Predominant strategies of legitimacy in environmental and social disclosures

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify which of Lindblom's strategies of organizational legitimacy predominate in environmental and social disclosures in administration reports of publicly traded family companies under Brazilian shareholder control during the period 1997‐2006. Design/methodology/approach – Descriptive research from a universe of 500 large companies from the ranking made in Exame magazine – “best and biggest”, 2006 edition. From these, 21 publicly traded family companies under Brazilian shareholder control were identified, but the longitudinal study was made with the 16 that published their administration reports in the last ten years. The sentence was considered as the unit of analysis, with application of the content analysis technique to messages contained in the administration reports that were related to environmental and social disclosures. Findings – Research results show that the companies researched used the four strategies of organizational legitimacy proposed by Lindblom, either together or separately. Research limitations/implications – The second and third strategies predominated in the environmental and social disclosures from administration reports made from 1997 to 2006. Originality/value – The value of the study is in its advancement of research made in the UK by Gray et al. , Parsa and Kouhy, and in Brazil by Silva.