Introduction
New Institutional Theory (NIT) asserts that organizations can present even their negative outcomes or results as acceptable to the public through ceremonies, rationalized myths, references to scientific authorities, statistics, expert advisors, etc. (DiMaggio, Reference DiMaggio1997; Meyer & Rowan, Reference Meyer, Rowan, Powell and DiMaggio1991), either by misrepresenting organizational reality to mislead the public or by justifying their activities to persuade society (Green & Li, Reference Green and Li2011; Lawrence, Reference Lawrence1999; Powell, Reference Powell, Powell and DiMaggio1991; Scott, Reference Scott, Powell and DiMaggio1991). In this way, organizations can achieve legitimacy in accordance with the norms, values, and expectations of their evaluators in their institutional environment (Bitektine, Reference Bitektine2011; Navis & Glynn, Reference Navis and Glynn2010; Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008). Thus, organizational language plays a key role in both changing organizational reality and justifying organizational activities (Heracleous, Reference Heracleous, Grant, Hardy, Oswick and Putnam2004; Putnam & Fairhurst, Reference Putnam, Fairhurst, Jablin and Putnam2001). For example, the role of language was identified in legitimizing new organizations (Zimmerman & Zeitz, Reference Zimmerman and Zeitz2002), start-ups (Lounsbury & Glynn, Reference Lounsbury and Glynn2001), organizations in crisis (Massey, Reference Massey2001), multinationals (Luyckx & Janssens, Reference Luyckx and Janssens2016; Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008); organizations in environmentally sensitive industries (Kuruppu, Milne, & Tilt, Reference Kuruppu, Milne and Tilt2019); the petroleum industry (Lefsrud & Meyer, Reference Lefsrud and Meyer2012); public sector organizations (Wæraas, Reference Wæraas, Luoma-aho and Canel2020); downsizing organizations (Hossfeld, Reference Hossfeld2018; Lamertz & Baum, Reference Lamertz and Baum1998); and mergers (Vaara & Monin, Reference Vaara and Monin2010).
In general, despite numerous studies examining the relationship between language and legitimacy (Bitektine & Haack, Reference Bitektine and Haack2015; Green & Li, Reference Green and Li2011; Haack, Pfarrer, & Scherer, Reference Haack, Pfarrer and Scherer2014; Harmon, Green, & Goodnight, Reference Harmon, Green and Goodnight2015; Patriotta, Gond, & Schultz, Reference Patriotta, Gond and Schultz2011; Suddaby, Bitektine, & Haack, Reference Suddaby, Bitektine and Haack2017; Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008), a number of issues remain neglected from conceptual, theoretical, and practical perspectives. Therefore, this study aims, first, to clarify some issues related to the relationship between organizational language and legitimacy from the perspective of NIT and, second, to provide empirical results by examining Turkish business groups' pursuit of legitimacy through organizational language. To this end, we address two research questions. First, what organizational language strategy influences what kind of legitimacy? Second, what kind of legitimacy does business groups in Türkiye seek through their language strategies? We believe that the results of this study will contribute to the literature by re-addressing and reconsidering some challenging issues.
We have identified four major challenges in the literature when examining the relationship between language and legitimacy. First, the differences and inconsistencies in categorizing language strategies in organizations (Bitektine & Haack, Reference Bitektine and Haack2015; Leeuwen & Wodak, Reference Leeuwen and Wodak1999; Suddaby & Greenwood, Reference Suddaby and Greenwood2005; Vaara, Tienari, & Laurila, Reference Vaara, Tienari and Laurila2006) lead to incommensurable empirical results in the literature, thus clarification is needed in categorizing language strategies. Second, there is no consensus on the classification of types of legitimacy (see, e.g., Aldrich & Fiol, Reference Aldrich and Fiol1994; Archibald, Reference Archibald and Johnson2004; Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, & Suchman, Reference Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017) and we suggest that a new classification is needed. Third, while some studies discuss the influence of language on legitimacy (Golant & Sillince, Reference Golant and Sillince2007; Lounsbury & Glynn, Reference Lounsbury and Glynn2001; Massey, Reference Massey2001; Vaara & Monin, Reference Vaara and Monin2010; Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008; Zimmerman & Zeitz, Reference Zimmerman and Zeitz2002), they neglect the point of which language strategy influences which type of legitimacy. Although some argue that such matching is theoretically impossible (Deephouse & Suchman, Reference Deephouse, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008; Deephouse et al., Reference Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017: 40; Scott, Reference Scott2014), we claim that making connections between legitimacy types and language strategies is both possible and necessary. Finally, most empirical studies examined language-based legitimacy through situational and temporal event-based documents (Hossfeld, Reference Hossfeld2018; Kuruppu, Milne, & Tilt, Reference Kuruppu, Milne and Tilt2019; Lamertz & Baum, Reference Lamertz and Baum1998; Lefsrud & Meyer, Reference Lefsrud and Meyer2012; Vaara & Monin, Reference Vaara and Monin2010; Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008), although for NIT, legitimacy is not defined by organizations' responses to situational and temporal events but by their long-term and stable behaviors and practices. Therefore, we suggest that it is more appropriate to use long-term periodic documents that can better reflect the language of the organization.
Based on these challenging issues in the literature, this study attempts to make some conceptual, theoretical, and methodical recommendations and provide empirical results from the selected Turkish business groups. In doing so, we will first propose a clearer classification of the dimensions of legitimacy. Second, for theoretical and practical reasons, we will attempt to reorganize organizational language strategies. Third, we will then match each organizational language strategy with the types of legitimacy since no such attempt has been made in the literature. Finally, to test our framework linking language strategies to types of legitimacy, we will examine the language strategies of selected Turkish business groups.
