As is the case for internal organization rhetoric, external rhetoric is essential to understanding, evaluating, and improving organizations’ participation in the sociopolitical discourse in the communities where they operate. As a parallel to the 2008 special issue on internal organizational rhetoric, this issue examines organizations’ participation in and response to the discourse external to them and definitive of the dynamics of resource dependency. This introductory article sets the foundation for launching this discussion, which is pursued in other articles and responded to by yet additional authors. In short, the purpose of this issue is to explore how organizations engage constructively and destructively in the discourse that defines their legitimacy.
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