Keywords

Introduction

This chapter addresses the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) legitimation and organizational identity. The purpose is to examine through the lens of organizational identity the tendency for modern organizations to seek legitimacy as socially and environmentally responsible actors and become associated with values such as sustainability and altruism. Specifically, the chapter highlights the CSR legitimation implications of the tendencies for business organizations to seek a normative organizational identity despite having a predominantly utilitarian identity and government organizations to seek a utilitarian identity despite having a predominantly normative identity. These identity category dynamics, it is argued here, shed light on why organizations promote themselves as socially and environmentally responsible in order to acquire and maintain legitimacy. The argument is that CSR legitimation should not be seen in isolation from important identity questions such as “what are we” and “what do we want to be.”

In this chapter, CSR legitimation is defined as the process of acquiring legitimacy as a socially and environmentally responsible organization. The definition is inspired by Matten and Moon’s (2008, p. 405) understanding of CSR as “clearly articulated and communicated policies and practices of corporations that reflect business responsibility for some of the wider societal good.” The focus is on what government and business organizations say about their CSR activities (how they seek to “look good”), and the identity dynamics underlying such CSR legitimation, rather than what they actually do to be socially and environmentally responsible (how they seek to “be good”). The propagation of CSR is considered a strategic matter aimed at providing legitimacy benefits, for which both government and business organizations are assumed to have a clearly felt need.

Organizational legitimacy can be defined as “the perceived appropriateness of an organization to a social system in terms of rules, values, norms, and definitions” (Deephouse et al. 2017, p. 32). The basis for legitimacy results from the overall benefit of the organization to the individual evaluator, generating pragmatic legitimacy, or to the society as a whole, producing moral legitimacy (Bitektine 2011). In this chapter, these forms of legitimacy are assessed with respect to government and business organizations. Their basic features are well-known: Government organizations have normative identities, meant to protect and promote the public interest (thereby generating moral legitimacy), whereas business organizations are utilitarian, designed to pursue the interests of their owners (thereby generating pragmatic legitimacy). A central argument of this chapter is that these category differences have blurred and that government and business organizations have answers to their identity questions that differ from what their respective category identities would suggest. More importantly, these answers have implications for their legitimation strategies, including CSR legitimation. The chapter proceeds by distinguishing between these different identities and legitimation strategies and explores the blurring of the category boundaries that adds to our understanding of CSR legitimation.

Organizational Identity

Organizational identity are “those features of an organization that in the eyes of its members are central to the organization’ character or ‘self-image’, make the organization distinctive from other similar organizations, and are viewed as having continuity over time” (Gioia et al. 2013, p. 125). By providing answers to questions such as “who are we,” “what are we,” “what do we stand for,” and “what do we want to be,” organizations define and express their central, distinctive, and continuous features, which in turn provide a platform for actions and decisions. They also define their social identities in the sense that they signal membership in a social category of organizations. The answer to the question “who are we” typically involves features that are shared with other organizations in addition to those that are unique. By declaring membership in social identity categories, organizations signal who they are similar to and who they are different from (Albert and Whetten 1985).

A central argument in organizational identity theory is that identity categories matter for legitimacy. This point of view is particularly significant in the social actor perspective on organizational identity (King and Whetten 2008; Whetten et al. 2014; Whetten and Mackey 2002), but also in strategy research on categories (Navis and Glynn 2010; Zuckerman 1999) and in organizational legitimacy literatures (Bitektine 2011). According to King and Whetten (2008, p. 195), being recognized as a member of a known category of organization is “the principal means whereby organizations gain legitimacy.” Having a specific identity type as an organization signals what stakeholders can expect from it in terms of behavior and thus the standards by which to hold it accountable. Members of the same category are subject to the same expectations and are evaluated on the basis of the same metrics. Organizations whose category identity is unknown or uncertain will face difficulties acquiring and maintaining legitimacy as well as attracting the resources they need to survive (Zuckerman 1999). Moreover, organizations whose actions and behavior do not correspond to stakeholders’ expectations of them based on the category to which they belong are likely to face legitimacy issues. It follows that category membership allows stakeholders to observe, evaluate, and understand organizations and to derive expectations of their behavior.

