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Purpose There are numerous studies on satisfaction, but not enough on dissatisfaction when its consequences can be harmful. This study aims to examine different unsatisfactory situations during customer–supplier relationships in industrial markets combining the appraisal theory with the critical incident technique to identify potential problems and strategies to minimize their effect. Design/methodology/approach This research follows an exploratory qualitative approach based on 18 in-depth interviews with managers from business-to-business firms. The information obtained was object of a textual and conceptual analysis using the analytical software ATLAS TI 9.0. Findings The results show that negative cognitions have greater influence than negative emotions, and those dissatisfied customers may respond by expressing complaints, ending transactional relationships, reporting the other party legally, asking for explanations or continuing commercial relationships, even though they are dissatisfied. This will depend on the severity of the critical incident and the negative cognitions and emotions perceived. Proactivity and understanding of this situation will allow for understanding what specific actions to take to resolve conflicts and mitigate the negative effects among the parties. Originality/value This paper focuses on dissatisfaction, instead of satisfaction, in industrial markets through the appraisal theory. Furthermore, it applies the critical incident technique to understand the cognitions and emotions related with dissatisfaction in the commercial relationships. Finally, it provides ideas on what are the main source of dissatisfaction and how to manage them to anticipate and better manage those incidents.

In recent years, one of the main priorities of companies has been to adapt their business activity and commercial strategy to be aligned with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations, in its “2030 Agenda”. To overcome this challenge, companies develop and implement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies. One of the objectives that have generated the most interest is Goal 5 dedicated to promoting gender equality. This study analyzes the gender equality evolution in companies as part of CSR through Change Management (CM). To do this, a longitudinal study was carried in the last ten years with an analysis of the content of various reports from four of the most important banks in Spain. The results corroborate the growing interest of the largest Spanish financial institutions in gender equality. Being women's access to employment, salary gap information, and the presence of women on the board of directors a priority. Likewise, the CM appears as a lever for the achievement of the SDGs by the entities, gaining relevance in recent years, and being linked to the strategic approach and business objectives for the development of CSR.

Researchers highlighted the need to increase our understanding about the effect of sustainability practices on employees. In this work, we argue that organizational legitimacy has a mediating effect between sustainability practices and employee loyalty. This structural relationship is analyzed on employees of Spanish public universities. Our results confirm the existence of the mediating effect proposed. The lack of organizational legitimacy makes sustainability actions irrelevant for employees. Results expand our understanding about the effect of sustainability among employees. In addition, they provide new evidence for practitioners in order to focus on organizational legitimacy for a better sustainability implementation.

Universities, as organizations that must compete to attract resources, faculty, and students, also strive to implement quality policies and ethical standards. This attempt to improve also involves the management of intangible assets, which to date were not considered by this type of organization (reputation, image and legitimacy). With the aim of validating whether the universities with ethical codes and deontology subjects in their study plans are also positively perceived by students and professors, we carried out an empirical study at the Rey Juan Carlos University. The results provide valuable information for decision-making and communication of the actions carried out by the university, highlighting that a greater effort is necessary so that the effort of a university to consider itself ethical translates into its positive perception in its groups of close interest. Resumen Las universidades, como organizaciones que deben competir para atraer recursos, profesores y estudiantes, también se esfuerzan por implementar políticas de calidad y estándares éticos. Este intento por mejorar también implica la gestión de activos intangibles, que hasta la fecha no eran considerados por este tipo de organizaciones (reputación, imagen y legitimidad). Con el objetivo de validar si las universidades con códigos éticos y asignaturas de deontología en sus planes de estudios también son percibidas positivamente por estudiantes y profesores, realizamos un estudio empírico en la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. Los resultados aportan información valiosa para la toma de decisiones y la comunicación de las acciones que realiza la universidad, pone de relieve que es necesario un mayor esfuerzo para que el esfuerzo de una universidad por considerarse ética se traduzca en su percepción positiva en sus grupos de interés cercanos.

