Companies with inherently unsustainable business models and high public salience face a paradox, as they need to construct themselves as desirable and appropriate organizations to maintain their license to operate, while at the same time profiting from practices that are fundamentally unsustainable. This paper advances our understanding of legitimation under paradoxical conditions by examining how a highly visible and inherently unsustainable company legitimizes its unsustainability. Based on a micro-level analysis of corporate sustainability reports, press releases, and company quotes in news articles, we identify both traditional legitimation strategies and paradoxical legitimation strategies, the latter of which conflict with other legitimation strategies through tensions related to boundaries, agency, and temporality. Our findings show how paradoxical legitimation strategies enable companies to sustain their unsustainability by engaging in an ongoing oscillation between claiming sustainability and defending unsustainability.
ArslanA.HaapanenL.Hurmelinna-LaukkanenP.TarbaS. Y.AlonI. (2021). Climate change, consumer lifestyles and legitimation strategies of sustainability-oriented firms. European Management Journal, 39(6), 720–730.
4.
BanerjeeS. B.JermierJ. M.PeredoA. M.PereyR.ReichelA. (2021). Theoretical perspectives on organizations and organizing in a post-growth era. Organization, 28(3), 337–357.
5.
BertiM.CunhaM. P. (2023). Paradox, dialectics or trade-offs? A double loop model of paradox. Journal of Management Studies, 60(4), 861–888.
6.
BickR.HalseyE.EkengaC. C. (2018). The global environmental injustice of fast fashion. Environmental Health, 17(92), 1–4.
7.
BitektineA.HaackP. (2015). The “macro” and the “micro” of legitimacy: Toward a multilevel theory of the legitimacy process. Academy of Management Review, 40(1), 49–75.
BlanchardT. (2023, December28). “Textile zombie” v fossil fashion: The battle to clean up the clothing industry in 2023. The Guardian.
10.
BockenN. M. P.ShortS. W. (2021). Unsustainable business models—Recognising and resolving institutionalised social and environmental harm. Journal of Cleaner Production, 312, 127828.
11.
BoiralO.BrothertonM.-C.TalbotD.GuillaumieL. (2022). Legitimizing unsustainable practices: The institutional logics of pro-pesticide organizations. Business Strategy and the Environment, 31(5), 2284–2298.
12.
BoiralO.BrothertonM.-C.YurievA.TalbotD. (2022). Through the smokescreen of the dieselgate disclosure: Neutralizing the impacts of a major sustainability scandal. Organization & Environment, 35(2), 175–201.
13.
BreezeR. (2012). Legitimation in corporate discourse: Oil corporations after deepwater horizon. Discourse & Society, 23(1), 3–18.
14.
BrydgesT. (2021). Closing the loop on take, make, waste: Investigating circular economy practices in the Swedish fashion industry. Journal of Cleaner Production, 293, 126249.
15.
BundyJ.ShropshireC.BuchholtzA. K. (2013). Strategic cognition and issue salience: Toward an explanation of firm responsiveness to stakeholder concerns. Academy of Management Review, 38(3), 352–376.
16.
BuschT.BarnettM. L.BurrittR. L.CashoreB. W.FreemanR. E.HenriquesI.HustedB. W.PanwarR.PinkseJ.SchalteggerS.YorkJ. (2024). Moving beyond “the” business case: How to make corporate sustainability work. Business Strategy and the Environment, 33(2), 776–787.
CelikH.EkiciA. (2025). “I crossed my own line, but here is what I do”: The moral transgressions of sustainable fashion consumers and their use of alternating moral practices as a cognitive-dissonance-reducing strategy. Journal of Business Ethics, 196(4), 917–936.
19.
ChasséS.BoiralO. (2016). Legitimizing corporate (un)sustainability: A case study of passive SMEs. Organization & Environment, 30(4), 324–345.
20.
ChiuS.-C.SharfmanM. (2011). Legitimacy, visibility, and the antecedents of corporate social performance. Journal of Management, 37(6), 1558–1585.
21.
ChuaJ. M. (2022, September15). Why H&M canceled “Conscious Choice.”Sourcing Journal.
22.
CiprianiR. (1987). The sociology of legitimation. Current Sociology, 35(2), 1–20.
23.
