This research responds to calls for the establishment of an overriding rationale, or raison d'être, for public relations practice. Several scholars are suggesting that the construct of legitimacy provides an overarching rationale that would link public relations practice across organisations, industries and countries (Boyd, 2000; Massey, 2001; Metzler, 1995, 2001; van Ruler & Vercic, 2005; Vercic, van Ruler, Butschi, & Flodin, 2001). However, existing public relations studies using legitimacy have focused on the communicative aspects, with little emphasis on long term and societal level effects for organisations. In seeking to accommodate these challenges, the central research question of this thesis is: Does legitimacy provide a rationale for public relations practice, and if so, in what ways? This study draws on institutional theory, with its central imperative of legitimacy, to address this question. Institutional theory considers the relationship between organisations and environments from a social constructionist perspective. Institutions created through the social construction of reality are based on shared, rational myths of legitimacy which drive organisational and social action, and with which organisations need to demonstrate compliance through their organisational ceremonies or practices. These two central contributors to legitimacy -- rational myths and ceremonies -- provide the framework guiding the study. The study was conducted around issues about the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of the four major Australian banks. In order to consider relationships between public relations practice and legitimacy as an institutional concept, Giddens' theory of structuration is used as a theoretical apparatus to straddle the rational myths of legitimacy at the level of institution, with public relations practice related to ceremonies at the level of action. 'Structuring moments' identified in media coverage provide sites of microanalysis of the intense social construction of rational myths of legitimacy that include organisations and publics. Through these theoretical devices, a number of guiding research questions shape the study: RQ i): What is learned about the social construction of rational myths about legitimacy by studying media coverage about CSR in Australian banking? RQ ii): What is learned about legitimacy by studying public relations practices in relation to media coverage about CSR in Australia banking? A longitudinal, qualitative, case study approach was taken to explore the research questions in this study. As legitimacy was viewed as a process of ongoing social construction, a temporal bracketing strategy (Langley, 1999) was used to examine the relationships between the level of institution and of action over the six year period of the study. Media coverage, annual and social impact reports, and interviews were used as sources of data to examine the institutionalisation of corporate social responsibility in the Australian banking industry. The findings of the study show that there is a dynamic relationship between public relations and legitimacy at both theoretical and practical levels. Through the duality of structure lens, theoretically public relations can be conceived as agency and legitimacy as structure. The influence of these two dynamically interrelated levels of agency and structure is both constituted by human agency and is the medium of the institutions (Sewell, 1992). Public relations practices, therefore, can be seen as human agency that both shapes and is shaped by legitimacy. If legitimacy represents a dominant concept of organisational success, it is also a rationale for public relations practice as an act of human agency that seeks to create alignment between organisations and publics in their environment. As such, public relations practices are not just activities. Rather, public relations practices constitute a central resource that organisations can access to exert power to create and manage their legitimacy within the broader environment. Public relations practices, therefore, are resources because they are embedded within the deep structures of society that influence organisational practice, but also are actions that allow the organisation to shape those structural arrangements. This process takes place within webs of communication and relationships between organisations and publics that form institutionalised legitimacy. This study also found that public relations practice is a balance between the demands of time and space. The traditional focus of public relations studies has been on incidents of compressed time and space, such as crises and campaigns. This study suggests that expanded periods of time and space are also integral to how and why public relations make a contribution as, over time, there were shifts to the institutional arrangements that guide public relations practices. This suggests that there is a compression of time and space as organisations and publics communicate in their relationship and an expansion of time and space to shift frames of social structures and legitimacy. It is through this juxtaposition of time and space, and across dual levels of structure, that legitimacy provides a rationale for public relations practices. The conclusions of this research make a major contribution to public relations theory by building a model for considering how legitimacy provides a raison d'être for public relations practices. As such, the model developed in this research provides a theoretical framework of how public relations practices contribute to organisational legitimacy at a societal level. The study also provides deeper insights to the role of public relations practices in managing organisational legitimacy at the level of action. In doing so, it addresses theoretical and methodological issues of the conflation of publics and environment. A number of opportunities for further research are presented by this study in understanding drivers of public relations practices and the role of inspection forums in processes of legitimacy. For practice, there are implications of taking a longer term perspective to considering the role of public relations practices, its impact on organisational success and, therefore, how it is evaluated.

