Managing corporate legitimacy and the UN Global Compact

In this article, we explain why managing legitimacy is vital for corporations and how business firms can employ strategies to maintain their legitimacy. We then discuss the organizational capacities that each legitimacy strategy implies and point out their inherent tensions. Based on the results of an empirical study, we show how two large corporations have handled these tensions and successfully introduced organizational prerequisites for managing legitimacy. In the final part of this article we elaborate on how participants of the UN Global Compact can use the initiative to strengthen their legitimacy.

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development