DagilienėL.VaraniūtėV. (2023). Transitioning to a circular economy: Paradoxical tensions of the circular business model. Organization & Environment, 36(4), 559–589.
DowlingJ.PfefferJ. (1975). Organizational legitimacy: Social values and organizational behavior. Pacific Sociological Review, 18, 122–136.
26.
DurandR.HawnO.IoannouI. (2019). Willing and able: A general model of organizational responses to normative pressures. Academy of Management Review, 44(2), 299–320.
27.
EdwardsM. G. (2021). The growth paradox, sustainable development, and business strategy. Business Strategy and the Environment, 30(7), 3079–3094.
28.
ElsbachK. D.SuttonR. I. (1992). Acquiring organizational legitimacy through illegitimate actions: A marriage of institutional and impression management theories. The Academy of Management Journal, 35(4), 699–738.
29.
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(7), 813–839.
30.
European Parliament. (2020). The impact of textile production and waste on the environment.
31.
FernsG.AmaeshiK. (2019). Fueling climate (in)action: How organizations engage in hegemonization to avoid transformational action on climate change. Organization Studies, 42(7), 1005–1029.
32.
FernsG.AmaeshiK.LambertA. (2019). Drilling their own graves: How the European oil and gas supermajors avoid sustainability tensions through mythmaking. Journal of Business Ethics, 158, 201–231.
33.
GioiaD. A.CorleyK. G.HamiltonA. L. (2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15–31.
34.
Gómez SánchezL.TobonS. (2025). Sustainable investing among young generations: Balancing ideals and financial realities. Discover Sustainability, 6(1), 275.
35.
HaffarM.SearcyC. (2020). Legitimizing potential “bad news”: How companies disclose on their tension experiences in their sustainability reports. Organization & Environment, 33(4), 534–553.
36.
HahnR.LülfsR. (2014). Legitimizing negative aspects in GRI-oriented sustainability reporting: A qualitative analysis of corporate disclosure strategies. Journal of Business Ethics, 123, 401–420.
37.
HahnT.PinkseJ.PreussL.FiggeF. (2015). Tensions in corporate sustainability: Towards an integrative framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(2), 297–316.
38.
HahnT.PinkseJ.PreussL.FiggeF. (2018). A paradox perspective on corporate sustainability: Descriptive, instrumental, and normative aspects. Journal of Business Ethics, 148, 235–248.
39.
HahnT.PreussL.PinkseJ.FiggeF. (2014). Cognitive frames in corporate sustainability: Managerial sensemaking with paradoxical and business case frames. Academy of Management Review, 39(4), 463–487.
HarmonD. J.GreenS. E.GoodnightG. T. (2015). A model of rhetorical legitimation: The structure of communication and cognition underlying institutional maintenance and change. Academy of Management Review, 40(1), 76–95.
42.
HarrellA. (2022, November11). H&M hit with second greenwashing lawsuit. Sourcing Journal.
IivonenK. (2018). Defensive responses to strategic sustainability paradoxes: Have your Coke and drink it too!Journal of Business Ethics, 148(4), 309–327.
JayJ.SoderstromS.GrantG. (2017). Navigating the paradoxes of sustainability. In SmithW. K.LewisM. W.JarzabkowskiP.LangleyA. (Eds.), Oxford handbook of organizational paradox (pp. 353–373). OUP.
58.
JoutsenvirtaM. (2013). Executive pay and legitimacy: Changing discursive battles over the morality of excessive manager compensation. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(3), 459–477.
LittleV. J.LeeC. K. C.NairS. (2019). Macro-demarketing: The key to unlocking unsustainable production and consumption systems?Journal of Macromarketing, 39(2), 166–187.
61.
LiveseyS. M. (2002). Global warming wars: Rhetorical and discourse analytic approaches to ExxonMobil’s corporate public discourse. Journal of Business Communication, 39(1), 117–148.
62.
LiveseyS. M.KearinsK. (2002). Transparent and caring corporations? A study of sustainability reports by The Body Shop and Royal Dutch/Shell. Organization & Environment, 15(3), 233–258.
63.
LuqueA.Herrero-GarcíaN. (2019). How corporate social (ir)responsibility in the textile sector is defined, and its impact on ethical sustainability: An analysis of 133 concepts. Corporate Social Responsibility & Environmental Management, 26, 1285–1306.
