Legitimized identity vs identifiable legitimacy: Toward a theoretical framework of the relationship between organizational identity and organizational legitimacy

Organizational identity and organizational legitimacy are related constructs, but comprehensive studies of the relationship have been lacking in the literature of organizational studies. This paper aims to propose a framework that includes four possible relationships between organizational legitimacy and identity.

The authors evaluate the causes of each of these relationships and an important consequence of the relationship: their influences on organizational adaptation.

With a series of propositions, the authors make a tentative, but valuable, move toward integrating two broad streams of social perspective of organizing, institutional theory and organizational identity and call for research efforts in this direction.

The paper is the first one that explores the relationship between organizational identity and organizational legitimacy in a comprehensive way.