Exploring Conditions for Environmental Legitimacy: Evidence from the Energy Industry

Abstract

Prior research on environmental legitimacy has significantly advanced our understanding of how single factors affect stakeholders? assessment of the environmental legitimacy of a particular firm. Given that stakeholders build their perception holistically on a combination of multiple, interdependent factors, we investigate how different, complex configurations of factors could lead to positive or negative legitimacy evaluations from stakeholders. Based on our fsQCA methodology, we find that none of the conditions we identified is either sufficient or necessary to achieve environmental legitimacy. More specifically, results indicate that (a) that environmental performance and legitimacy are not necessarily associated in a one-to-one relationship; (b) that the combination of internal adaptation and impression management initiatives might be less effective in generating legitimacy than expected; and (c) that global and local strategies can both lead to high legitimacy when appropriately complemented.