The discursive strategy of legitimacy management: A comparative case study of Google and Apple’s crisis communication statements

Changgui Peng (), Shubo Liu () and Yuan Lu ()
Additional contact information
Changgui Peng: Inner Mongolia University
Shubo Liu: Central University of Finance and Economics
Yuan Lu: Shantou University

Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 2021, vol. 38, issue 2, No 5, 519-545

Abstract: Abstract This case study assesses how firms deployed language tactically to cope with crisis events. By applying the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) approach, we identify linguistic characteristics of Google and Apple’s crisis communication in China and note that different discursive strategies were adopted to manage their organizational legitimacy. When facing a major constitutional crisis that threatens the organization’s cognitive and moral legitimacy, the linguistic components consist of words and grammars with associative relationship, strong rhetoric, and inclusion of audience views to secure a wide range of support. When a legitimacy crisis is instrumental, the wording and grammars used are more with realistic relationships and technical rhetoric, with different expected outcomes.

Keywords: Crisis communication; Legitimacy; MNSs; China; Discourse analysis; Systemic functional grammar (SFG) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10490-019-09667-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:asiapa:v:38:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s10490-019-09667-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/10490/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10490-019-09667-z

Access Statistics for this article

Asia Pacific Journal of Management is currently edited by Jane Lu

More articles in Asia Pacific Journal of Management from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().