Using legitimacy strategies to secure organisational survival over time: the case of EFRAG
研究了欧洲财务报告咨询组（EFRAG）在2004至2021年间如何运用不同合法性策略确保组织生存，包括应对2008-2009年金融危机后的合法性危机，并发现策略受系统性因素制约且引发新紧张。
In this paper, we study how the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) used different legitimacy strategies between 2004 and 2021 to secure its organisational survival. Although EFRAG is now an established player within the regulatory space of corporate reporting, the organisation’s path towards this position was not straightforward. Based on 20 interviews with current and former members of EFRAG and archival documents, we investigate how EFRAG initially gained and maintained its legitimacy and how it responded to a legitimacy crisis arising in the aftermath of the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Based on prior research on organisational strategies for legitimising actions, we derive a framework for our analysis and show how EFRAG has adapted various legitimacy strategies over time. We further find that the use of legitimacy strategies is constrained by various systemic factors and show how EFRAG’s adaptations to its legitimacy strategies led to new tensions. Our findings contribute to the literature on private regulatory organisations’ legitimacy and the political economy of standard setting.