64.
MagnaniG.GioiaD. (2023). Using the Gioia Methodology in international business and entrepreneurship research. International Business Review, 32(2), 102097.
OnkilaT.MäkeläM.JärvenpääM. (2018). Employee sensemaking on the importance of sustainability reporting in sustainability identity change. Sustainable Development, 26(3), 217–228.
71.
PalmC. (2023). Sustainable fashion: To define, or not to define, that is not the question. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 19(1), 2261342.
72.
PalmC.CornellS. E.HäyhäT. (2021). Making resilient decisions for sustainable circularity of fashion. Circular Economy and Sustainability, 1(2), 651–670.
73.
PedersenE. R. G.GwozdzW.HvassK. K. (2018). Exploring the relationship between business model innovation, corporate sustainability, and organisational values within the fashion industry. Journal of Business Ethics, 149(2), 267–284.
74.
Peirson-SmithA.ClaxtonS. (2024). Waste not, want not: Re-routing garment and textile waste streams to create circular fashion design eco-systems in Bangladesh and beyond. In Recycling and lifetime management in the textile and fashion sector. CRC.
75.
PinkseJ.HahnT.FiggeF. (2019). Supersized tensions and slim responses? The discursive construction of strategic tensions around social issues. Academy of Management Discoveries, 5(3), 314–340.
PutnamL. L.FairhurstG. T.BanghartS. (2016). Contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes in organizations: A constitutive approach. Academy of Management Annals, 10, 65–171.
78.
SchneiderA. (2020). Bound to fail? Exploring the systemic pathologies of CSR and their implications for CSR research. Business & Society, 59(7), 1303–1338.
79.
SchneiderA. (2024). Untaming grand challenges research: Against a de-politicization of grand challenges. Business & Society, 63(6), 1302–1306.
80.
SchoenebornD.MorsingM.CraneA. (2020). Formative perspectives on the relation between CSR communication and CSR practices: Pathways for walking, talking, and t(w)alking. Business & Society, 59(1), 5–33.
81.
ScottW. R. (2001). Institutions and organizations. Sage.
82.
SeeleP.GattiL. (2017). Greenwashing revisited: In search of a typology and accusation-based definition incorporating legitimacy strategies. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26(2), 239–252.
83.
SegranE. (2021, January27). H&M is one of fashion’s biggest polluters. Fast Company.
84.
SmithW. K.LewisM. W. (2011). Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 381–403.
SternM. (2022, July13). H&M case shows how greenwashing breaks brand promise. Forbes.
87.
SuchmanM. C. (1995). Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 571–610.
88.
TalbotD.BoiralO. (2018). GHG reporting and impression management: An assessment of sustainability reports from the energy sector. Journal of Business Ethics, 147(2), 367–383.
89.
TontiL. (2023, October19). ‘The missing link’: Is textile recycling the answer to fashion’s waste crisis?The Guardian.
90.
TraceyP.CreedW. E. D. (2017). Beyond managerial dilemmas: The study of institutional paradoxes in organization theory. In SmithW. K.LewisM. W.JarzabkowskiP.LangleyA. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of organizational paradox (pp. 169–177). Oxford University Press.
VaaraE.MoninP. (2010). A recursive perspective on discursive legitimation and organizational action in mergers and acquisitions. Organization Science, 21(1), 3–22.
96.
VaaraE.TienariJ. (2008). A discursive perspective on legitimation strategies in multinational corporations. Academy of Management Review, 33(4), 985–993.
97.
Van der BylC. A.SlawinskiN. (2015). Embracing tensions in corporate sustainability: A review of research from win-wins and trade-offs to paradoxes and beyond. Organization & Environment, 28(1), 54–79.
98.
van LeeuwenT. (2007). Legitimation in discourse and communication. Discourse & Communication, 1(1), 91–112.
99.
van LeeuwenT.WodakR. (1999). Legitimizing immigration control: A discourse-historical analysis. Discourse Studies, 1(1), 83–118.
100.
WeaverG. R.TrevinoL. K.CochranP. L. (1999). Integrated and decoupled corporate social performance: Management commitments, external pressures, and corporate ethics practices. The Academy of Management Journal, 42(5), 539–552.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
