Understanding the potential for duplicity to undermine legitimacy

Abstract

Literature on impressions management and organizational identity suggests that in order to gain legitimacy with a variety of constituents many organizations must manage impressions of organizational constituents such that different organizational identities develop. What has not been well thought out, however, is the potential for differing or divergent organizational identities to be perceived by constituents as an attempt by the organization to be duplicitous. This paper builds and elaborates on a model for understanding the potential for such duplicity to decouple the functions of substantive management from symbolic management thereby undermining organizational legitimacy.