. A.ZeitzG. J. (2002). Beyond survival: Achieving new venture growth by building legitimacy. Academy of Management Review, 27, 414–431.
