Title: Organisational politics and strategies - a socialisation into a legitimacy whirlpool

Authors: Mary Low; Stephen Schollum

Addresses: School of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Division of Management, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand ' School of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Division of Management, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

Abstract: Legitimacy is one of the oldest problems in the history of social thinking and yet this concept appears to have received little attention in accounting and business research literature to explain and enhance our understanding of why corporate debacles and accounting scandals continue unabated. The focus of this paper is to bring in a theoretical lens to explain that it is more possibly the types of legitimation strategies that occurs through a socialisation process within organisations and professional institutions that allow individuals to fulfil different types of ethical responsibilities for the organisations and institutions that they work within and for rather than exercising their ethical responsibilities to wider society. The paper is valuable as it appears that through a socialisation process, individuals adopt legitimation strategies that supposedly fulfils the 'social contract' between organisations and society but are actually questionable activities devoid of moral character which do not really benefit society as a whole.

Keywords: organisational politics and strategy; legitimacy theory; legitimation strategies; socialisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2021.113894

International Journal of Critical Accounting, 2021 Vol.12 No.1, pp.54 - 90

Received: 13 Sep 2020
Accepted: 21 Oct 2020
Published online: 31 Mar 2021 *