This study examines the corporate environmental disclosures of South African mining organisations from 2009 to 2011 to establish the level and type of these environmental disclosures. An examination is made of mining organisations’ media articles to establish whether their environmental disclosures can be explained by the concept of an implicit social contract. Legitimacy theory posits that an organisation needs to be aware of all their stakeholders’ needs and needs to portray themselves as acting in line with stakeholder values and norms to ensure their continued success. Although environmental reporting has been on the strategic agenda of several organisations disclosures in South Africa, only a minority of research papers have explored how an environmental crisis may impact upon the provision of such disclosures. This paper will help fill this void by performing an examination of management communication strategies, organisational actions and the change in the level of environmental disclosures contained in the mining organisations’ annual report as a result of the acid mine drainage incident that occurred in late 2009. Media articles during and after the mining organisations’ legitimacy had been challenged were examined using Suchman’s (1995) three types of legitimacy: pragmatic, cognitive and moral to identify the type of legitimacy used in the context of a developing country. Regarding the annual report disclosures and media articles’ communication strategies, results were found to be consistent with the legitimacy theory. They indicate that South African mining organisations use mostly the repair strategy in attempting to change the perceptions of the public after an environmental crisis. The strategies utilised by the mining industry in the media disclosures are expected of an organisation in crisis. The mining industry used, primarily, repair strategies in interacting with its relevant stakeholders. The study’s finding that maintenance strategies were the least of the three types of legitimacies is consistent with an industry in crisis. Even though the mining industry primarily used the repair legitimisation tactic, the range of legitimacy techniques has proved to be a finding worth discussing. The mining industry did not completely avoid the event i.e. use disclaimer strategies. Overall, the mining organisations reacted to the heighted institutional pressures by increasing their environmental disclosures and disclosed environmental information that conformed to stakeholders’ values and persuaded society to view acid mine drainage as less problematic than it was reported to be.

Throughout the world, entrepreneurship is viewed as a solution for struggling economies and a major engine of economic growth. As a result, the field of entrepreneurship research has captured the interest of scholars, educators and policy makers. A substantial amount of empirical studies over the last two decades has examined the role of personality in determining entrepreneurial outcomes. Concurrently, organisational legitimacy is perceived as a necessary organisational attribute for the survival and growth of new ventures. Strategic legitimacy of nascent organisations is important in explaining organizational emergence. The current study seeks to determine if there is a relationship between an entrepreneur’s personality and the strategic legitimisation activities they employ in creating a new venture. A multiple regression model tested four factors of entrepreneurs’ personality as antecedents of strategic legitimisation activities among entrepreneurs in South Africa. The empirical findings suggest that positive extraversion traits are strong predictors of entrepreneurial activities to gain strategic legitimacy for new ventures. More interestingly, negative agreeableness traits were found to be strong antecedents of strategic legitimisation activities. Such a conclusion is important in that it provides new grounds of theoretical nature to better understand the personorganisation interplay. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

In recent years there has been an exponential growth of private digital healthcare providers (or “net-doctors” as they are commonly called) in Sweden. Traditionally public healthcare in Sweden has been divided amongst the regions, but with the emergence of net-doctors came the first “national healthcare”. This development has not been without controversy and net-doctors have been critiqued and challenged in the media on multiple occasions.This thesis attempts to explain the emergence of these net-doctors, and how the legitimacy of netdoctors and digital healthcare was negotiated in public debate. It does so by reviewing the history of the Swedish public healthcare system, as well as highlighting important political shifts, changes in legislation, policy, and technological developments. It also includes a study on the debate surrounding these net-doctors, focusing on how they are portrayed, challenged, and defended in the media. It also studies the net-doctor’s responses to said challenges. The results indicate that a combination of market discourse constructions, inertia, and technological development created an opening in the Swedish primary healthcare field. It also indicates that how net-doctors are constructed, be it as a solution or a problem, has remained relatively consistent over time but that the challenges to their legitimacy may have led to a questioning of who should be doing digital healthcare / Under de senaste åren har privata digitala sjukvårdsaktörer (eller nätläkare som de ofta kallas i folkmun) vuxit kraftigt i Sverige. Traditionellt har varje enskild region haft ansvar för att organisera primärvården, men med etableringen av nätläkare har en marknad som täcker hela nationen vuxit fram. Liksom många samhällsförändringar har utvecklingen av nationellt täckande digital primärvård i privat regi väckt samhällsdebatt och nätläkarna har regelbundet blivit kritiserade och utmanade i media. Den här uppsatsen syftar till att förklara hur och varför nätläkare fick utrymme att etablera sig inom den offentligt finansierade primärvården. För att förklara nätläkarnas fortsatta framväxt har legitimitet identifierats som en viktig faktor. Därför behandlar uppsatsen även hur legitimitet har utmanats och införskaffats. Uppsatsen nyttjar en fallstudiemetod i kombination med Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys där det huvudsakliga objektet är nätläkarföretaget Kry. Primärvårdens historia, politiska skiften, lagändringar och teknologisk utveckling undersöks för att förklara hur nätläkare fick utrymme att etablera sig. För att undersöka hur legitimitet konstrueras och utmanas nyttjar uppsatsen kritisk diskursanalys av nyhetsartiklar publicerade mellan 2014-2021 i tre väletablerade tidningar samt två statliga offentliga utredningar. Fokus för diskursanalysen var att sammanfatta hur valfrihet, privata aktörer och konkurrens konstrueras i SOU:erna samt hur dessa påverkat konstruktionen av nätläkare i media samt deras legitimitet. Uppsatsens resultat indikerar att en kombination av en växande liberal ideologi, lagändringar, organisatorisk tröghet och teknologisk utveckling skapade en glänta inom den svenska primärvården, inom vilken nätläkarna kunde etablera sig. Resultaten indikerar även att den kritik och utmaningar som riktas mot nätläkarna förhåller sig relativt konsekvent över tid. Även de tekniker som nätläkarna nyttjar för att bygga legitimitet samt hur de porträtterar sig själva är konsekvent över tid. Avslutningsvis indikerar resultaten att det finns ett ifrågasättande av vem som ska leverera digital sjukvård.