Conceptual and theoretical framework
Organizational legitimacy
Legitimacy is an important issue in the literature of NIT (Colyvas & Powell, Reference Colyvas and Powell2006; Meyer & Rowan, Reference Meyer, Rowan, Powell and DiMaggio1991: 53; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995: 572). The establishment of legitimacy depends on the congruence of organizational structure, activities, and outcomes with the regulatory, normative, and cognitive processes of the institutional environment (Scott, Reference Scott2008: 427). Since legitimacy is arises from evaluative actors' perceptions of the organization, it is linked to symbolic organizational realities (Haack, Pfarrer, & Scherer, Reference Haack, Pfarrer and Scherer2014; Harmon, Green, & Goodnight, Reference Harmon, Green and Goodnight2015; Vaara & Monin, Reference Vaara and Monin2010; Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008; Vaara, Tienari, & Laurila, Reference Vaara, Tienari and Laurila2006). Given that language is a symbolic phenomenon that serves to construct social reality (Ainsworth & Hardy, Reference Ainsworth, Hardy, Grant, Hardy, Oswick and Putnam2004: 155), it therefore makes sense to establish a relationship between language and legitimacy.
Numerous attempts have been made to classify legitimacy. For example, Bitektine, Hill, Song, and Vandenberghe (Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020: 108) and Aldrich and Fiol (Reference Aldrich and Fiol1994: 648) proposed cognitive and socio-political legitimacy; Suchman (Reference Suchman1995: 577) pragmatic, moral, and cognitive legitimacy; Scott (Reference Scott2014: 72–74) regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive legitimacy; Archibald (Reference Archibald and Johnson2004: 173) socio-political and cultural legitimacy; and Deephouse et al., (Reference Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017: 39–40) pragmatic, regulatory, moral-normative, and cultural-cognitive legitimacy. In addition, some recent studies have categorized the types of legitimacy as cognitive (cultural), regulatory, moral (ethical), pragmatic (instrumental), managerial (output), technical (professional), emotional, and industrial (sectoral) (Diez-de Castro, Peris-Ortiz, & Diez-Martin, Reference Diez-de Castro, Peris-Ortiz, Diez-Martin, Diez-de-Castro and Peris-Ortiz2018: 9; Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez, & Diez-de-Castro, Reference Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez and Diez-de-Castro2021: 2–6). However, in our view, managerial (output) and technical (professional) types of legitimacies are not consistent with the logic of NIT and rather reflect the views of contingency theory (Suddaby, Bitektine, & Haack, Reference Suddaby, Bitektine and Haack2017: 456–457). In the same way, the industrial (sectoral) distinction is not useful for classifying the dimensions of legitimacy because it refers to the sources of legitimacy (Deephouse & Suchman, Reference Deephouse, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008: 54; Deephouse et al., Reference Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017: 36).
These distinctions are analytical conceptualizations that are likely to clash, and in some cases, they represent phenomena that cannot be separated (Deephouse & Suchman, Reference Deephouse, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008: 67; Deephouse et al., Reference Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017: 40; Powell & Colyvas, Reference Powell, Colyvas, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008: 300; Scott, Reference Scott2014: 74). In order to find a compromise in the categorization of legitimacy types, it is necessary to distinguish between ‘social-organizational’ and ‘phenomenological’ institutionalisms (Meyer, Reference Meyer, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017: 834–835), with the former emphasizing the political and normative and the latter emphasizing the cultural and cognitive causes of the actor's action. Given this distinction, and following Meyer (Reference Meyer, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017: 835) idea that cultural and cognitive processes tend to be phenomenological, while regulatory and normative processes have social-organizational features, it seems plausible to assign ‘socio-political legitimacy’ to social-organizational institutionalism and ‘cultural-cognitive legitimacy’ to phenomenological institutionalism. As can be seen in Table 1, we have placed cognitive and cultural legitimacy in the cultural-cognitive category and normative, moral, regulatory, and pragmatic legitimacy in the socio-political legitimacy category.
Table 1. The processes and types of legitimacy
The rationale for this classification of legitimacy is related to the cognitive states of the evaluators who assess the legitimacy of an organization (Deephouse et al., Reference Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017: 27). Table 1 shows which motivation or trait influences evaluators' judgments when an organization develops a specific language strategy aimed at gaining evaluators' legitimacy (Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez, & Diez-de-Castro, Reference Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez and Diez-de-Castro2021: 4). When such a specific language strategy is truly consistent with the evaluator's cognitive categories (Bitektine et al., Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020), the actor making the judgment is passive (Tost, Reference Tost2011), and in this situation, legitimacy arises automatically (DiMaggio, Reference DiMaggio1997). In such cases, legitimacy usually has a self-reproducing feature (Colyvas & Powell, Reference Colyvas and Powell2006: 309), because it is based on self-evident beliefs and assumptions of the evaluators (Bitektine et al., Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020: 111; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995: 582). It is plausible to refer to this automatically derived legitimacy type as cultural-cognitive (Deephouse et al., Reference Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017; Scott, Reference Scott2014) and to define its formation process as phenomenological (Meyer, Reference Meyer, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017). On the other hand, if a particular language strategy is consistent with the basic features of a collective/social structure (Bitektine et al., Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020) that the actor (evaluator) considers or observes when making a judgment (Haack & Sieweke, Reference Haack and Sieweke2020: 153–154), then the actor is considered active (Tost, Reference Tost2011) and legitimacy emerges at the end of a conscious deliberation (DiMaggio, Reference DiMaggio1997). Here, the actor pays attention to the support or opinion of the social majority in her/his assessment of legitimacy (Haack & Sieweke, Reference Haack and Sieweke2020: 155). Therefore, it is useful to name this type of legitimacy as socio-political (Deephouse et al., Reference Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017; Scott, Reference Scott2014) and to define its formation process as social-organizational (Meyer, Reference Meyer, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017).
