The purpose of this study is to extend the current understanding of business divestiture by investigating its potential for triggering strategic reorientation. A divestiture involving strategic reorientation is here denoted as a strategic business exit, otherwise it is a status...

Carolin Decker develops and empirically applies a framework in which business exits serve the purpose of re-establishing a firm’s previously harmed legitimacy. Her findings support the idea that legitimacy needs drive the likelihood of fit-enhancing business exits in divesting firms.