The legitimacy of the global business world under public scrutiny. A critical discourse analysis of legitimacy crises over present-day corporate practices in the public debate.

Multinational corporations are often portrayed by progressive and populist politicians, advocacy journalists, trade unions and civil society organizations as the evil faces of global free market capitalism. In recent years, they have for instance been accused of complicity in sweatshop labor in developing countries, tax evasion and allocating excessive amounts of money to lobbying in the political process. As a result of the large-scale controversies over multinational corporations and their potentially negative societal impact, scholars in the field of management and organization studies have started to theorize on the legitimacy or social acceptability of the MNC and its most controversial business practices. The current research project attempts to explain how senses of corporate legitimacy or illegitimacy are shaped by social actors engaging in the ongoing public debates over sustainable economic development and corporate moral responsibility towards society. We will discuss the importance of ideologies for legitimation and delegitimation, examine how civil society organizations attempt to delegitimize corporate undertakings with a negative social or environmental impact, study how employees’ talk may contribute to or undermine corporate legitimacy, and analyze how discourses of corporate social responsibility are employed by pro-business actors to legitimize the contemporary form of corporate capitalism.