If we accept that identity category matters for legitimacy, then the strategic decisions made at the beginning of an organization’s life cycle will influence this organization’s chances of acquiring and maintaining legitimacy over time. Strategic decisions involving a movement toward a different identity category at a later stage in the life cycle will also influence the organization’s legitimacy. Every identity category comes with a certain set of values and features that members “inherit” and become associated with (cf. Barnett and Hoffmann 2008; King et al. 2002). This spillover effect from the category to the individual organization could be a blessing and a curse depending on the legitimacy of the category. As a result, different categories of organizational identity could have different needs for legitimation.

Normative and Utilitarian Identities

Organizations can be sorted into one or several overarching ideal-typical categories associated with a specific set of core characteristics and values: business, government, and charity (Bromley and Meyer 2017). Within the limited space of this chapter, the focus is on the identities of business and government organizations, their blurring, and the implications of this blurring for CSR legitimation.

As an ideal-typical category, business organizations have utilitarian organizational identities emphasizing economic production, individuality, profit, and efficiency (Albert and Whetten 1985; Parsons 1960). They pursue their own interests and behave in a way that benefits their owners and customers. The interests of the larger society, underprivileged individuals, or specific local communities are not intended to be prioritized domains. This fundamental aspect of business organizing was described by Milton Friedman (2007, p. 178) in the following way: “There is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” His viewpoint is controversial today and refuted by many who argue that businesses can create value for the society while at the same time creating value for themselves (Kleine and von Hauff 2009; Porter and Kramer 2011). However, others have advocated Friedman’s view (Peter Drucker, quoted in Bakan 2004; Henderson 2001; Karnani 2010).

In the case of business organizations, the relationship between organizational identity and legitimacy is relatively straightforward: The utilitarian organizational identity mainly generates pragmatic legitimacy. By responding to the needs of “their most immediate audiences,” (Suchman 1995, p. 578) business organizations seek legitimacy based on the “self-interested calculations” of these audiences” (ibid.). In contrast, government organizations have normative identities emphasizing cultural aspects, collective welfare, and moral values (cf. Albert and Whetten 1985). They are not created to pursue their own or their owners’ interests. Rather, they exist to serve the public interest and promote societal welfare. Their missions manifest themselves through the provision of intangible services and goods from which it is difficult or impossible to generate profits, including the handling of societal challenges and issues such as unemployment, pollution, national security, and social problems, which require national regulation, taxation, funding, and legislation.

Thus, in contrast to business organizations, government organizations in Western liberal democracies have a strong built-in responsibility for social and/or environmental issues. This is a central part of their raison d’être and an important basis of what they are and what they do – their identity. It primarily generates moral legitimacy in the sense that their existence is based on their ability to effectively promote societal welfare (Bitektine 2011; Suchman 1995). However, these are arguments from an ideal-typical point of view. The differences are blurred for various reasons in practice, including the tendency for utilitarian organizations to adopt features of the normative identity and vice versa .

Legitimacy and Legitimation

Scholars agree that legitimacy is a requirement for organizational survival. This is a fundamental insight in all organizational and management research, applicable to all kinds of formal organizations including business organizations. Organizations are social institutions, generally dependent on their stakeholders having favorable perceptions of them, in which case they receive support and better access to human, financial, and physical resources.

