The painful legitimation process of a new identity in a professional service firm

Le processus douloureux de légitimation d’une nouvelle identité dans une entreprise de services professionnels

Caroline Mothe and Emmanuel Mastio
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Caroline Mothe: IREGE - Institut de Recherche en Gestion et en Economie - USMB [Université de Savoie] [Université de Chambéry] - Université Savoie Mont Blanc
Emmanuel Mastio: UTS - University of Technology Sydney

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Abstract: To make an aspirational new organizational identity concrete, professional service firms (PSFs) must find ways to legitimate their new offerings. Using an inductive, longitudinal case study of an Australian intellectual property firm that aspires to become a strategic service provider, this study reveals that constructing a new identity forces the organization to engage in targeted, nuanced legitimating activities toward stakeholders, including both clients and the patent attorneys who are its owners and managing directors. The results establish a clear description of legitimacy dynamics and the interrelations of legitimacy and identity issues; provide evidence that organizational members can constrain professional organizations' efforts to make an aspirational identity concrete; and demonstrate theoretically that professional and individual legitimacies can link organizational identity aspirations with external legitimacy.

Keywords: Aspiration; Legitimacy; Organisational identity; Professional service firm; Légitimité; Identité organisationnelle; Société de services professionnels (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Published in Gestion 2000, 2022, Volume 39 (2), pp.19-39. ⟨10.3917/g2000.392.0019⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03971194

DOI: 10.3917/g2000.392.0019

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