The gender equality topic is gaining momentum both in the organizational and in the institutional management field. In order to close the gender gap that is common in the business environment, governments are promoting full and effective inclusion of women in all business areas and levels, developing useful policies to reach equal career progress opportunities and access to the highest level of the decision-making stages in the political, economic and public context. Companies also apply and implement these kinds of policies. The design and application of gender equality policies generates multiple benefits for companies’ intangible assets, such as positive reputation and legitimacy. Companies who apply effective equality policies can expect an improvement in their internal and external social acceptance, and, therefore, an increase in their moral legitimacy perception. The objective of this study is to verify how gender equality policies influence the corporate moral legitimacy. To measure this relationship, a sample of 75 experts in social responsibility has been used and a model of a regression has been applied to measure the impact of gender equality policies on moral legitimacy. Keywords: legitimacy, gender equality, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, ethics.

Corporate social responsibility(CSR) has evolved from philanthropic to business strategy. CSR implies acceptance of the benefits it generates in companies where they are implemented such as financial performance, customer satisfaction, or organizational legitimacy. The objective is to test the level of implementation of CSR policies in Melia Hotels International, which is the leader in the Spanish hotel industry. The methodology used is the case study. Strategic plans, CSR reports, web information, and a survey of CSR director of the company have been analysed. The results confirm the concern they have for each interest group, as well as showing a clear commitment to the environment. The managing of its reputation and image is evidenced by its commitment to comply with the principles of the Global Compact and its evolving in Merco corporate reputation ranking. The main conclusion of this chapter has been that Melia Hotels has a correct integration of the policies of CSR in the general strategy of the company.

Even though the Spanish Constitution establishes that Spain is structured into Autonomous Communities and that the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity govern the relationship between the different regions, very often Spanish media publish news about territorial inequality, conflicts, and independency velleity. The objective of this investigation, avoiding digging into the reasons for these claims, is to identify whether the region of residence influences the legitimacy of the Spanish state. The legitimacy of the state is the degree of citizen’s support to the institutions. This support ensures the law compliance, the proper functioning of the country and citizen commitment with the social system. State’s legitimacy is very much linked with the trust on politics and politicians. In the regions characterized by independency issues and conflicts, state’s legitimacy will be limited, and the perception of the state’s meaning and power will be more fragile and instable. The effective and appropriate management of the state and the relevancy of the central politics would be complex in these regions and, finally, regional inequality and fragmentation will increase. To achieve this research objective, we carried out an analysis of the state’s legitimacy of each Spanish region considering the data extracted from the European Social Survey. The results of this research provide valuable information useful for regional political decision making and dig into the reasons why regional conflicts are rooted in the state’s institutions.

Nowadays, social sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are becoming more relevant, however, a series of inconsistencies emerge from existent literature. Due to its complexity and sensitiveness, social sustainability is difficult to implement and measure, while social issues receive less attention in CSR operational plans in comparison to environmental factors. This study contributes to an under‐researched topic in the literature by providing a framework for developing CSR practices in the food value chains from a social perspective. Findings recommend different ways to measure social issues and identify communication and transparency as central elements to demonstrate a company's effort. This process requires the commitment of all actors, not only companies, but also stakeholders and governmental bodies involved in FVCs to ensure social sustainability. The academia has also a major role on standardizing how to measure it. Finally, this paper offers a series of practical recommendations to ensure good social practices along the FVC.

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar el impacto de la certificación en las normas de sistemas de gestión ISO 9001 e ISO 14001 y de su implementación en un sistema integrado de gestión (SIG) sobre la legitimidad y la reputación de las organizaciones, así como contrastar la influencia de dichos activos intangibles en el rendimiento financiero. Como complemento a este objetivo se estudió la posible relación bidireccional entre los dos activos intangibles. Para ello se han seleccionado las empresas del IBEX-35, y se ha utilizado una modelización estructural con PLS. Los resultados evidencian una influencia positiva entre la certificación con la legitimidad y con la reputación, entre la integración de los sistemas de gestión con la legitimidad, y entre la legitimidad y la reputación con el rendimiento financiero. Sin embargo, no se ha podido evidenciar la relación entre la integración de los dos sistemas de gestión con la reputación. Se concluye que la implementación en las organizaciones de manera independiente o integrada de normas ISO 9001 e ISO 14001 va a permitir responder a las empresas a las expectativas del entorno y grupos sociales, mejorando tanto su legitimidad como su reputación.