This study examines the role of three institutional factors (regulative; normative and cultural-cognitive pillars of institutions) in addressing agency problems of Australia. In the wake of the series of corporate collapses of current decade, director and executive remuneration was identified as one of the major causes behind these scandals. The Australian government and other related organisations made both regulative and non-regulative institutional reforms to manage this agency conflict. These reforms, encapsulated in Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (CLERP) Act 2004 demanded an increased level of disclosure of director and executive remuneration particularly, the disclosure of performance based salary. Subsequently, these amendments provided an opportunity through a non-binding vote to shareholders to participate in executive remuneration decisions. This study proposes a new synthesis of institutional and agency theories by examining how institutional interventions addresses agency conflicts in the Australian context. A conceptual model is developed to measure both the conjoined and distinctive institutional impact on the disclosure level of director and executive remuneration in Australia. To measure and quantify the aforementioned impact a mixed method research strategy was used. First, content analysis as an investigative tool was used to develop a disclosure index which determined the level of disclosure of director and executive remuneration from top 100 Australian listed entities. Second, a conceptual model, positing the relationships between independent and dependent variables was verified through an econometric analysis of collected data, performed through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 15. The findings of this research reveal that there exists a significant difference between the levels of disclosure in the pre and post stages of the introduction of the CLERP Act 2004. This result highlights the significance of regulatory intervention in addressing agency conflicts. The study also indicates that regulative and normative pillars have a higher impact than the culture-cognitive pillar on disclosure practices of Australian firms. In light of these results, the new blend between agency and institutional theories highlight the role of different institutions, particularly the government, in stabilising the organisational practices for good governance and creating national competitive advantages.

Organizational forms can become institutionalized in the sense that their existence and application is taken-for-granted and perceived as legitimate by stakeholders. Over time, new organizational forms can emerge that challenge perceived legitimacy of the established form. From this perspective, this dissertation examined institutionalization in the context of online business degree programs (OBDP) in higher education. Specifically, this dissertation examined OBDP as an emerging institutionalized form in relation to its cognitive legitimacy (taken-for-grantedness) and sociopolitical legitimacy (appropriateness) from the perspectives of four key stakeholder groups (students, faculty, academic administrators, and business practitioners). Survey results suggest that OBDPs are perceived as cognitively legitimate across each of the groups studied and socio-politically legitimate in each the four groups studied except for faculty. Furthermore, a conjoint experiment was conducted to determine the influence that four program related characteristics (accreditation, reputation, placement after graduation, and physical linkage) have on the legitimacy perceptions of OBDPs. Conjoint results indicate that each of the factors studied were significant predictors of legitimacy with accreditation being the most significant across each of the four groups. These findings provide a novel test of institutional theory as well as contributing to practice by offering strategic guidance to business schools either currently offering ODBPs or those planning to develop an online version of an existing program.

We investigate a multinational corporation's (MNC) decision to appoint host-country national (HCN) managers to foreign subsidiaries based on the institutional context of and familiarity with the host country. HCN managers are commonly associated with specialized knowledge, superior responsiveness, and higher legitimacy. Yet, we argue that local familiarity of HCNs can also be perceived as risky or harmful by MNC parents. We analyze how formal and informal institutions affect the trade-off between positive effects and potential costs associated with HCN managers ("Local allies" vs. "Trojan horses"). We find that legal institutions protect foreign MNCs from potential costs, encourage the use of HCNs and reinforce their benefits. Corruption and corruption distance, however, increase perceived costs associated with HCN managers up to a point at which they outweigh their perceived benefits.

This research focuses on the influence of institutions on entrepreneurship among Kuwaiti youth. It aims to capture the role played by institutions on youth entrepreneurship at the backdrop of a dampening ‘spirit’ for it. This research is currently very important due to various economic and geo-political factors leading to an economic downturn, which has led to the need for entrepreneurial ventures. It reviews and consolidates concepts and factors purported to facilitate and increase entrepreneurship for the benefit of the society and economy of Kuwait. This research uses a social constructionist approach to make sense of how institutions influence Kuwaiti youth in their quest to become entrepreneurs. It exposes institutional endorsement and legitimacy from formal and informal institutions. It shows the use of regulative, normative and cognitive dimensions and influences on entrepreneurial intentions and actions. This research shows how institutions interact with Kuwaiti youth and what role they play in the formulation of intentions and actions concerning entrepreneurship. A number of key formal and informal institutions have come to the fore that influence one another (in)directly as living entities, and likewise influence the youth (in)directly. The research contribution also shows that young people have to approach some key institutions and in return their desire to become entrepreneurs is strengthened or weakened depending on how institutions respond and what role they are willing to play in their lives.