Organizational language
The importance of language in understanding organizational symbols has been recognized since interest shifted from sociology and linguistics to the field of organizational theories (Putnam & Fairhurst, Reference Putnam, Fairhurst, Jablin and Putnam2001: 78). As a result, various aspects of organizational actors such as intention, value, social practice, and interaction have been studied (Alvesson & Karreman, Reference Alvesson and Karreman2000a: 137–138). In studies where language and text are linked, language is used in a structural sense as a system of relationships between concepts, while text is used in the sense of practical outcomes that language produces at a particular time on a particular topic (Ainsworth & Hardy, Reference Ainsworth, Hardy, Grant, Hardy, Oswick and Putnam2004: 155). In this respect, ‘text’ is an actual copy of the language used (Fairclough, Reference Fairclough2003: 2). In a broad sense, the term ‘discourse’ is used to encompass all communication practices such as speech, conversation, rhetoric, metaphor, simile, sign, written interaction, visual and oral forms (Grant, Hardy, Oswick, & Putnam, Reference Grant, Hardy, Oswick, Putnam, Grant, Hardy, Oswick and Putnam2004: 3–21; Grant, Keenoy, & Oswick, Reference Grant, Keenoy and Oswick2001: 8; Oswick, Putnam, & Keenoy, Reference Oswick, Putnam, Keenoy, Grant, Hardy, Oswick and Putnam2004: 107).
Lockwood, Giorgi, and Glynn (Reference Lockwood, Giorgi and Glynn2019: 10–14), in reviewing articles published between 1993 and 2017, found that the five most frequently used terms in the management literature were discourse (about 30% of articles), public language or strategic communication (18%), stories or narratives (18%), rhetoric (17%), and frame (15%), and they suggested that the concept of language encompasses all of these terms. For Fairhurst and Cooren (Reference Fairhurst, Cooren, Grant, Hardy, Oswick and Putnam2004: 132) and Putnam and Fairhurst (Reference Putnam, Fairhurst, Jablin and Putnam2001: 80), the concept of language also seems to be better suited to understanding the formation and functioning of social structure because of its structural features. The concept of discourse, on the other hand, reminds us of the powerful intermediary actor (Suddaby, Bitektine, & Haack, Reference Suddaby, Bitektine and Haack2017: 460). For these reasons, we prefer to use the term ‘language’ instead of ‘discourse’ in this study.
In the literature of NIT, a clear link is made between language and social structures or institutions. Language creates a cognitive framework that helps translate subjective meanings into social reality and classifies these meanings by creating fields of meaning or semantic domains. It affects social structures and institutions by contributing to the formation of situational rationalities (Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez, & Prado-Roman, Reference Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez and Prado-Roman2021: 1030; Heracleous, Reference Heracleous, Grant, Hardy, Oswick and Putnam2004: 178) and social identities (Ainsworth & Hardy, Reference Ainsworth, Hardy, Grant, Hardy, Oswick and Putnam2004: 157), which means that it has the capacity to create or change and reflect a social structure through its creative and productive properties (Alvesson & Karreman, Reference Alvesson and Karreman2000a: 138). Although researchers in the early NIT literature ignored the role of language in the process of institutionalization (Phillips, Lawrence, & Hardy, Reference Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy2004: 638), later proposals of language interactions (Powell & Colyvas, Reference Powell, Colyvas, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008: 279), the adaptive role of language (Hirsch, Reference Hirsch1997: 1719), and the relationship between cognition and language (Phillips & Malhotra, Reference Phillips, Malhotra, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008: 703–704) became prevalent. This is because language is intertwined with important cultural symbolic elements (Weick, Reference Weick1993: 635) for organizations, such as myths, rituals, and stories (Putnam & Fairhurst, Reference Putnam, Fairhurst, Jablin and Putnam2001: 79), which are used by organizations for purposes such as legitimacy, prestige, image, and reputation (Golant & Sillince, Reference Golant and Sillince2007: 1152; Swidler, Reference Swidler1986: 273). In this process, the structural property of language determines which symbols and words make up linguistic forms (Loewenstein, Ocasio, & Jones, Reference Loewenstein, Ocasio and Jones2012: 45) and where their boundaries lie (Powell & Colyvas, Reference Powell, Colyvas, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008: 299). In this way, a growing number of studies (Lefsrud, Graves, & Phillips, Reference Lefsrud, Graves and Phillips2019: 2–3; Puyou & Quattrone, Reference Puyou and Quattrone2018: 723–724) examine the effects of multimodal messages combining words and images on legitimacy.
In the literature, different terms such as rhetorical strategies (Bitektine & Haack, Reference Bitektine and Haack2015: 64; Harmon, Green, & Goodnight, Reference Harmon, Green and Goodnight2015: 78; Suddaby & Greenwood, Reference Suddaby and Greenwood2005: 45), legitimacy stories (Golant & Sillince, Reference Golant and Sillince2007: 1153), legitimacy strategies (Vaara & Monin, Reference Vaara and Monin2010: 11; Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008: 985); legitimation strategies (Lefsrud & Meyer, Reference Lefsrud and Meyer2012: 1477), discursive legitimacy strategies (Vaara, Tienari, & Laurila, Reference Vaara, Tienari and Laurila2006: 797) are used to describe the linguistic forms that organizations use to obtain legitimacy from their institutional surroundings. However, we prefer to use the term ‘language strategies’ for the reasons stated above.
The relationship between organizational language strategies and legitimacy
Two groups of studies in the literature place organizational language at the center of NIT. The first focuses on the influence of organizational language on the process of institution formation and change (Clemente & Roulet, Reference Clemente and Roulet2015: 96–97; Cooren, Kuhn, Cornelissen, & Clark, Reference Cooren, Kuhn, Cornelissen and Clark2011: 1163; Cornelissen, Durand, Fiss, Lammers, & Vaara, Reference Cornelissen, Durand, Fiss, Lammers and Vaara2015: 14; Fairhurst & Putnam, Reference Fairhurst and Putnam2004: 6–7; Fiss & Zajac, Reference Fiss and Zajac2006: 1183; Gray, Purdy, & Ansari, Reference Gray, Purdy and Ansari2015: 115–116). This approach is referred to as ‘communicative institutionalism’ (Cornelissen et al., Reference Cornelissen, Durand, Fiss, Lammers and Vaara2015: 14) or ‘rhetorical institutionalism’ (Green & Li, Reference Green and Li2011: 1670), which emphasizes the central role of language and meaning. The second group of studies questions the role of organizational language in establishing organizational legitimacy (Bitektine & Haack, Reference Bitektine and Haack2015: 67; Green & Li, Reference Green and Li2011: 1663; Leeuwen, Reference Leeuwen2007: 93; Patriotta, Gond, & Schultz, Reference Patriotta, Gond and Schultz2011: 1806; Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008: 991; Wæraas, Reference Wæraas, Luoma-aho and Canel2020: 49). In these studies, legitimacy is presented as a perceptual process in which shared meaning emerges through language and is grounded in the structure of language (Suddaby, Bitektine, & Haack, Reference Suddaby, Bitektine and Haack2017: 460). The notion ‘grounded in language’ also indicates approaches that explain legitimacy through language (Suddaby, Bitektine, & Haack, Reference Suddaby, Bitektine and Haack2017: 460), while ‘linguistic method’ refers to all methods that examine the relationship between institutions and institutional factors based on language (Phillips & Malhotra, Reference Phillips, Malhotra, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017: 401–402). The use of standard language practices to achieve legitimacy is defined as ‘institutional strategies’ (Lawrence, Reference Lawrence1999: 166–167).
