How organizations address legitimacy issues : the case of Oxfam

• Autor(a) principal: Santos, Margarida Marques dos
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/26931
• topic: Legitimacy challenges; Repairing legitimacy; NGOs; Desafios à legitimidade; Reparação de legitimidade; ONGs; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

This dissertation focuses on the responses given by non-governmental organizations when addressing a legitimacy issue on the aftermath of a scandal. For this purpose, a qualitative research was conducted, and a case-study design was adopted. The chosen organization was Oxfam, as it was subjected to a legitimacy challenge due to sexual misconduct in Haiti in 2011, a scandal that was uncovered in February 2018, and had repercussions throughout the whole aid sector. To analyze how the organization addressed the legitimacy issue, we used the Lamin & Zaheer’s (2012) model, which categorizes the responses into four categories: denial, defiance, decoupling and accommodation. The findings suggest that as an international organization embedded in a complex environment, Oxfam used a multidimensional approach and employed responses that can be fitted in all four categories. Further, it also demonstrates a preference for substantive responses, namely accommodating and decoupling. Due to the intense scrutiny by the media and the importance of moral legitimacy to an NGO like Oxfam, the organization could not rely on merely symbolic actions and had to demonstrate that was implementing effective change. This study contributes to theory as it addresses a gap in literature regarding how NGOs address legitimacy challenges on complex environments and deal with contradictory institutional demands. In practical terms, this study can provide insights to managers of social organizations facing legitimacy issues.