Organizations, apologia, and crises of social legitimacy

Keith Michael Hearit, Purdue University

Abstract

Corporations charged with wrong doing often find it in their best interests to "go public" and deliver an apologia. This study integrates the study of corporate apologia with another value-oriented theory of organizational behavior: corporate social legitimacy. The primary research question that drives this research is "How do corporations use discourse rhetorically to manage crises of social legitimacy?" A generic analysis was performed on eleven twentieth-century apologia in an effort to determine: (1) the strategic names corporations utilize to give an account of their wrong doing; (2) the values to which corporations attempt to demonstrate adherence; and, (3) the rhetorical tasks common to corporate apologists. Rhetorical analysis reveals the presence of two "forms" of corporate apologia: apologia delivered for competence reasons, and apologia articulated because of a breakdown in the corporation's relationship with the community within which it operates. Furthermore, this study has shown that in their apologetic discourse, corporations commonly use "appearance/reality" dissociations to demonstrate their adherence to the values of honesty, responsibility, self-control, and competence--the very values corporations are charged to have broken. This study concludes that apologia performs a social function: it reaffirms faith in the current societal hierarchy.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Schiappa, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Communication|Marketing|Welfare

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