This research addresses the role of organizational language in the establishment of legitimacy from the perspective of New Institutional Theory. Several conceptual and methodical contributions have been made. First, by pairing cultural-cognitive legitimacy with phenomenological institutionalism and socio-political legitimacy with social organizational institutionalism, we have proposed a new way of classifying legitimacy. Second, we made connections between language strategies of organizations and cultural-cognitive and socio-political legitimacy. Finally, by re-categorizing language strategies aimed at legitimacy, we have provided a framework that is applicable in studying the relationship between different language strategies and legitimacy. Using this framework, we conducted an empirical study in which we analyzed the press releases of five major Turkish business groups. It was found that their language strategies were generally similar and mostly aimed at socio-political legitimacy.

According to new institutionalism, this work simultaneously analyzes different methods of operating abroad – that is, joint venture, acquisition and greenfield – in terms of the level of management and ownership control they provide. This research studies the regulative and cognitive institutions that explain the multinational company’s choice of a particular level of that control for its subsidiaries years after entering a foreign country. We analyze 109 German firms with subsidiaries in Spain. The results show that the level of management and ownership control for the subsidiary responds to the institutional quality of the host country and the internal and especially external isomorphic pressures.