This study investigates the role of private regulatory initiatives, with a particular focus on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, in addressing governance gaps and promoting corporate accountability under human rights violations. The research examines how the BDS movement functions as a private regulatory entity, influencing business practices to adhere to human rights standards and ethical considerations. Using a qualitative methodology, the study analyses the case of Airbnb, exploring the firm’s response to BDS pressures and the underlying reasons for these responses. The theoretical framework draws on organisational legitimacy and institutional theories, highlighting how and why businesses navigate ethical, legal, and stakeholder pressures. The findings reveal that the BDS movement significantly impacts corporate behaviour by leveraging pragmatic legitimacy, including exchange and influence legitimacy, to drive compliance. The analysis demonstrates that companies respond to BDS demands based on an interplay of ethical considerations, stakeholder pressures, and the pursuit of legitimacy. This study also identified the limitations of relying solely on existing legal frameworks for corporate accountability and underscores the necessity of supplementary private regulatory initiatives. By providing a comprehensive examination of the BDS movement’s regulatory role and its implications for corporate governance, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of how civil society-driven efforts can shape business practices and promote ethical standards.

Crisis communication has emerged as a specialised study field for public relations scholars and practitioners in the past 17 years. It is suggested that several gaps in current crisis communication literature exist. A notable focus has been given to the planning, prevention and recovery stages with lesser attention placed on the crisis response stage. A comprehensive conceptual framework to guide communication decision-makers during this critical period has not yet been developed. In addition, crisis communication studies appear to be predominantly Western based. This qualitative study attempts to address these gaps. The focus is on the crisis response stage, with particular emphasis on communication with the journalists who work for media organisations. It is acknowledged that the success of a crisis management effort is profoundly affected by what an organisation says and does during a crisis - termed the crisis response (Benoit 1997; Coombs 2004). Literature and data drawn from South African case studies is translated into a conceptual framework which acknowledges the importance of context, flexibility and constant feedback/monitoring of the environment on crisis communications. The findings of this qualitative study are in line with the current post-modern organisational values that are increasingly emphasised in national and international literature. The study especially makes a unique contribution by applying these values to a conceptual model of communication between the organisation and the media during times of crisis. The model is designed to assist an organisation to protect its image during a crisis in the following ways: * Convince the media that there is no crisis (in the case of unfounded rumours); * Encourage them to view the crisis in a less negative light by acknowledging the organisation's interpretation of events. * Influence the media to see the organisation more positively through the effective management of the crisis. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication)

Crisis communication has emerged as a specialised study field for public relations scholars and practitioners in the past 17 years. It is suggested that several gaps in current crisis communication literature exist. A notable focus has been given to the planning, prevention and recovery stages with lesser attention placed on the crisis response stage. A comprehensive conceptual framework to guide communication decision-makers during this critical period has not yet been developed. In addition, crisis communication studies appear to be predominantly Western based. This qualitative study attempts to address these gaps. The focus is on the crisis response stage, with particular emphasis on communication with the journalists who work for media organisations. It is acknowledged that the success of a crisis management effort is profoundly affected by what an organisation says and does during a crisis - termed the crisis response (Benoit 1997; Coombs 2004). Literature and data drawn from South African case studies is translated into a conceptual framework which acknowledges the importance of context, flexibility and constant feedback/monitoring of the environment on crisis communications. The findings of this qualitative study are in line with the current post-modern organisational values that are increasingly emphasised in national and international literature. The study especially makes a unique contribution by applying these values to a conceptual model of communication between the organisation and the media during times of crisis. The model is designed to assist an organisation to protect its image during a crisis in the following ways: * Convince the media that there is no crisis (in the case of unfounded rumours); * Encourage them to view the crisis in a less negative light by acknowledging the organisation's interpretation of events. * Influence the media to see the organisation more positively through the effective management of the crisis. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication)