Adaptive Strategies for Maintaining Legitimacy: Exploratory Study in the Aromatic Industry
Literature has focused on the acquisition and restoration of organizational legitimacy, but little on its maintenance. This study conducted in the flavours and fragrances industry shows how managers maintain organizational legitimacy, around the central question of the safety of flavors and perfumes. The analysis shows that this process is developed within a triangulation system that establishes legitimacy on three pillars - reflexive, reactive, and collective, essentially by an isomorphic adaptation of cognitive type. The study also reveals that maintaining legitimacy can be just as complex and demanding as acquiring and restoring legitimacy.