In this study, we argue the organic industry's move towards a more legal definition of organic production indicated a shift in the legitimating criteria in the organic agriculture institutional field, which can be observed through the analysis of the legitimating accounts of various actors. Prior to USDA certification, institutional actors in the organic food field largely relied upon the norms and values of its participants to maintain order. Legitimacy was based on the perception that a firm embodied a certain value set, which typically included opposition to large-scale commercial operations (DeLind, 2000; Drinkwater, 2009). To some, the introduction of federal standards signaled a replacement of the personal trust between consumer and producer, and an increased reliance on external policies mandated by federal certification (Guthman, 2000; 2004a; 2004b). This study explores the intricacies of the various actors' legitimating accounts during this time of a shifting institutional field. Central questions include: how do these actors adapt their legitimating accounts to the changing context? Is there a discernible pattern to their rhetoric, not only over time, but also in relation to the other contemporary legitimating accounts? And finally, if patterns are evident, can they provide insight into the dynamics of legitimating sources in this institutional field?

Institutions are generally assumed to be stable, but recent research has focused on how that stability may be overturned to create institutional change. The assumption of stability has led to a lack of research on the flip side of change, maintenance, even though we cannot fully understand change without understanding the forces change agents work against. By examining more than a century of American public library discourse, I develop the construct of core ideas and a model of the maintenance of these institutions. Core ideas are those institutionalized ideas at the heart of a field that act as touchstones of a field's work and identity. Like other institutions, core ideas may be both added to and subtracted from a field and require maintenance through reinforcement and reinterpretation to endure. The model of maintenance of core ideas shows how core ideas are maintained in the face of social and technological change through use, as actors draw on core ideas to justify or deny accounts of practice, which reinforces, reinterprets, or undermines existing or proposed core ideas. In developing a model of maintenance I also examine how core ideas illuminate the internal workings of institutional logics and explore how the multivocality of core ideas allows and even supports multiple logics within a field.

In recent years, interest in the relations between government and NGOs and the implications of these relations for service delivery in developing countries has surged. This results from the increasing role of NGOs in many facets of development, especially in service delivery and poverty reduction. However, the focus of attention especially among researchers has been on the relations between central government and NGOs. Relations between local government and NGOs have received limited research attention, especially in developing country contexts. To contribute to opening the black box created as a result of the limited research interest, this study investigates the nature, driving forces and the implications of the relations between local government and NGOs for poverty reduction programme implementation in Ghana. The study adopts a qualitative research methodology, a multi-dimensional classification regime and a New Institutional Theoretical lens to investigate the phenomena. The study was conducted adopting semi-structured interviews and mini focus ground discussions; documentary reviews; and participant observations as the key data collection tools to document the nature, driving forces and the implications of local government and NGO relations in Ghana. This study establishes that the relations between local government and NGOs in Ghana are complex but fit into a four-dimensional classification typology of superficial and suspicious cordiality; tokenistic collaboration; friendly foes; and convenient and cautious partnerships. This typology is novel as previous studies have not classified the relations in this way. Further, it finds that a complex mix of forces drive the relations but in different directions - constraining and facilitating directions - contrary to conventional arguments that institutional isomorphic forces drive organisation into homogenisation. It adds that both the positive and the negative forces can be either beneficial or detrimental for poverty reduction programme implementation. In addition, the study establishes that the relations have more diverse implications for poverty reduction programme implementation than just the economic and efficiency arguments dominant in the extant literature. The relations have implications which are social, cultural, organisational, personality and political.