As illustrated in Figure 1, legitimacy is the way in which an organization is judged and perceived by its environment (Boyd, Reference Boyd2000: 345; Haack & Sieweke, Reference Haack and Sieweke2020: 153) and emerges as a value in the thinking and actions of all evaluating actors (Harmon, Green, & Goodnight, Reference Harmon, Green and Goodnight2015: 76). These actors make judgments about the social characteristics, actions, and outcomes of the organization based on their perceptions and beliefs (Tost, Reference Tost2011: 687). Thus, if the forms of organizations' language strategies do not match the institutional environment or the perceptions and beliefs of the evaluating actors, the desired legitimacy cannot be achieved (Phillips, Lawrence, & Hardy, Reference Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy2004: 639). For this reason, organizations develop their language strategies by prioritizing the expectations of their institutional environment (Green & Li, Reference Green and Li2011: 1663).
Figure 1. Language and organizational legitimacy.
Note. The figure describes the process by which organizational language influences audience perceptions and builds legitimacy.
Researchers have proposed different categorizations of language strategies aimed at organizational legitimacy. Suddaby and Greenwood (Reference Suddaby and Greenwood2005: 45), for example, identified five types of them, namely ontological, teleological, cosmological, historical, and value-based, while Leeuwen and Wodak (Reference Leeuwen and Wodak1999: 104–110) identified four types: authorization, rationalization, moralization, and mythopoeia, and Vaara, Tienari, and Laurila (Reference Vaara, Tienari and Laurila2006: 790) added a fifth category, namely normalization. Green (Reference Green2004: 659–660) refers to three basic strategies: ethos, pathos, and logos. Bitektine and Haack (Reference Bitektine and Haack2015: 51–52) distinction between ‘propriety’ at the individual level and ‘validity’ at the collective level is related. A propriety evaluation occurs when the actor evaluates an organization or its actions as appropriate. Here, the actor's assumptions about legitimacy are paramount. Validity, on the other hand, requires a collective consensus within the social environment to consider the organization or its actions appropriate. We need to keep in mind that evaluators, as individuals, are under the influence of the social context they belong to and therefore gradually adjust their propriety beliefs to their perceived validity (Haack & Sieweke, Reference Haack and Sieweke2018: 491, Reference Haack and Sieweke2020: 154). This link between propriety and validity demonstrates the need for a holistic and contextual perspective on the formation of individual judgments (Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez, & Prado-Roman, Reference Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez and Prado-Roman2021: 1). In this context, Haack, Schilke, and Zucker (Reference Haack, Schilke and Zucker2021: 750) propose the concept of consensus as a meso-level legitimacy component that links the micro-propriety and macro-validity levels, where validity refers to an institutionalized perception of propriety at the collective level. Therefore, consensus is an intermediate structure that indicates the degree to which evaluators in a given social collectivity reach the judgment that a legitimacy is accepted. Adding the level of consensus to legitimacy allows us to account for the possibility that there are potentially conflicting judgments that can trigger a change in perception and explain the transition from individual to collective. In this study, however, we do not want to investigate the relationship between appropriateness and validity but rather wish to find out what language strategies influence them.
All in all, Bitektine and Haack (Reference Bitektine and Haack2015: 64–65) propose 11 strategies, five of which relate to propriety and six to validity. It seems that some of the proposed categories can be combined because of their similarities. For example, normative beliefs and ethical values (ethos) (Diez-de Castro, Peris-Ortiz, & Diez-Martin, Reference Diez-de Castro, Peris-Ortiz, Diez-Martin, Diez-de-Castro and Peris-Ortiz2018: 11–12; Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzales and Diez-de-Castro, Reference Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez and Diez-de-Castro2021; Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzales & Prado-Roman, Reference Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez and Prado-Roman2021: 5) and narratives and metaphors (Etzion & Ferraro, Reference Etzion and Ferraro2010: 1092) are combined because they have similar content. Narratives and metaphors are generally used to evaluate the social importance of organizations and to evoke positive connotations (Etzion & Ferraro, Reference Etzion and Ferraro2010: 1093; Navis & Glynn, Reference Navis and Glynn2010: 443). Similarly, strategies that emphasize natural development and favorable categories allow organizations to position themselves in favorable categories and benefit from the legitimacy spillover from the category to the organization (Bitektine & Haack, Reference Bitektine and Haack2015: 64; Suddaby & Greenwood, Reference Suddaby and Greenwood2005: 45). These two strategies can be combined as they are often used together and produce similar results. For example, organizations can claim their international cooperation (favorable categories) (Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008) as a prerequisite for globalization (natural development) (Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2011). As a result, as shown in Table 2, we propose eight language strategies that represent a model that relates language strategies to the level and type of legitimacy.
