Global corporate communication and the notion of legitimacy

Abstract

When international companies seek to establish legitimacy, it involves different stakeholders locally and globally. This paper analyses corporate communication in order to trace the discursive construction of the customers, investors, staff and authoritiess from whom legitimacy is sought. It is argued that the notion of legitimacy hinges on accountability, i.e. on the selection of groups to whom the writers feel responsible. Annual reports from the airline industry are used to test previous results that are based on concepts of Eastern collectivity and Western individuality. It is shown that this distinction is misleading: contrary to expectation, management construes accountability in similar ways vis-à-vis investors; in relation to the staff, the East-West difference runs along unexpected status-related lines.