This research aims to analyze the contribution of social responsibility to the work involvement of employees through its influence on social capital, legitimacy and loyalty and which entail benefits for the organization such as its survival and its competitive advantage. The data for the empirical analysis were obtained through an online survey in the field of higher education. The data was processed using the structural equations technique (PLS‐SEM). The findings show that, social responsibility significantly influences employees' organizational legitimacy. Social responsibility does not have a positive effect on employees' social capital directly, but through legitimacy. Social capital has a positive influence on employees' loyalty. Managers must make the social responsibility actions known to their employees and should involve them in these actions. This study is an original contribution in assessing the positive effects of social responsibility on social capital, legitimacy, and loyalty from the point of view of employees.

Globalization, rankings, and the decrease of public funding have created a highly competitive environment for public universities. Internal and external stakeholders increasingly demand better results in term of research, teaching, knowledge transfer, employability, and community outreach. In this new landscape, intangible assets such as reputation and legitimacy are key factors for gaining a sustained competitive advantage. And yet, here remains a lack of clarity about these variables and their relationships. This research aims to increase our understanding of the field by measuring how reputation, by way of its influence on legitimacy, can create a sustained competitive advantage for public universities. We measure reputation and legitimacy by surveying 509 professors from 47 different Spanish universities, considering pragmatic, moral and cognitive legitimacy types and analyze reputation in terms of performance, innovation, citizenship, services, governance, and workplace climate. According to faculty members, a university’s reputation has a significative and positive effect on its legitimacy.

As a result of growing interest in the relationship between organizational legitimacy and survival, the flow of publications in the field makes it difficult to maintain a birds-eye view of the multiple lines of research. The purpose of this study is to map the intellectual structure of current scholarship on organizational legitimacy. Through the study of bibliometric co-citations, we identify the most active research areas in organizational legitimacy, their sub-disciplinary composition, patterns of interrelationship, the most influential subject matters and transformative discoveries. This paper contributes to the literature on organizational legitimacy by facilitating quick understanding of the intellectual structure of the field and identifying future lines of research.

Researchers establish that the current challenges of human resources management to attract and retain talent are based on fostering and increasing the participation of relationships with employees and sustainably managing the organization and teams. The objective of this article is to evaluate the effect that sustainable human resource management has on social capital, and employee retention and loyalty programs. The information required to carry out the empirical analysis was obtained from an online survey to Spanish universities. Data processing was conducted by using the PLS-SEM technique. The results obtained show that social sustainability actions influence the social capital perceived by employees significantly and that social capital influences their loyalty and retention significantly. However, we found that social sustainability actions influence employee loyalty and retention significantly and positively only when it mediates between social capital. This research contributes to the management of organizations and suggests human capital managers to have a greater relational management of human resources in the connection, involvement and transparency of their social sustainability actions in order to achieve greater loyalty and retention ratios, better performance of the organization and, in general, a greater benefit for society.

Purpose The importance of information service offerings is directly linked to decision-making processes for buying and selling in business-to-business (B2B) companies. B2B companies intend to offer information that helps other companies choose a product or service. This paper aims to identify the relationship between the types of information offered by a B2B company in its B2B marketing strategy and the decision-making of the companies which buy products and services. Design/methodology/approach For this purpose, a data set has been consulted that contains 439 observations that are the result of transactions using customer relationship managements (CRMs) of B2B-type companies. A total of 9 different products were consulted from 20 B2B vendors that manage their transactions with CRM software for B2B operations. A total of 439 different transactions were recorded by these vendors during 2018 (n = 439) with their information service offerings strategies. The results were analyzed with the partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings The results showed that the significance of the relationship between internal control factors and external control factors (H4) is the strongest one when using information services offerings strategies in a B2B environment. The results of this research can help B2B companies to improve their decision-making strategies and to define the structure of the information offered in their B2B marketing plans. Originality/value This research makes a contribution to an existing gap, which is to identify what the most important information is for purchasing companies in B2B environments and the relationship with this information, so that B2B purchasers can make good decisions thanks to the information service offerings strategy of the selling companies using CRMs.

