This paper describes the role of rhetoric in legitimating profound institutional change. In 1997, a Big Five accounting firm purchased a law firm, triggering a jurisdictional struggle within accounting and law over a new organizational form, multidisciplinary partnerships. We analyze the...

Narrative theory is used to explain the role of narratives in legitimizing organizational change. Specifically, the influence of organizational narratives – narratives communicated from an organization’s management to its employees – on the legitimacy employees grant to merger and...

Multinational corporations are operating in complex business environments. They are confronted with contradictory institutional demands that often represent mutually incompatible expectations of various audiences. Managing these demands poses new organizational challenges for the corporation....