Table 2. Language strategies and their relations to legitimacy
There is evidence in the literature as to which language strategy influences socio-political or cultural-cognitive legitimacy. Accordingly, we have attempted to assign language strategies to legitimacy types. Cultural-cognitive legitimacy refers to widely believed assumptions and is associated with the organization's congruence with cognitive categories in the minds of evaluators (Bitektine et al., Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020: 108; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995: 582; Suddaby & Greenwood, Reference Suddaby and Greenwood2005: 37). It is about self-evident truths and therefore results from compliance with cognitive categories (Bitektine et al., Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020). It is also related to pervasive knowledge and cognitive status. Thus, when a language strategy matches an assumed truth, the evaluator makes the legitimacy judgment without engaging with the environment (Aldrich & Fiol, Reference Aldrich and Fiol1994: 648; Haack & Sieweke, Reference Haack and Sieweke2020). Here, legitimacy only comes from the evaluator's internal processes, and language strategies must focus on organizational content, such as the organization's identity, stories, narratives, successes, structure, and management practices.
Organizational structure and management practices refer to conformity to commonly accepted views and provide cognitive legitimacy. In general, the more the organization resembles the prototype of the accepted category, the higher the cognitive legitimacy (Bitektine et al., Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020: 110; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995: 598). Stories and narratives are usually presented to idealize the past (Suddaby & Greenwood, Reference Suddaby and Greenwood2005: 53), reflect the prevailing logic in the field, and can reveal the cognitive limitations of actors (Green & Li, Reference Green and Li2011: 1685–1686; Golant & Sillince, Reference Golant and Sillince2007: 1164). Emphasis on achievements and successes (Golant & Sillince, Reference Golant and Sillince2007) aims to provide logical justification for an organizational action or motivation (Green, Reference Green2004; Vaara & Tienari, Reference Vaara and Tienari2008; Vaara, Tienari, & Laurila, Reference Vaara, Tienari and Laurila2006) and is more likely to affect cognitive legitimacy as it relates to cognitive categories. Emphasizing the organization's identity through language strategies contributes to the perception of the organization as similar or different from other organizations. Belonging to the same category as other organizations provides evaluators with similar sensitivities when evaluating the organization. This is called category-based cognitive legitimacy (Bridwell-Mitchell & Mezias, Reference Bridwell-Mitchell and Mezias2012: 194; Glynn & Navis, Reference Glynn and Navis2013: 1132; Navis & Glynn, Reference Navis and Glynn2010: 441).
Socio-political legitimacy refers to the institutional environment's evaluation, justification, and acceptance of the organization's adherence to rules related to structure, practices, and outcomes (Aldrich & Fiol, Reference Aldrich and Fiol1994: 648; Bitektine et al., Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020: 108; Deephouse & Suchman, Reference Deephouse, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008: 53). This type of legitimacy comes from the evaluation made by comparing the observed organizational characteristics with the existing norms and regulations (Bitektine et al., Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020). In such an evaluation, the discourse intersects with an externally defined and agreed-upon benefit or norm, and therefore the evaluator makes judgments about legitimacy by considering external factors (Haack & Sieweke, Reference Haack and Sieweke2020), such as the public, opinion leaders, government officials, norms, and legal regulations (Aldrich & Fiol, Reference Aldrich and Fiol1994: 648). Therefore, socio-political legitimacy is associated with social-organizational institutionalism (Meyer, Reference Meyer, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017). Since legitimacy is based on external factors, organizations' language strategies emphasize factors such as authority, natural developments, norms, and feelings. Authority refers to laws, regulations, accrediting bodies, experts, or powerful individuals (Green, Reference Green2004: 660; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995) and therefore generates normative-moral legitimacy. Similarly, natural developments or favorite categories tend to justify actions and help create pragmatic legitimacy (Green, Reference Green2004: 660; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995), while normative beliefs and values generate moral legitimacy that appeals to socially accepted rules (Green, Reference Green2004: 660; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995). Lastly, feelings are very passionate appeals to the individual interests of the evaluator that create pragmatic legitimacy (Green, Reference Green2004: 659; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995).
After reorganizing the classifications of legitimacy types and the categories of language strategies and matching the language strategies with legitimacy types, a new model has emerged that facilitates the study of the relationship between language and legitimacy from an empirical perspective. In this study, we use this framework to examine the cases of five Turkish business groups.
Method
So far, our discussion has suggested that language strategies are an effective way for organizations to gain legitimacy from their institutional environment. There are numerous studies in the literature that address this relationship. However, in contrast to the long-term logic of NIT, they are usually conducted using texts created for temporary or one-time events (e.g., Etzion & Ferraro, Reference Etzion and Ferraro2010: 1095; Hossfeld, Reference Hossfeld2018: 18; Lefsrud & Meyer, Reference Lefsrud and Meyer2012: 1484; Luyckx & Janssens, Reference Luyckx and Janssens2016: 2; Vaara & Monin, Reference Vaara and Monin2010: 7). In this study, we compare the periodically published texts of the five Turkish business groups and investigate whether they reflect the shared meaning of the institutional environment. The texts made up of a total of 876 ‘press releases’ that were issued between 2011 and 2017 with the aim of informing the public about the activities and status of the business groups. They are freely available through their websites.
Research context
Turkish companies have developed in a state-dependent system since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 (Buğra, Reference Buğra2003; Özen & Önder, Reference Özen and Önder2020, Reference Özen and Önder2021). Although the role of the private sector and foreign investors in the economy has become more important with the change of Türkiye's macroeconomic policy from import substitution to export-oriented development in 1980, the dominant role of the state in the economy and in resource allocation remains (Coşkun, Taş, & Gürler, Reference Coşkun, Taş and Gürlerin press). For this reason, it can be said that Turkish companies are still dependent on the state despite the liberalization of the economy (Buğra, Reference Buğra2003). However, since 1980, changes have been observed in the discourses of both the state and the private sector. With the vision of economic liberalization and internationalization, and with the help of the accession program to the European Union, terms such as economic growth, industrialization, progress, modernization, economic liberalization, and globalization have been used as legitimation tools to justify government policies and business practices (Gökşen & Üsdiken, Reference Gökşen and Üsdiken2001; Özen & Berkman, Reference Özen and Berkman2007). Obviously, this background has influenced the language and legitimation strategies of organizations in Türkiye.