Many organizations have experienced, and continue to experience, a need to bolster their legitimacy. Scholars have noted that acquiring and maintaining legitimacy are “chronic difficulties” (Elsbach and Sutton 1992, p. 700) and “always problematic” (Ashforth and Gibbs 1990, p. 177). Empirical research has identified legitimacy problems arising from unethical behavior, greenwashing attempts, and various scandals and corporate irresponsibility committed by business organizations. These problems have led to a loss of support from key constituents, forcing these companies to defend their legitimacy and implement legitimacy-restoring strategies of both the substantive and symbolic type. Similarly, government organizations in Western democracies have faced legitimacy issues arising from perceived lack of transparency, corruption, and bad quality of services (Rothstein 2011), leading to bureaucracy-bashing and the image of government being surrounded by a “pessimistic fog of distrust, cynicism, and contempt” (Farnswarth 2003, pp. 2–3).

The active process of acquiring and maintaining organizational legitimacy is legitimation. This is a strategic process that involves justifying one’s “right to exist to a peer or superordinate system” (Maurer 1991, cited in Suchman 1995, p. 573). According to Ashforth and Gibbs (1990), legitimation encompasses substantive or symbolic approaches. When pursuing substantive legitimation strategies, an organization makes real change in its practices, goals, structures, processes, and priorities in order to conform to the expectations of its constituents. When pursuing symbolic legitimation strategies, an organization designs its communication and description of its practices, goals, structures, processes, and priorities so that external constituencies believe that the organization is behaving in accordance with the rules, values, norms, and definitions of the larger system. CSR legitimation could be both substantive and symbolic.

CSR Legitimation in the Business Sector

To acquire and maintain legitimacy, companies increasingly “adopt the language and practice of CSR” (Matten and Moon 2008, p. 404) by engaging in legitimation activities involving both substantive and symbolic approaches to CSR (Schons and Steinmeier 2016). The aim of CSR legitimation is to justify one’s right to exist as an organization on the basis of its commitment to CSR.

A wide range of substantive approaches have been observed in empirical studies of business organizations such as, for example, reducing waste and pollution, recycling, trading CO2 quotas, donating money to charities and other social purposes, and having employees volunteer for social enterprises and in local communities. As noted earlier, however, the focus here is mainly on the symbolic aspects of CSR legitimation because substantive change often offers less direct legitimacy benefits. Recent studies have found that stakeholder awareness of organizations’ CSR activities is low (Bhattacharya et al. 2008; Du et al. 2007; Sen et al. 2006). Unless legitimacy-granting audiences are aware of the socially and environmentally responsible actions, companies are unlikely to obtain legitimacy benefits from them. As a result, companies want to not only “be good” but also “look good” (Perez-Batres et al. 2012), leading to the proliferation of a range of symbolic approaches involving the direct communication of companies’ CSR commitment and “green” legitimation (Wæraas and Ihlen 2009). Examples from business organizations include CSR reporting; CSR communication strategies; strategic philanthropy; CSR branding through core values, mission statements, and visual designs promoting CSR; and other symbolic and sensory means of expressing CSR commitment.

A number of scholars have argued that symbolic CSR involves ceremonial conformity with stakeholder expectations (Boiral 2007; Schons and Steinmeier 2016; Weaver et al. 1999). The argument is that symbolic CSR legitimation involves insincere CSR claims, taking advantage of the fact that stakeholders have little awareness of actual CSR performance. This can, of course, be the case if symbolic approaches are not matched with corresponding substantive CSR actions. Such ceremonial conformity could encompass activities described as window-dressing (Weaver et al. 1999), greenwashing (Marquis et al. 2016), bluewashing (Bigge 2004), green spin (Alves 2009), and CSR-washing (Pope and Wæraas 2016). However, symbolic CSR legitimation is not necessarily insincere or completely decoupled from realities. It could be a relevant strategy for informing or reminding stakeholders about non-visible CSR activities, especially for government organizations that typically are associated with negative perceptions despite having users or clients with positive perceptions .

