This thesis examines some epistemic defences of democracy put forward by David Estlund, Michael Fuerstein, Cheryl Misak, and Fabienne Peter, as well as a critique of democracy raised by Jason Brennan. It then develops an epistemic defence of a moderately non-egalitarian system, which it proposes to call liberal trusteeship. According to the proposed theory, the power to draft laws ought to be separated from the power to enact those drafts into law. The former power ought to be vested in trustees, who are essentially specialists that have inquired extensively into a given matter, and the latter power ought to be vested in a democratically elected parliament. Subsequently, this thesis argues that parliament should nevertheless have the prerogative to ultimately override trustees on ethics and pass its own legislation regulating moral matters; that the criteria for selecting trustees should be determined by jury courts; and that parliament and jury courts should be given some powers to influence the composition of trustee committees, so that the political process can guard against the risk that trustees might be biased or corrupt. The above proposal is grounded on three principal claims. Firstly, this thesis argues that moral authority and legitimacy ought to be reserved for the political system that strikes the best balance between competence and equality. Secondly, it argues that liberal trusteeship is more likely than democracy to determine correctly what ought to be done in light of the progress of open and vigorous inquiry into a given matter. Thirdly, and as a result, it argues that liberal trusteeship is likely to exercise power sufficiently more competently than democracy, such that its moderate deviation from political equality will be justified. In the light of this, the thesis concludes that liberal trusteeship would strike a better balance between competence and equality than democracy.

Cette thèse examine comment se construit et évolue la légitimité individuelle du contrôleur de gestion en situation dans l’organisation. Dans un premier temps, un cadre conceptuel est élaboré pour permettre l’étude de la légitimité professionnelle individuelle d’un contrôleur de gestion. Est en particulier mise en évidence la présence de natures et de sources de légitimité distinctes, sur lesquelles se fondent les stratégies de légitimation des contrôleurs. La recherche se fonde sur des études de cas multiples réalisées sur trois terrains distincts. Elle permet de dégager des trajectoires individuelles de construction de légitimité. L’analyse transversale des cas révèle les mécanismes collectifs qui peuvent orienter les trajectoires. Elle détaille les mécanismes d’évaluation qui conduisent les trajectoires à être fructueuses, mais aussi infructueuses. Elle démontre également « l’attraction » que les pressions institutionnelles exercent sur ces trajectoires individuelles de construction de légitimité. / This PhD dissertation examines how the professional legitimacy of management accountants is individually built and evolves over time in organizations. First, a conceptual framework is set to study the individual professional legitimacy of management accountants. It particularly clarifies how legitimation strategies are based on different natures and sources of legitimacy. This research is based on multiple in-depth case studies led in three different organizations. In-depth analysis for each case and inter-case comparison provide a framework for drafting trajectories. Our findings reveal that controllers’ individual legitimacy trajectories end up at a common legitimacy referential (functional legitimacy and cognitive legitimacy), in accordance with management accountant profession archetypes. Our results show institutional pressures placed on the management accountant legitimacy construction process.