In order to evaluate their language strategies more accurately, it is also necessary to describe the main characteristics of Turkish business groups. It is obvious that they are all family owned and that their boards are strongly controlled by family members (Özen & Önder, Reference Özen and Önder2020, Reference Özen and Önder2021). With few exceptions, they are highly diversified and operate in numerous unrelated industries, but have centralized authority structures (Gökşen & Üsdiken, Reference Gökşen and Üsdiken2001: 332). Most business groups had fragile social legitimacy due to their heavy dependence on the state and uncertainties in the political and economic spheres that hindered the development of a self-confident bourgeoisie (Buğra, Reference Buğra2003). Therefore, they often resorted to legitimizing discourses such as being a servant of the nation (Özen & Berkman, Reference Özen and Berkman2007: 829), modernizing and industrializing the country, and integrating the economy into the world (Coşkun, Taş, & Gürler, Reference Coşkun, Taş and Gürlerin press).
Selection of cases and data collection
The texts used in this research were produced by the five largest business groups for the purpose of evaluating actors in the institutional circle to gain organizational legitimacy. They all produce a large number of case-specific, regular, and periodic texts to inform the institutional circle or to manage perceptions. Therefore, a carefully designed sampling technique is required to select the appropriate business groups and the mass of material they produce. We first applied several criteria to identify the most appropriate cases for the purpose of this study. Business groups are the most common form of larger, usually conglomerate companies in Türkiye. They are well established, widely known to the public, active in the media, and owned by famous families who regularly participate in social and cultural events. Therefore, it seemed plausible to designate them as units of analysis for the study. Then, following the logic of purposive sampling (Flick, Reference Flick2009: 257), we developed several criteria to select the most suitable business groups for the study. First, they must be among the largest companies, representing the scale and general outlook of the Turkish economy. Second, they must be visible to the public and willing to communicate with the public by using various means and continuously producing materials that legitimize their actions. Finally, to meet the criterion of maximum diversity (Patton, Reference Patton2015: 402), they must represent industrial and social diversity.
In this way, Doğuş, Koç, Sabancı, Yıldız, and Zorlu were selected to be among the 15 largest companies in Türkiye in terms of economic size (Çolpan & Hikino, Reference Çolpan and Hikino2008: 30). They are visible and in constant communication with the public. In terms of industrial diversity, Koç and Sabancı pursue a diversification strategy, while Doğuş, Yıldız and Zorlu are relatively focused on specific industries (Çolpan & Hikino, Reference Çolpan and Hikino2008: 30). We assume that they have all gained their legitimacy by being the largest, most admired (Çolpan & Hikino, Reference Çolpan and Hikino2008: 30), and most popular private sector companies (see various Capital Magazine surveys). Moreover, they are embedded in the social and institutional systems and, therefore, it is plausible to expect that their languages better reflect the institutional environment to which they belong (Bitektine & Haack, Reference Bitektine and Haack2015: 62). Also, most of the other groups do not issue regular press releases and were therefore not included in the sample.
Obviously, the selected groups provide a large amount of textual material, e.g., financial reports, websites, and press releases. We chose press releases as the research material because they are published regularly and have more content on social, cultural, and political issues. Koç has been publishing press releases since 1999, Sabancı since 2000, Yıldız since 2011, Zorlu since 2007, and Doğuş since 2010, so we included all press releases published in the period 2011–2017 in our data. Details of the business groups and their press releases are presented in Table 3.
Table 3. The business groups and research materials
Data analysis
Quantitative and qualitative techniques of content analysis can be used to analyze any text in a systematic way (Flick, Reference Flick2009: 30–323). Provided that systematic and extensive material is available (Mayring, Reference Mayring2011: 116–122), quantitative analysis aims to uncover the frequency of occurrence of certain aspects of the themes within the material, while qualitative analysis aims to uncover meanings and linguistic practices. Our data is suitable for both techniques. The categories of legitimacy and language strategies were derived from the literature. Texts were repeatedly and carefully examined according to the categories developed. Then, the codes that represented the categories were identified, and the themes were created by putting the codes into groups. New codes and themes emerged with each reading, and in some cases, they were combined until we finalized the codes and themes.
It should be noted that the number, length, and content of the press releases of each business group are different, and therefore the codes generated from them vary. The software ‘MAXQDA 2018’ was used to analyze the data and determine the frequency of the codes. Coding is generally about discovering regularities in the data. When creating themes, care should be taken to ensure that a theme can represent all associated codes (Flick, Reference Flick2009: 306–324). To identify the codes, one of the authors repeatedly read and coded the texts with the help of an experienced colleague, while the links between themes and labels were checked by the authors. Then, each code was assigned to one of the eight language strategies previously identified under socio-political and cultural-cognitive legitimacies.
Tables 4 and 5 shows examples of codes, themes, and quotes from the texts published by the business groups to influence socio-political and cultural-cognitive legitimacy. To clarify the tables, we give some examples of how we linked quotes from the text to the language strategies. For example, in Sabancı's language, there is an emphasis on shared values and sensitivities such as equality and justice; ‘…we have helped ensure that girls have the right to access education, that women's position in the economy is strengthened, and that they have a voice in politics and at all levels of society’ (Sabancı Business Group, Reference Sabancı2015). This emphasis is on the moral values and beliefs of society. In Yıldız's discourse, the emphasis is on the technical side of the products as they are tested and approved by experts: ‘…(our bottled water product) Saka … is blind tested by a group of 120 chefs and 12 experts in terms of production conditions, taste, and packaging …’ (Yıldız Business Group, Reference Yıldız2012). Obviously, such discourse aims at expert authority. Similarly, Koç's discourse, ‘…our unity and solidarity, our brotherhood, our common values are being eroded …’ (Koç Business Group, Reference Koç2017) emphasizes solidarity, unity, and brotherhood. This is a clear indication of positive emotions.
Table 4. Codes, themes, and categories in strategies affecting socio-political legitimacy
Table 5. Codes, themes, and categories in strategies affecting cultural-cognitive legitimacy
Research findings
Table 6 shows the number of occurrences and frequency of codes representing the language strategies used by each business group. Here we can see which language strategies are most frequently used by them and to which type of legitimacy they attach more importance.