State legitimacy is a measure of citizen’s support for their institutions. Legitimacy is also a source of sustainable competitive advantage that protects states by making them less vulnerable to social, economic, and political turbulence. The level of support varies as a function of political variables such as national identity, political interest, representativeness of political elites, and political ideology. Our data was derived from the 2014 European Social Survey (ESS) on France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. Based on a sample of 9,151 citizens, the results show that political representativeness and national identity are the greatest influencers of state legitimacy. Political variables also tend to have similar effects on legitimacy across different states.

espanolLos gestores de las universidades publicas deben saber que esperan y desean los stakeholders de la institucion. Este objetivo es clave para tener docentes y estudiantes satisfechos y poder gestionar estrategias a corto, medio y largo plazo. Por ello, en este estudio se analiza los niveles de satisfaccion de ambos grupos ayudando a identificar y aplicar acciones de mejora en la gestion. Para la obtencion de la informacion se ha realizado una encuesta a 756 docentes y estudiantes de una universidad publica espanola. Los resultados obtenidos muestran diferentes niveles de satisfaccion para docentes y estudiantes, resaltando que el nivel de satisfaccion es diferente segun el tipo de stakeholder (interno o externo), lo que implica que los gestores deban aplicar diferentes estrategias para cada grupo con la finalidad de aumentar su satisfaccion. EnglishPublic universities´ managers need to understand their stakeholders´ demands and needs. This task appears as a crucial aspect in order to have satisfied students and professors and to achieve the institution´s medium and long-term strategies. The aim of this paper is to analyze the satisfaction levels of both, students and professors in order to study possible improvements. For this purpose, a survey was distributed to students and professors of a Spanish public university and 756 responses were obtained. The results show that students and professors hold different satisfaction levels, which highlights the fact that internal and external stakeholders have diverse perceptions of the same institution. This information enhances the need of developing different strategies when managing the university´s satisfaction levels depending on the stakeholder group under consideration.

The article aims to analyze the cause–effect relationship between Brand Ethicality Perception (CPE), legitimacy and purchase intention during the COVID-19 first wave, taking into consideration the mediation effect of the country of residence. Data collection was based on a survey launched during the COVID-19 lockdown in Madrid and New York. To analyze the established hypotheses and to test the multigroup analysis, we applied a structural modelling with SmartPLS. The research contributes to the field of brand management, and specifically of ethical branding, since it will analyze how stakeholders’ expectations fulfillment is key to build a consistent and valued brand meaning in crisis’ situations, demonstrating that ethical behaviors are key for gaining corporate legitimacy and, therefore, for improving business performances.

Although the field of organizational legitimacy is undergoing great advances, academics are still facing the challenge of its measurement. Currently, academics are focusing on improving and homogenizing legitimacy measurement systems at the micro level. However, measuring legitimacy at the macro level has not evolved according to the needs and possibilities provided by new technologies. This research aims to develop a new methodology to measure organizational legitimacy at the macro level, capable of processing large amounts of information. To this end, an analysis of the news content of the 50 companies that make up the EuroStoxx50 has been conducted for a full year. By doing so, we make three key contributions to managing organizational legitimacy. First, we provide a more complete and reliable measurement of organizational legitimacy thanks to mass information processing techniques, providing a technology-based solution to the obsolescence problem of legitimacy evaluation models at the macro level. Second, we provide empirical evidence of the relationship between legitimacy and organizational success based on the analysis of mass information. Third, we show evidence that a bias is introduced in the measurement of legitimacy due to the use of different sources for this purpose.

Purpose: To analyze the main types of intangible assets as sources of economic and social outcomes in large corporations. Design/methodology/approach: We create a sample of large corporations with data from two secondary databases: Fortune Most Admired Companies and Interbrand. We study business’ legitimacy through their presence on Google.com. We perform quantitative analysis by testing the proposed hypotheses against a structural equation model built using the PLS method. Findings: We confirm the value of brands and legitimacy as sources of economic outcomes. We observe that perceived quality and brand equity influence social results. We conclude that perceived quality alone does not improve brand or market value. Research limitations: The main limitation is related to the characteristics of the companies in the sample: large, highly institutionalized multinational corporations. Practical implications: The results offer several considerations for managers seeking to improve organizational outcomes. Intangible assets must be managed along with tangible assets in order for organizations to survive and thrive in the marketplace. Originality/value: The principal contribution of this study is to demonstrate the importance of managing intangible assets so that the organization can maintain or improve its legitimacy and its economic outcomes.