Las crisis que atraviesan las empresas suelen explicarse por diversos factores que van desde variaciones externas como la inestabilidad política, económica o social hasta componentes internos como el estilo de liderazgo que se adopta para la dirección de una empresa o las estrategias que utiliza para establecerse. Uno de estos elementos que una empresa plantea en su misma constitución es el de legitimidad, un concepto que en la actualidad continúa abriendo cuestionamientos sobre su manejo e importancia. Gracias a esto, la presente investigación busca contrastar los diferentes acercamientos que ha tenido la legitimidad en cuanto a los modelos que utiliza para su análisis, así como sus efectos en la mejora organizacional. Para ello, se ha realizado una revisión sistemática de las principales publicaciones que se han dado en relación con este tema. En un primer momento, se abordan diferentes acercamientos para entender sus características y construir su definición. En segundo lugar, se ha organizado una exposición de los principales tipos de legitimidad que los autores han establecido. Luego, se explora la articulación de diferentes estrategias de legitimidad que las empresas utilizan para mejorar su productividad y posición en el mercado en el que participan. En la última sección, se describe los modelos de Thomas, de Saaty, además del que se utiliza para hallar la legitimidad ambiental corporativa. La conclusión principal a la que llega este artículo es que la legitimidad es un elemento fundamental en la administración y que no existe un único modelo pues este responde a distintas necesidades institucionales. / Crisis embraced by enterprises are explained by different factors, as well external, such as political, economic or social environmental, as internal, like leaderships styles adopted in order to improve the management or strategies to stablish a route to obtain it. One of these elements is legitimacy, a current concept necessary, but not totally clear about how the correct application and importance is. Indeed, this investigation is oriented to contrast various approaches that legitimacy had had to be analyzed, besides its effects in organizational improvement. A systematic revision of mainly publication was made following this objective. First, different positions regarding the characteristics of this concept have been tracked to elaborate a complex definition. Then, it is organized an explanation respect principal types of legitimacy made by authors. In another section, the articulation of different legitimacy strategies that companies use to improve their productivity and position in the market in which they participate is explored. The last section, it is oriented to gather Thomas’ model and Saaty’s model of legitimacy, plus the one used to find environmental legitimate. Final conclusion reached by this paper is that legitimacy is a fundamental element in the administration and that there is no single model because it responds to different institutional needs. / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional

Syfte: Syftet för denna studie är utveckla begrepp relaterade till de legitimitetsutmaningar kvinnor i VD-positioner upplever och beskriva hur de hanterar dem utifrån deras egna perspektiv. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer med kvinnor i VD-positioner. En abduktiv ansats har tillämpats. Slutsatser: Resultatet av studien visar på att kvinnor i VD-positioner upplever legitimitetsutmaningar kopplat till deras kön. De tre identifierade legitimitetsutmaningarna är Betraktas inte som ledare, Betvivlad kompetens och Inadekvat utvärdering. Den förstnämnda beskriver hur kvinnor i VD-positioner inte betraktas som en vedertagen ledare på grund av fördomar och uppfattningen om symbolstatus relaterade till dem som kvinnor. Den andra legitimitetsutmaningen skildrar hur kvinnor i VD-positioner upplever att deras kompetens blir betvivlad eftersom de kan mötas av bristande tillit och begränsat handlingsutrymme. Den sistnämnda framställer hur kvinnor i VD-positioner uppfattar att de har högre ställda krav på sig samt blir hårdare bedömd och därmed inte blir adekvat utvärderade. De huvudsakliga hanteringarna av legitimitetsutmaningar är att tro på sig själv och sin kompetens samt vara medveten om vilket intryck man ger. / Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop concepts related to the legitimacy challenges women in CEO positions experience and describe how they manage them from their own perspective. Method: The study was conducted using a qualitative method in the form of interviews with women in CEO positions. An abductive approach was applied. Conclusion: The results of the study show that women in CEO positions experience legitimacy challenges linked to their gender. The three identified legitimacy challenges were Not being regarded as a leader, Doubted competence and Inadequate evaluation. The former describes how women in CEO positions are not considered as an natural leader due to prejudice and the perception of symbolic status related to them as women. The second legitimacy challenge depicts how women in CEO positions feel that their competence is doubted since they can be met with a lack of trust and limited room for action. The latter describes how women in CEO positions perceive that they have higher demands placed on them and are judged more harshly and thus are not adequately evaluated. The main ways to deal with legitimacy challenges are to believe in yourself and your competence and to be aware of the impression you give.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the professional role of school social workers in Sweden from the perspective of profession theory, with particular focus on legitimacy, jurisdiction and discretion. The aim has been divided into four research questions, which are examined in four separate studies: How has the school social work profession emerged and developed? How do school social workers experience boundaries to their professional discretion? How are theories of social work practice applied in school social work? How do school social workers and teachers perceive their cooperation with regard to the wellbeing of pupils? The general area of interest concerns professionals operating in organizations where they are the sole representatives of their profession. In addition, these professionals typically have a peripheral position in relation to the core professions in the organization. The four different studies build on empirical material from qualitative interviews with school social workers and teachers, and also from policy and regulatory documents. The theoretical framework guiding the analysis draws on theories from the sociology of professions (Abbott, 1988) and about human service organizations (Hasenfeld, 1983, 2010). A key finding is that school social worker has a specific technology based on well-established practice theories in social work, where a systems approach appears as the most prominent. Although, it was possible to discern such practice theories from the interviews, the school social workers did not explicitly give reference to them and generally struggled to describe their practice in a professional language. A second key finding result is the lack of clarity with regards to the school social worker’s role. This is evidenced in regulatory documents, as well as among social workers themselves and teachers. In theory, this provides school social workers with a high degree of discretion. However, due to legitimacy problems they feel limited in performing their work unless they can rely on support from other sources such strong support from headmasters. A third key finding is that the cooperation with teachers is all-important to school social workers. They spend a considerable proportion of their time working with teachers rather than pupils, not the least by providing informal consultations to teachers.  On a rhetoric level, teachers agree with social workers about the value and need of school social work. However, they tend to disagree about the role of school social work when they talk about concrete practice. As an overall conclusion the school social worker appears as a critical guest, drawing on a professional foundation in social work theory that contributes uniquely to pupil health care. This distinguishes the school social workers’ role from other professionals in the school setting. The findings in this thesis indicate the need for both education and research in the discipline of social work to start paying attention to social work in schools and other settings where social workers represents a minority occupation peripheral to the host organisation.