Table 6. Breakdown of the codes by business groups
When considering a single-language strategy, all business groups gave preference to the one aimed at influencing the normative beliefs and moral values of the evaluators. Among the eight language strategies, the least preferred one for Koç, Yıldız and Sabancı is the one that emphasizes propriety, while for Zorlu and Doğuş it is the one that uses stories, metaphors, etc. Sabancı uses all language strategies in a more balanced way than the others. It seems that Doğuş's least preferred language strategies are endorsement and historical stories and narratives. We think that their different social backgrounds and political views explain why they use language in slightly different ways.
Koç, Sabancı, and Yıldız's use of historical stories and narratives might be related to their age, as they are among the oldest business groups (Çolpan & Hikino, Reference Çolpan and Hikino2008). Koç's emphasis on corporate identity could be due to the fact that they see themselves as pioneers of Türkiye's industrialization and representatives of the official ideology (Gökşen & Üsdiken, Reference Gökşen and Üsdiken2001; Özen & Berkman, Reference Özen and Berkman2007; Özen & Önder, Reference Özen and Önder2020, Reference Özen and Önder2021). Obviously, Doğuş's strategies for socio-political legitimacy are more intense than those of the others. This can be seen as a precaution against the fragility of their social support (Özen & Berkman, Reference Özen and Berkman2007). The fact that Zorlu and Yıldız place so much emphasis on adopting global practices may also be due to their comparatively late entry into international business activities (Çolpan & Hikino, Reference Çolpan and Hikino2008). Nonetheless, all business groups place an emphasis on modernization, internationalization, and liberalization, which is consistent with their mission to modernize the country and integrate it into the global system (Gökşen & Üsdiken, Reference Gökşen and Üsdiken2001; Özen & Berkman, Reference Özen and Berkman2007; Özen & Önder, Reference Özen and Önder2020).
The results in Table 7 show that the language strategies for socio-political legitimacy of each business group are more intense than cultural-cognitive legitimacy. Koç, Zorlu, Yıldız, Sabancı, and Doğuş use language strategies related to socio-political legitimacy at 56%, 58%, 64%, 63%, and 73%, respectively, and the overall rate of socio-political legitimacy is 62%. It is clear that the main goal of the language strategies of these business groups is to gain socio-political legitimacy. This is in line with the findings of other studies conducted in Türkiye (Özen & Berkman, Reference Özen and Berkman2007; Özen & Önder, Reference Özen and Önder2020, Reference Özen and Önder2021). Powell and Colyvas (Reference Powell, Colyvas, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008: 300) suggested that when there are contradictions, organizations prefer to develop language that is consistent with social and political norms rather than cultural and cognitive truths. Empirical research findings support this idea. As Özen and Akkemik (Reference Özen and Akkemik2012) note, this could be due to the internal inconsistencies of the business environment in Türkiye or the constantly contradictory institutional logics.
Table 7. Breakdowns of codes by language strategies and legitimacy types
As the texts have holistic meanings, some words and phrases are coded with multiple types of language strategy and legitimation. The themes that include relations with international organizations, women, children, culture and art, a link between national sensitivities and society, emphasis on environmentally friendly products, pollution, exhibiting rankings, and appearing in business media were mostly used together. This cross-category pattern shows that organizations' language strategies emerge in a more institutional context (Alvesson & Karreman, Reference Alvesson and Karreman2000b: 1144–1145) and that they reflect organizations' intentions, cognitions, values, and emotions in a holistic way (Alvesson & Karreman, Reference Alvesson and Karreman2000a: 137–138).
As their official texts show, the content, theme, and word choice of the business groups are very similar. This supports NIT's assertion that the language forms of organizations in an institutional setting are similar and co-creative due to the regulatory power of the institutional structure (Green & Li, Reference Green and Li2011: 1664; Lawrence, Reference Lawrence1999: 167).
There is a great deal of overlap between the ways in which the business groups position themselves and adopt a particular stance and the conceptualization and categorization of the organizational legitimacy literature. Below are some examples of each category to make this situation clearer.
The business groups' emphasis on international collaboration and foreign partnerships is an investment in influencing evaluators' judgments, while their efforts to demonstrate their success through published lists and awards are aimed at attracting public attention and creating positive perceptions. Similarly, expressions such as ‘national product,’ ‘benefit to society,’ and ‘representing the country’ aim to strengthen the business group's connection with society. The importance of emphasizing the concept of ‘nation’ has been demonstrated in other studies (Gökşen & Üsdiken, Reference Gökşen and Üsdiken2001; Özen & Berkman, Reference Özen and Berkman2007; Özen & Önder, Reference Özen and Önder2020). Philanthropy is a strong and common theme used by all business groups to stimulate the feelings of evaluators. This can be seen as an attempt to weaken the rationality of communication through emotions. Kobal (Reference Kobal2022) also found that in addition to philanthropy, other similar concepts such as social benefit, kindness, and sharing were commonly used by organizations to gain legitimacy.
Another point revealed by the analysis is that macro concepts such as women and children are embedded in micro concepts such as the principles and policies of the business groups. This is consistent with Kobal (Reference Kobal2022: 270) findings that social mission statements supporting children and women come to the fore in the legitimation process of organizations. At the same time, micro expressions such as corporate stories and successes are embedded in macro expressions, e.g., environmental protection, universal principles, and national interests. The strong emphasis on micro and macro issues by the business groups can be interpreted both as an attempt to build legitimacy and to present themselves as representing a group, value, or idea.
The business groups are thought to communicate with evaluators through institutionalized language strategies to build legitimacy. These strategies help them to have a positive influence on their evaluators.
Discussion and conclusions
Implications
Little theoretical or empirical progress has been made in the literature of NIT due to the lack of a framework that provides a holistic perspective that can be used both in the theoretical explanation of the relationship between language and legitimacy and in empirical testing. For this reason, the priority of this study was to propose such a framework.