CSR Legitimation in the Public Sector

CSR legitimation strategies are equally available to all kinds of organizations from a theoretical point of view. However, with some exceptions (Abdelmotaleb and Saha 2019; Bennett 2011; Hawrysz and Foltys 2016; Ogarcă and Puiu 2017), CSR has typically not been studied in the context of government organizations. Studies tend to examine the role of governments in promoting CSR in the business sector rather than how government organizations undertake CSR initiatives or promote themselves as CSR-oriented. As a result, mapping the CSR legitimation strategies of government organizations is trickier compared to business organizations.

Still, it is possible to argue that CSR has become a relevant legitimation strategy for government organizations (cf. Gjølberg 2010, p. 203). Consider, for example, the following statements made publicly by local governments in Norway (translated by the author).

The above statements can be understood as legitimation efforts aimed at becoming associated with altruistic values and characteristics relating to social and environmental responsibility. As such, they are legitimacy-restoring responses to critical claims pointing to the inability of government organizations to successfully address their own social and environmental responsibility (Lanested 2019; Mandag Morgen 2007). They could also be seen as legitimacy-enhancing initiatives creating conformity with business organizations, which generally are considered more “complete” organizations (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000) and have a more comprehensive focus on CSR.

Regardless of the underlying reason, the statements are arguably examples of symbolic legitimation approaches to CSR. The listed municipalities in Table 1 formulate their missions, priorities, guidelines, values, and functions using well-known and already institutionalized CSR concepts such as social responsibility, ecological balance, climate challenges, sustainability, and reducing environmental footprint. The mere fact that they use the word social responsibility the same way as business organizations suggests that it is not sufficient simply to “do good” for government organizations, but they must also convince stakeholders by communicating about their values and priorities in order to “look good.”

Table 1 CSR statements retrieved from Norwegian local governments
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It follows that the social and environmental responsibility of government organizations can be described as having two aspects. The first is strictly connected to the ability of government entities to substantively fulfill their institutional mission of generating some form of societal benefit. The second is the symbolic aspect of CSR legitimation, associated with government organizations’ ability to gain legitimacy benefits from propagating their CSR values, principles, intentions, internal regulations, and involvement in areas that may or may not be directly related to their institutional mission.

Organizational Identity Dynamics and CSR Legitimation

The dramatic increase in CSR initiatives in the private sectors of the Western world observed by a number of scholars seems to be a paradox. Substantive CSR activities are, at least strictly speaking, not consistent with the utilitarian organizational identity of these organizations. CSR could only be seen as consistent with the utilitarian identity if it is a means to an end, that is, if it is carried out as a symbolic legitimation strategy and/or contributes to the maximization of profit.

For government organizations, a different paradox emerges with respect to CSR legitimation. Substantive CSR legitimation is consistent with their normative organizational identity because social and environmental responsibilities are central aspects of what they are and do. However, symbolic legitimation is arguably at odds with the normative identity because it does not directly benefit societal welfare or the public interest. Rather, it benefits the interests of the relevant government agency because it positively influences stakeholder perceptions. Moreover, symbolic CSR legitimation could involve exaggerated claims and the projection of an image that does not correspond to actual realities. Undertaking additional CSR that does not directly fall within the institutional or social mission of these organizations is also a paradox, especially when such activities are conveyed strategically in social media, websites, campaigns, and other means of communication.

How can these legitimation paradoxes be understood and explained from organizational identity theory? The remainder of the chapter describes important dynamics of organizational identity categories and discusses how they add to our understanding of CSR legitimation .

Identity Category Dynamics

The dynamics of organizational identity categories of interest here can be summed up in the following way: Business organizations have generally moved toward normative identities, whereas government organizations have moved in the opposite direction by adopting aspects of the utilitarian identity.

Business Organizations’ Quest for Normative Identities

Given that organizational identity constitutes a platform for actions and decisions, new actions often emerge from a revised identity or have the potential to change identity over time. Accordingly, CSR legitimation in the business sector can be understood in light of a desire to transition from utilitarian to normative organizational identities.

The normative identity is expressed in multiple types of identity claims. Companies of any size, industry, and geographical location tend to have core value statements, vision and mission statements, codes of conduct, company philosophies and credos, and so on, expressing central, continuing, and unique organizational characteristics. These statements are not necessarily direct reflections of member understandings of the organization, as they more often are the result of top management’s internal sense-giving attempts (cf. Ravasi and Schultz 2006). They are also typically meant to generate a favorable impression of the company among external stakeholders and can be important components of corporate branding strategies. Consider, for example, the statements made by these companies (Table 2).

Table 2 Identity statements retrieved from Fortune Global 500 top ten companies
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The companies are the ten mostly highly ranked on the 2019 Fortune Global 500 index. They are the most profitable, powerful, and successful companies in the world. They have not become profitable, powerful, and successful by being socially and environmentally responsible, i.e., by pursuing a substantive CSR legitimation strategy. In fact, the self-interested pursuit of profit and wealth for themselves and their shareholders has brought them to commit intentional acts of fraud, bribery, pollution, the mistreatment and discrimination of workers, and the violation of human rights. These incidents become “scandals” when they are uncovered (although many continue to deny any wrongdoing), many of which having significant legal and financial ramifications. For example, in the recent “Dieselgate” scandal, Volkswagen pleaded guilty and accepted to pay $4.3 billion in penalties in the USA (The New York Times 2017), and Volkswagen-owned Audi division accepted to pay a fine of €800 million in Germany in connection with the same scandal (The New York Times 2018). In June 2019, Walmart was ordered to pay $282 million to settle a bribery investigation concerning payments made to Mexican and Chinese officials (Forbes 2019).

These incidents are arguably the result of a very strong utilitarian organizational identity. However, paradoxically, the utilitarian identity is not the most dominant in these companies’ mission statements and core values. By claiming to stand for a large number of values expressing a normative identity such as service, respect, integrity, people, honesty, caring, loyal, commitment, citizenship, solidarity, pride, and bravery, the companies want their employees to act in accordance with a normative identity and their external stakeholders to perceive them as having “soft” identity characteristics emphasizing relational and people-oriented values. Walmart expresses its normative identity through its mission to make people “save money” so they can “live better.” Volkswagen elaborates its core value “responsibility” by saying that “We are part of society. We take on social responsibility. We pay attention to the environmental compatibility of our products and processes, and improve them, every day.” Shell claims to stand for “integrity,” “honesty,” and “respect for people.” Toyota wants to “make the earth a better place to live” and “promote a compassionate society.” Very few values in Table 2 express a utilitarian identity. Typical utilitarian values such as performance and profit orientation, which could be very helpful for business organizations, are actually not mentioned at all.

The above examples are consistent with a longitudinal study of company self-presentations in employment advertisements (Wæraas 2020). The study showed a clear tendency for business organizations to present themselves as “leading,” “competitive,” “better than others,” “hardworking,” “hands-on,” “growing,” “producing good results,” and “world-class” in the 1980s and 1990s. Toward and after the 2000s, however, characteristics emphasizing a normative identity gradually took over and dominated the identity statements.

Thus, the tendency for business organizations to seek legitimacy on the basis of CSR is increasingly coupled with what they are and stand for. They redefine their activities in the language of CSR by communicating identity labels that emphasize normative rather than utilitarian identities, promoting moral rather than pragmatic legitimacy. The normative identity enables considerations of the society, people, the environment, and local communities. In turn, such considerations are more likely to entail CSR commitment than utilitarian identities (cf. Bingham et al. 2011; Wickert et al. 2017). The more company statements reflect a normative identity, the more understandable these companies’ CSR activities become .