Syftet med rapporten är att få förståelse för hur ett företags legitimitet kan påverkas av en skandal. Rapporten undersöker hur Hennes & Mauritz försöker reparera och upprätthålla sin legitimitet genom deras hållbarhetsredovisning samt Vd:ns ord. I och med att intressenters engagemang för företag har ökat, samt att intressenter har lättare att få information, väljer företag som H&M att kommunicera till allmänheten med hjälp av sina hållbarhetsredovisningar. Det skapas således en insyn i företaget då hållbarhetsredovisningar visar företagets ställning, utveckling och följder av dess verksamhet gällande frågor så som sociala förhållanden, mänskliga rättigheter och miljö. Rapportens fokus ligger på en skandal som uppdagades i media år 2012 gällande låga levnadslöner i Kambodja. Genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys har H&M:s hållbarhetsredovisningar, med fokus på Vd:ns ord, för åren 2010 till 2014 studeras och analyserats med hjälp av teoretisk referensram och medial uppmärksamhet. Den teoretiska referensramenen består av legitimitetsteorin, CSR och GRI. Efter att kritiskt analysera H&M:s hållbarhetsredovisningar påvisade resultatet att H&M försöker att använda sina rapporter för att återfå och bibehålla sin legitimitet. / The report aims to gain understanding of how a company's legitimacy may be affected by a scandal. The report examines how Hennes & Mauritz are trying to repair and maintain their legitimacy through their sustainability report and the CEO's words. As the stakeholders' commitment to the business has grown and that the stakeholders have easier access to information will companies, like H&M, choose to communicate to the public by means of their sustainability reports. There is created a transparency in the company as sustainability reports shows the company's financial position, the development and impact of its activities on issues such as social conditions, human rights and the environment. The report focuses on a scandal that was published in the media in 2012, regarding low living wage in Cambodia. Through a qualitative content analysis, H&M's sustainability reports, focusing on the CEO´s words, for the years 2010 to 2014 are studied. And then analysed by using the theoretical framework and the media attention. The theoretical framework consists of legitimacy theory, CSR and GRI. After a critical analysis of H&M's sustainability reports showed the result that H&M are trying to use their reports to regain and maintain their legitimacy.