Despite repeated demonstrations of the dysfunctional effects of social defences in organisations, social defence theory's (SDT) problem of organisational change (Long, 2006) remains. Why? Can this be avoided? The research centres on a four-year coaching and consulting project within a multinational manufacturing company. Social defences appeared but a careful Tavistock action-research intervention failed. Despite Menzies’ (1960) 'sociological innovation' that social defences are more than psychic phenomena and get built into organisations, she did not explain how this happens or what to do. A review of the literatures and case study revealed problems with the theory and intervention. Clues from Trist, Emery and Jaques suggested that both sociological and psychological theories are needed, implying that social defences be re-examined as both causes and symptoms. The change literature proposes that organisational change is qualitatively different from individual and team change (the focus of SDT). We develop realist explanations of the causes of social defences along with forecasting of their consequences, while retaining Tavistock interpretive methods. The cultural theory (CT) of anthropologist, Mary Douglas, emerged as the preferred sociological resource. We reconceptualise social defences as 'informal institutions' carrying implicit rules, norms and 'ways of thinking' that generate consequences (feedback). CT posits that contending 'thought-styles' derive from Strong/Weak Social Regulation and Strong/Weak Social Integration (solidarity). Anxiety and social defences may be understood as directed against a prevailing thought-style and the practices it inspires: leading to either task-undermining or anxiety-circumventing behaviour in service of task. Together, SDT and CT improve our capacity for diagnosing and facilitating change. SDT recognises that social defences are forewarnings of unspecified troubles ahead, but does not explain or forecast what these might be. CT improves our forecasting of the effects of social defences. SDT assists CT in seeing anxiety and defences as significant evidence of cultural shifts and realigning of the organising logic of institutions. This thesis should appeal to leaders who prioritise 'financial' rationality; and to change agents concerned with reading 'emotional' warning-signs and enhancing an organisation's capacity to do things differently.

This thesis develops a postmodernist theory of institution, Discursive Organisation Theory (DOT), by building on elements of the work of Jacques Derrida and Giles Deleuze. One aspect of the theory is demonstrated by analysing transcriptions of eight focus groups composed of students studying in the field of business and management studies in universities in London. Postmodernists have so far eschewed theory development of this type but this study explicitly argues for the legitimacy of the project. The version of postmodernism to be used is carefully defined and takes as its central feature arguments from Derrida’s “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”. Derrida’s “absence of presence” is taken as the defining characteristic of this version of postmodernism. Its epistemology is developed from Derrida’s notion of différance. Its ontology is based on the realist ontology of Deleuze and places emphasis on the notion of assemblage (agencement). The theory assumes that the physical world is only knowable through the mediation of a system that is symbolic in nature which processes sense data. Since organisation of action is the ultimate purpose of this processing system, and is more fundamental than perception or cognition, it is necessary to build a model of this processing system in order to arrive at an understanding of institution, which is taken as the ultimate manifestation of organisation. This processing system is labelled as “discourse” in this thesis and includes all human symbolic systems and chiefly, but not limited to, language (Iedema 2007). The theory is developed by constructing a series of mutually dependent assemblages beginning with discourse itself, then the institution assemblage, then the organisation assemblage and ultimately the assemblage of everyday life, or society as a whole. These assemblages are fictions, reality is itself a continuum, but they are convenient for understanding the nature of the phenomena included at these levels and how they are interrelated. These phenomena traditionally come under the headings of subjectivity, identity, communication, conversation, power, institution, bureaucracy (Weber, 1964), culture, organisation and many others. Derrida’s concept of deconstruction is used as a method to analyse the processes of constructing and maintaining organisation. Bureaucracy is taken to be a diagram (Deleuze) belonging to the assemblage of everyday life and generates the only legitimate form of organisation in the fields of government and private enterprise that can be used today. Grid-Group Cultural Theory, as developed by Mary Douglas, Michael Thompson and others, is reinterpreted and used to analyse institutional construction. This part of the theory is tested empirically. The data gathered from the focus groups is analysed using Grid-Group Cultural Theory as a typology of thought styles. The analysis shows that the thought styles interact with each other both antagonistically and co-operatively in a way that confirms the contention that Grid-Group Cultural Theory may be used to deconstruct bureaucracy. This study makes several theoretical contributions by developing theory in an area where little has been done before. It makes a practical contribution by demonstrating how practitioners may be helped to make more effective decisions. It points the way to further development and applications of the theory.