ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we focus on the multimodal construction of organizational legitimacy—the general assumption that an organization and its conduct are appropriate within a specific institutional and cultural context. Such legitimacy is a central precondition for organizational success and survival. During the past decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a guiding idea about the role of business in society and has diffused globally, with a broad variety of local adaptations and ‘translations’. We argue that CSR communication manifests ‘discursive legitimation strategies’ which are rarely designed in exclusively verbal form, but extensively combine verbal text with visual resources in multimodal compositions in which the different modes complement and enhance each other. We illustrate these ideas on the basis of empirical material and findings drawn from two studies on the multimodal construction of CSR in Austria. After outlining how these studies can be ‘read’ through the prism of legitimacy and legitimation, we also suggest additional and complementary ways and research designs conducive to utilizing multimodality in legitimacy research.