Given the problems and differences in classifying legitimacy, we have argued that such classifications are necessary to clarify concepts, facilitate scholarly research, and increase the comparability of research findings. We believe Meyer (Reference Meyer, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017) distinction between ‘social-organizational institutionalism’ and ‘phenomenological institutionalism’ provides a useful framework for categorizing legitimacy. In addition, numerous other classifications of legitimacy have contributed to a clearer understanding of the subject (see Aldrich & Fiol, Reference Aldrich and Fiol1994; Archibald, Reference Archibald and Johnson2004: 173; Bitektine et al., Reference Bitektine, Hill, Song and Vandenberghe2020; Deephouse & Suchman, Reference Deephouse, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby2008; Deephouse et al., Reference Deephouse, Bundy, Plunkett, Suchman, Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence and Meyer2017; Diez-de Castro, Peris-Ortiz, & Diez-Martin, Reference Diez-de Castro, Peris-Ortiz, Diez-Martin, Diez-de-Castro and Peris-Ortiz2018; Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzales & Diez-de-Castro, Reference Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez and Diez-de-Castro2021; Diez-Marin, Blanco-Gonzales & Prado-Roman, Reference Diez-Martin, Blanco-Gonzalez and Prado-Roman2021; Scott, Reference Scott2014: 72–74; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995: 577). In this study, we attempted to synthesize and clarify these classifications and presented a framework that is compatible with the theoretical perspective of NIT. According to this framework, the judgment is made automatically and in a passive cognitive state when the object of legitimacy refers to a phenomenon that is taken for granted by the evaluator. Since the legitimacy judgment is formed automatically, this legitimacy can be called cultural-cognitive. The perspective of phenomenological institutionalism is an explanation of processes in which the status of self-evidence is valid. However, when the object of legitimacy is evaluated, taking into account the features of external structures such as norms, beliefs, authority, or social majority opinions, the actor acts as a deliberative evaluator. In this case, the judgment of legitimacy is formed on the basis of the evaluator's conformity with the external structures. For this reason, such legitimacy can be called socio-political. The perspective of social-organizational institutionalism is explicatory in processes in which the status of the evaluator is valid.
Another contribution of this study is the reorganization of language strategies aimed at legitimacy. For example, Bitektine and Haack (Reference Bitektine and Haack2015) distinguish between normative beliefs and moral values. However, both our literature review and our research findings suggest that it is more useful and practical to combine them. Our suggestion to combine narrative and metaphorical strategies also proved plausible, as the texts we analyzed show that most narratives contain many metaphors. Therefore, categorizing between narratives and metaphors could be confusing and is not practical for researchers. Combining favorite categories and natural developments also seems quite plausible, according to our findings. For example, while globalization was generally presented as an inevitable and natural development in our analysis, it was also praised as a convenient category for which legitimacy was created. Overall, we believe that the reorganization of language strategies will clarify distinctions between categories and reduce ambiguity for researchers who need to analyze texts to understand language strategies for legitimacy concerns.
Another important contribution of this study is the attempt to illustrate which language strategy influences which type of legitimacy. Although language-based analysis offers a methodology that has the potential to explore the cognitive dimensions of legitimacy (Golant & Sillince, Reference Golant and Sillince2007: 1151), there are few studies in the literature that have implications for such an investigation. For example, we suggest that strategies that emphasize alignment with commonly accepted management practices (Suchman, Reference Suchman1995), narratives and stories (Golant & Sillince, Reference Golant and Sillince2007), and identity (Bridwell-Mitchell & Mezias, Reference Bridwell-Mitchell and Mezias2012) can be associated with cognitive legitimacy. Similarly, strategies that emphasize norms, regulatory rules, powerful actors, natural developments, moral values, and emotions (Green, Reference Green2004; Suchman, Reference Suchman1995) can be associated with socio-political legitimacy. Thus, according to our framework, if the language strategy refers to an organizational phenomenon such as a practice, story, achievement, or identity, its relationship to cultural-cognitive legitimacy should be examined. However, if the strategy relates to external structures such as authority, natural development, morality, and emotions that the evaluator takes into account when making judgments, then its relationship to socio-political legitimacy should be examined. We believe that such a systematization will advance research on this topic by enabling empirical studies to examine the relationship between language strategies and legitimacy subtypes.
Another contribution of this study is that it allows us to make comparisons with the results of previous studies conducted in the context of Türkiye. In this study, it was found that the business groups predominantly used language strategies associated with socio-political legitimacy. This finding supports the findings of Özen and Berkman (Reference Özen and Berkman2007) and Özen & Önder (Reference Özen and Önder2020, Reference Özen and Önder2021) studies, which indicate that ethos strategies that convey moral legitimacy are used in the diffusion of TQM practices in Türkiye. Similarly, according to Kobal (Reference Kobal2022), the legitimate organizational identity constructions of social enterprises provide cognitive legitimacy. This is also consistent with the relationship this research establishes between organizational identity and cognitive legitimacy.
Finally, we have emphasized that the temporal and situational material used in many studies is inappropriate. Instead, we suggest that to provide a comparable long-term perspective, researchers need to use regularly published texts to test the assumptions of NIT.
Limitations and future research directions
This study has some limitations. First, we used only the regular press releases of the business groups. However, in order to evaluate the coherence and differences in their language strategies, it is better to include in the analysis other regular and periodic texts, such as annual reports and sustainability reports, intended for different stakeholders. Second, we included in our study only those business groups that have established legitimacy and are already accepted by the institutional system. Subsequent studies may also examine organizations that are in the process of being accepted by the institutional system. This will allow researchers to make comparisons between two groups of organizations in terms of their language strategies seeking legitimacy. Third, it would be useful for further studies to focus on organization-specific variables such as age, size, industry, ownership structures, characteristics of owning families, degree of internationalization, and diversification that can be used to compare organizations' language strategies. Finally, further studies could take a longitudinal approach to find out how and why organizations' language strategies have changed over time.
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Recai Coşkun (PhD) working as a professor at Business Department of Izmir Bakırçay University, Türkiye. His research interests include international business, strategic management, theories of organization, and research methods.
Salih Arslan (PhD) is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Eskişehir Osmangazi University. His research interests include organizational legitimacy, organizational language and discourse, new institutional theory, critical discourse analysis.
