Organisational Legitimation Strategies in Social Media : How Business Schools Address Declining Ranking

Abstract

Public relations scholarship has drawn on organisational legitimacy theory to show how organisations appeal to stakeholders’ acceptance of their existence and importance in society. Studies have shown how different types of organisations utilise communication strategies in social media to gain legitimacy. This chapter contributes to public relations research by examining how a sample of business schools implemented legitimation strategies in their social media posts when their legitimacy was threatened.

The findings show that when ten world-class European business schools faced declining institutional rankings between 2016 and 2019, they made use of four legitimation strategies—authorisation, rationalisation, moralisation and mythopoesis—in their Facebook posts as they sought to regain their legitimacy.