Government Organizations’ Quest for a Utilitarian Identity

With the blurring of the boundaries between businesses and government organizations, a need arises to reexamine the role and significance of social and environmental responsibility legitimation in the public sector domain. The adoption of business identity characteristics manifests itself in two ways for government organizations:

First, large-scale reforms (known as New Public Management) in many public sectors of the Western world have enabled the “liberation” of public organizations (Light 1995) by giving them increased autonomy and/or by turning them into single-purpose agencies with distinct identities (Verhoest et al. 2012). Whereas traditional, monolithic public organizations are instruments of politicians in carrying out public policies, unable to act on their own behalf, autonomous public agencies are “liberated” and designed to pursue their own interests. As noted by Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson (2000), public organizations have been transformed into organizational actors in their own right. In doing so, the reforms have weakened the normative public sector identity of government organizations and introduced strong components of the utilitarian identity. The reforms are based on the assumption that government organizations should be held to the same standards of efficiency and performance as any other organization and that notions of “outputs” and “results” are relevant guidelines for these organizations. The reforms have created government entities that in their managerial practices, priorities, and structures resemble private sector organizations.

Second, as a result of these reforms, government organizations are encouraged to understand themselves less as specific cases of public sector entities and more as formal organizations in pursuit of goals and results. Empowered public agencies have the liberty to define their own identity and to compare themselves to business organizations. This comparison has resulted in a large-scale adoption of business and management practices from the private sector such as performance measurement (van Dooren 2005), management by objectives, strategic planning (Berry 1994), and risk management (Power 2004), to mention a few. In many cases in Norway, these practices are imposed by law or regulations because the central government requires state-level organizations to report results and goal fulfillment on the basis of key performance indicators. However, in many other areas, government organizations voluntarily adopt well-known business models and practices such as balanced scorecard (Chan 2004), lean (Radnor 2010), reputation management (Wæraas and Sataøen 2014), and core value statements (Kernaghan 2003).

Such adoptions are strictly speaking not consistent with the traditional, bureaucratic, rule-oriented public sector organization. It requires a new or at least modified self-understanding: an identity that enables government organizations to see themselves as similar to business organizations and to require the same organizational “building blocks” as these organizations (Wæraas 2018). This identity drift is probably never going to be completed because of the overarching mission of government organizations of serving the public interest, which is, in the end, different from those of business organizations. For this reason, public administration research examining the organizational identity implications of NPM reforms has found more modifications and local translations of “old” administrative values and identities rather than the full-scale adoption of a “new” managerial identity (Meyer and Hammerschmid 2006; Rondeaux 2006; Skålén 2004).

Nevertheless, radical changes in the overarching identity of public organizations are more likely to occur with the influence from business sector identities than without, and business identity characteristics can still be prominent in external legitimation efforts. The table below shows how a sample of Norwegian local governments officially describe themselves on the basis of values and characteristics that are consistent with a utilitarian organizational identity (Table 3).

Table 3 Identity statements retrieved from Norwegian local governments
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It is perhaps not surprising that municipalities choose to focus on efficiency in resource use given the scarcity of resources faced by many of them and the formal accounting and administrative requirements imposed on them. Moreover, there is no contradiction between maximizing collective welfare and being goal-oriented. However, the statements, as well the actual practices of these organizations, confirm the institutionalization of goal orientation, results, performance, rational systems, and management in government summarized by Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson (2000) as the transformation of public sector organizations into “complete” organizations. Any examination of Norwegian municipalities’ web sites would reveal a multitude of management and governance documents describing systems for rational and goal-oriented governance, with goals broken down into sub-goals supplemented with adequate indicators for verifying whether the goals have been met.