Organizational legitimacy is determined by individuals who observe and evaluate the organizations according to social models. Individuals validate their judgments according to their beliefs, values, and ethical norms, even if they privately disagree with them. However, society relies on the opinions of others to make decisions, looking for shared and common standards with which to compare their evaluations. Advances in the field of organizational legitimacy suggest that this is a multilevel variable, which depends on individual perception (at the micro level), as well as on the influence of collective actors (at the macro level) such as government, media, organizations’ social norms, trade associations, or opinion leaders. Nowadays, the most common way to measure legitimacy (at the macro level) has been based on the most relevant newspapers’ content analysis. However, the ever-changing new environment characterized by new media and online user-generated content affected the traditional media “authority” and influence in organizations’ legitimacy. Therefore, it is necessary to adapt the measurement of legitimacy to the evolution of the media, to the emergence of social networks and the large data generated on the web. Therefore, the objective of this research is to analyze the legitimacy at the micro level through surveys and at the macro level through the news published on Google.com. The results provide a more complete measurement of organizational legitimacy, allow the comparisons between the levels of individual and online legitimacy, and quantify how digitalization may influence variables related to ethics, such as legitimacy.

Social demands for corporate social responsibility (CSR) have been increasing in recent years. Organizations understand the need to follow socially responsible behavior to receive stakeholder support. In addition, the application of CSR principles within human resources (HR) management has become more relevant, and more empirical research is needed. In fact, enterprises will be considered legitimate if they are viewed as socially embedded not only externally but also internally. Under this scenario, the main objective of this research is to analyze the relationship between the implementation of socially responsible HR management and organizational legitimacy. Furthermore, the relevance and performance of diverse CSR policies will be analyzed through the implementation of the importance-performance matrix (IPMA). For this purpose, the evaluations made by 157 CSR experts on approximately 30 multinational companies are considered. PLS-SEM is applied to the data and shows a strong and positive relationship between CSR practices focused on employees and organizational legitimacy. The results offer relevant information for company managers to improve their resource optimization and internal stakeholder management through the correct and efficient introduction of CSR policies.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to measure the effects of universities' ethical management and positive impact on society affect the faculty engagement through the mediating effect of organizational legitimacy.Design/methodology/approachEngaged employees are characterized by better performance, increased productivity and by generating higher customer loyalty as well greater economic profit. The commitment to the organization they work for is affected by internal and external inputs. Among these, business ethics and corporate community outreach are key factors for improving employee engagement. The authors developed a survey that was distributed to professors of Spanish universities. To treat the data and test the proposed hypotheses, the authors applied structural equations through PLS-SEM.FindingsThis research contributes to the organizational management field literature and advises university administrators to adopt an ethical management style based on information transparency, accountability and faculty member involvement in the decision-making process in order to improve their engagement and, therefore, increasing student satisfaction, academic results and positive impact on the common good.Originality/valueThe novelty of the authors’ research stands in the inclusion of legitimacy as a mediation effect between business ethics and community outreach that affect employees' engagement and, specifically, faculty engagement.

Purpose – The aim of the investigation is to examine the effect of communication on the legitimacy and performance of organizations. The research framework was built based on Institutional Theory. Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected from 613 surveys of patients and health personnel of public hospitals in Madrid (Spain) and analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The questionnaires were anonymous. No identification data or biomedical data were requested. Findings – The results confirm the existence of a positive effect between communication and organizational legitimacy. They also indicate that the effect produced by communication on organizational performance is considerably greater than that produced by organizational legitimacy. The findings provide new knowledge on communication as an antecedent of organizational legitimacy. From a practical point of view, the research provides ideas on how hospital managers can improve their performance through communication management and organizational legitimacy. Originality/value – New evidence of the effects of communication on the legitimacy and performance of organizations is provided. The effect and the predictive relevance of legitimacy in relation on the performance of organizations are also identified. Objetivo – O objetivo desta pesquisa é examinar o efeito da comunicação na legitimidade e no desempenho das organizações. A estrutura da pesquisa foi construída com base na teoria institucional. Metodologia – Os dados foram coletados em 613 questionários de pacientes e profissionais de saúde de hospitais públicos de Madri (Espanha) e analisados por meio da modelagem de equações estruturais com mínimos quadrados parciais (PLS-SEM). Os questionários eram anônimos. Não foram solicitados dados de identificação ou dados biomédicos. Resultados – Os resultados confirmam a existência de um efeito positivo entre comunicação e legitimidade organizacional. Eles também apontam que o efeito produzido pela comunicação no desempenho organizacional é consideravelmente maior do que aquele produzido pela legitimidade organizacional. Os resultados fornecem novos conhecimentos sobre a comunicação como um precedente da legitimidade organizacional. Do ponto de vista prático, a pesquisa apresenta ideias sobre como os gestores de hospitais podem melhorar seu desempenho por meio do gerenciamento da comunicação e da legitimidade organizacional. Contribuições – Novas evidências dos efeitos da comunicação sobre a legitimidade e o desempenho das organizações são fornecidas. Além disso, o efeito e a relevância preditiva da legitimidade no desempenho das organizações são identificados. Objetivo – O objetivo desta pesquisa é examinar o efeito da comunicação na legitimidade e no desempenho das organizações. A estrutura da pesquisa foi construída com base na teoria institucional. Metodologia – Os dados foram coletados em 613 questionários de pacientes e profissionais de saúde de hospitais públicos de Madri (Espanha) e analisados por meio da modelagem de equações estruturais com mínimos quadrados parciais (PLS-SEM). Os questionários eram anônimos. Não foram solicitados dados de identificação ou dados biomédicos. Resultados – Os resultados confirmam a existência de um efeito positivo entre comunicação e legitimidade organizacional. Eles também apontam que o efeito produzido pela comunicação no desempenho organizacional é consideravelmente maior do que aquele produzido pela legitimidade organizacional. Os resultados fornecem novos conhecimentos sobre a comunicação como um precedente da legitimidade organizacional. Do ponto de vista prático, a pesquisa apresenta ideias sobre como os gestores de hospitais podem melhorar seu desempenho por meio do gerenciamento da comunicação e da legitimidade organizacional. Contribuições – Novas evidências dos efeitos da comunicação sobre a legitimidade e o desempenho das organizações são fornecidas. Além disso, o efeito e a relevância preditiva da legitimidade no desempenho das organizações são identificados.

