Measuring organizational legitimacy has become a challenge for researchers because they face a multilevel construct, where diverse terminologies, approaches, and evaluators converge. As a consequence, researchers have developed different conceptual proposals that have, in turn, given rise to multiple measurement methodologies, generating some uncertainty among researchers about the best measurement instrument. These methodologies are not generalizable to other contexts, do not integrate the different approaches to assessing legitimacy, nor do they explain their suitability for specific contexts. This paper proposes a general process for measuring organizational legitimacy in any context and across different terminologies, while providing criteria for a justified choice of measurement instrument. The study differentiates between organizational legitimacy measurements based on perceptions and secondary data, as well as between legitimacy as a global or as a dimensions-based judgment. We also present a broader typology of legitimacy dimensions that includes diverse fields of knowledge, avoids overlapping dimensions, and provides concept definitions in order to facilitate understanding by researchers and managers.

衡量组织的合法性已成为研究人员的一个挑战，因为他们面临着一个多层次的结构，各种术语，方法和评估人员在此融合。结果，研究人员提出了不同的概念性建议，进而提出了多种测量方法，这在研究人员中对最佳测量工具产生了一些不确定性。这些方法不能推广到其他环境，没有集成评估合法性的不同方法，也没有解释它们对特定环境的适用性。本文提出了一种在任何情况下以及在不同术语下测量组织合法性的通用过程，同时为合理选择测量工具提供了标准。这项研究区分了基于感知和辅助数据的组织合法性度量，以及作为整体或基于维度的判断的合法性。我们还介绍了合法性维度的更广泛的类型学，其中包括知识的各个领域，避免了维度的重叠，并提供了概念定义，以促进研究人员和管理人员的理解。