The statements also confirm a transition toward utilitarian organizational identity in public sector organizations because goal orientation, performance managements, results, and rational management are values and characteristics not only associated with what these organizations do but also deliberately with what they are and they stand for. The municipalities themselves claim to represent these values and to organize their activities in accordance with them. Løten Municipality “is goal-oriented,” Os Municipality is “very results-oriented,” Sandefjord Municipality is “a goal-oriented organization,” Drammen Municipality “shall be one of the best” concerning “efficient resource use,” and so on. As such, utilitarian characteristics arguably have an external legitimation function for these organizations. When conveying their rational organizational systems and processes to external stakeholders, government organizations seek conformity with “more complete” business organizations.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that many government organizations have redefined and currently propagate their socially responsible mission in CSR terms. When CSR is ubiquitous among business organizations, and government organizations identify with and adopt many of the other practices of business organizations, they also become more likely to adopt CSR practices, including symbolic CSR legitimation. The identity drift toward the utilitarian organizational identity suggests that CSR legitimation follows logically and “naturally.” Government organizations engage in substantive and symbolic CSR legitimation because they want to not only “do good” but also “look good” – just like business organizations .

Discussion and Conclusion

The questions of “who are we” and “what do we want to be” are fundamental identity questions whose answers influence strategies, decisions, and actions. Whether an organization is a government or a business organization matters for what it does because overarching normative and utilitarian identities entail different underlying values and characteristics, which in turn influence strategies, decisions, and actions.

The argument developed in this chapter, however, is that these boundaries are fluid and that CSR legitimation should be seen in conjunction with the blurring of organizational identity categories. A business organization that adopts characteristics of the normative identity will not stop understanding itself as a business or no longer seek pragmatic legitimacy, but it will be more likely to assume responsibility for issues outside its business area and propagate its CSR involvement in order to tap into the moral legitimacy basis of the normative identity. Similarly, a government organization that adopts characteristics of the utilitarian identity is unlikely to stop understanding itself as government or no longer seek moral legitimacy, but it will be more likely to adopt those managerial practices that are more typical for business organizations, including a more strategic approach to its social and environmental responsibilities.

These complex identity dynamics represent an important background for understanding CSR legitimation. Figure 1 sums up these arguments in the following way.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Organizational identity dynamics and CSR legitimation

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First, substantive CSR legitimation is associated with the normative identity because it aims to benefit collective interests, whereas symbolic CSR legitimation is associated with the utilitarian identity because it aims to benefit self-interests. Substantive CSR legitimation generates moral legitimacy, but can also result in pragmatic legitimacy if CSR actions directly benefit specific groups or individuals. Symbolic CSR legitimation creates moral legitimacy because it aims to establish a perceived connection with altruistic values, but could also generate pragmatic legitimacy if it involves creating the impression that the organization caters to the needs or interests of specific groups or individuals.

Second, for business organizations, which by definition are meant to purse their self-interests, CSR is consistent with the utilitarian identity only if it is a means to an end, that is, if it is carried out as a symbolic legitimation strategy and/or contributes to the maximization of profit. However, driven by the limitations of the pragmatic form of legitimacy, modern business organizations aspire toward the normative identity. This leads them to seek moral legitimacy by engaging in both substantive and symbolic forms of CSR legitimation. By contrast, government organizations have normative identities and engage in substantive social and environmental legitimation activities by their nature. However, they aspire toward the utilitarian identity of business organizations because of large organization-building reforms and the proliferation of the idea that government entities also are “organizations,” just like business organizations. This aspiration leads to the adoption of managerial practices and models from the business sector, including symbolic forms of CSR legitimation.

These arguments are abstract, generalized, and limited because they do not distinguish between different types of government organizations, between different industries within the business sector, or between different cultural contexts. As a result, there are ample opportunities for future research to examine in more detail the CSR legitimation implications of organizational identity dynamics. Some government organizations may not aspire toward a utilitarian identity at all, and some business organizations may not aspire toward the moral identity at all, in which case none of them is likely to propagate their CSR activities. On the other hand, some government organizations might show a stronger disposition toward the utilitarian identity than others. Some business organizations could have a stronger need for moral legitimacy than others. Local government, for example, interacts more closely with specific user groups than central government bodies and may therefore have a stronger aspiration toward the utilitarian identity. Future research could seek to determine how and to what extent such nuanced category differences influence CSR legitimation, including the ways in which substantive and symbolic CSR legitimations vary under different identity dynamics.