published_or_final_version / SPACE / Master / Master of Arts

<p>This study aims to investigate the consequences for feminist sex therapy that it is promoted as an alternative to a mainstream approach. Analytically I focus on the relation between normativity, claims to knowledge and professional legitimacy. I study sex therapeutic academic texts, and the material is approached through a framework developed by combining Donna Haraway’s concept of situated knowledges with elements from Karen Barad’s agential realism</p><p>My analysis starts in feminist sex therapists’ criticism of how masculine norms in mainstream sex therapy lead to a flawed theory of sexual matters. Feminist sex therapists, however, allege that it is specifically feminist norms that grant a more complete theory of sex and sexual problems within feminist alternatives in sex therapy. To that effect, feminists discern sexual problems in relation to the impact a patriarchal society has on particularly women’s sexualities, and treatment is articulated as seeking to liberate women from constraints associated with gendered social positions.</p><p>In mainstream sex therapy, allegedly value-neutral insights into human physiology are called upon for the establishment of professional legitimacy. Nevertheless, normative investments are relied upon implicitly to discern sexual problems and sexual well-being with the consequence that sexual problems are understood as conditions that interfere with the ability to have sex, largely equated with coitus, and with the motivation to form coupled sexual relations. By alleviating sexual problems, these abilities and motivations are allegedly restored in the form of natural, already present, capacities for sexual functioning. Comparing my analysis to feminist critiques, I argue that the latter have not fully theorized the significance of normative investments, and have left unchallenged assumptions in mainstream therapy that enable a restorative and liberationist construal of sex therapy’s objective.</p><p>Although feminist alternatives contain a markedly different theorization of sexual problems, they have retained, from the mainstream approach, the notion that sex therapy seeks to liberate its clients. This notion stands in conflict with feminist theorizations of sexual problems, and in my conclusion I argue that feminist sex therapy would benefit from abandoning its liberationist element.</p>

This study investigates the challenges to the legitimacy and authority of scientific research in late modern philosophy of science. The author suggests that the different challenges to the legitimacy of science have led to relativism and amount to a crisis. Keeping in mind the positivist background, he illustrates the legitimacy crisis of science in the period from Popper to the present. In particular his analysis focuses on the "historical school" (Kuhn, Feyerabend etc.) in philosophy of science. The main question of this study is: what are the causes and the nature of the legitimacy crisis emerging in the contemporary philosophical assessment of science? To answer this question, a few specific challenges to the legitimacy of science emerging in particular areas are analysed: for example the difficulties of anchoring scientific certitude to its proper object of study, the loss of objectivity, growing scepticism about the possibility of communication and scientific progress. After substantiating the gradual emergence of relativist and sceptical approaches in the abovementioned areas, this study provides a "diagnosis" aiming at identifying the causes of the crisis. The humanist ground motive of nature and freedom and the choice of anchoring scientific certainty either in the subject or in the object of knowledge are considered the main sources of the crisis. They lead to arbitrary absolutisations of particular aspects of the scientific enterprise and (in the case of subjectivist approaches) to sceptical approaches to the possibility of scientific objectivity, communication and progress. This study also indicates a few possible resources, available in the reformational tradition, to counteract the legitimacy crisis of science. The main resource indicated in this study is the recognition of the structural order for reality, which is accessible to scientific analysis, "constrains" scientific research but also constitutes a common ground for researchers. Other important resources are the recognition of the link between scientific and pre-scientific knowledge and the acknowledgment that universality and individuality are traits of everything that exists. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Philosophy))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Numerous authoritarian states use institutions usually associated with democratic regimes like a constitution, elections, and a legislature. This seems to be counterintuitive. Authoritarian regimes should rather shrink away from democratic institutions. Elections can be won by the opposition and legislatures can make decisions against the interests of the ruler. So, why do autocratic regimes install institutions which limit their power and threaten their survival in office? Assuming actors behave rationally, one should expect authoritarian rulers only to introduce procedures working in their favor. This study looks at the effect of institutions in authoritarian regimes. The findings suggest that legislatures significantly lower the chances of regime breakdown in the long run. However, particularly in election years, authoritarian regimes are facing a higher likelihood of failure.