Global Compact International Yearbook 2013
20
that produce consumer goods in sensitive industries and ana-
lyzed how they manage heterogeneous stakeholder demands.
Company A (a German sportswear company) and Company
B (a Swiss coffee company) operate in highly competitive
business environments and they are both in the spotlight of
critical watchdog organizations. Interviews were conducted
with the department heads of both companies to learn how
their functional subunits respond to the specific stakeholder
expectations of their department, and how they coordinate
their responses with other departments. Furthermore, we
were interested to learn how corporate representatives assess
the adequacy of their responses (e.g., What kind of organiza-
tional platforms exist to monitor and discuss changing social
expectations?) and how the assessment results are taken into
consideration in internal decision-making (e.g., What kind
of inter-departmental platforms exist to coordinate response
strategies?).
Organizational capacities for managing legitimacy
At both companies under review, we observed a high level of
activities that organizational literature has termed “boundary
spanning.” Boundary spanning means expanding the corporate
perspective by reaching out to organizations or individuals
outside of the corporation (“external boundary-spanning”) in
order to absorb and process new challenges, solutions, views,
or ideas. Boundary spanning can also take place inside the
organization by increasing inter-departmental coordination
(“
internal boundary-spanning”). Both dimensions of bound-
ary spanning (internal and external) are critical for managing
legitimacy. External boundary-spanning enables the corpora-
tion to monitor shifting societal trends in various regions and
audiences. Internal boundary-spanning ensures that societal
expectations are discussed with members from other depart-
ments, the adequacy of various response options are assessed
jointly, and actions are coordinated.
Boundary spanning is a concept that was developed in the con-
text of innovationmanagement and the diffusion of knowledge.
This theory suggests that organizations vary in their intensity
and direction of boundary-spanning activities. We apply the
theory to the study of the influence of boundary-spanning
activities on legitimacy strategies and their organizational
design requirements. We suggest that the supportive organi-
zational capacities for boundary spanning also help corpora-
tions to flexibly respond and adjust to legitimacy challenges
in the most appropriate way and to cope with heterogeneous
environmental demands.
The literature differentiates between two types of boundary
spanning. Some boundary spanning activities serve to “buffer”
from the external environment; other activities serve to “bridge.”
This means that some corporations monitor societal expecta-
tions to better shield the organization from societal expectations