Higher Education institutions operate in a highly competitive sector where attracting resources has become a complicated task. Intangible assets such as image, legitimacy, and reputation have been considered as crucial elements for the survival and success of organizations. Within the literature, authors have highlighted their relevance, however, the differences and relationships between these variables remains unclear. Under these circumstances, the aim of this paper is to measure the relationship between image, legitimacy, and reputation in the Public University as part of a sustainable strategy. This evaluation will be made considering students&rsquo, and professors&acute, perceptions to compare the results because many authors have highlighted the complexity of managing the relationship with these groups and obtaining positive assessments due to their diverse characteristics. To meet this objective, a review on the literature will be carried out, followed by analysis of the results obtained through a survey distribution. To treat the data, PLS-SEM (Partial Least Square ) was used, and the corresponding measurement invariance of composite method (MICOM) and multigroup analysis (MGA) was carried out. The results confirm the proposed hypotheses on the relationship between the three variables, however, the moderating effect of the stakeholder group was not confirmed. The findings provide additional empirical evidence on the relationship between the considered variables as well as on considering more than one stakeholder group for the analysis. Managers could apply this information to improve their university&acute, s image, reputation, and legitimacy.

In this paper, we study customer's legitimacy preferences from the perspective of individual social profiles. By doing this, we aim to determine the influence of the social context on decision-maki...

The current article studies the influence of attitudes toward immigration on state legitimacy. We analyzed the European Union countries that received the greatest immigrant inflows in 2014: Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, through data from the latest edition of the European Social Survey. Our results show that citizens with negative attitudes toward immigration consider their states to be less legitimate. Conversely, positive attitudes toward immigration are not associated with increased state legitimacy (except in Spain). Based on these findings, there is a clear need for communication strategies that provide information on the actual effects of immigration. In their absence, the political discourse on this matter will continue to be co-opted by power-grabbing actors.

Multinational companies face important challenges in host countries. When legitimized, these institutions may receive local communities' support and earn their right to operate. In this research we analyze the fundamental role that environmental policies play on the legitimacy perception of multinational companies established in emerging countries. We applied structural equations modelling, analyzing data of 157 experts' evaluations about 30 multinational companies which operate in South and Centre America (Latam). The results show evidence supporting the positive effect that environmental policies implementation have on multinational companies' legitimacy. The results highlight the importance of the dialogue with the local communities and the employees' environmental training when companies are trying to improve their legitimacy. The research contribution states in a major understanding of the effect of social responsibility policies in organizational legitimacy in the multinational companies' context, emphasizing the environmental commitment as a key factor for the organizational legitimacy in emerging countries. In addition, our findings provide new strategic guidelines for multinational companies’ managers to overcome the liability of foreignness.

This article outlines an approach to building a country-level legitimacy index designed specifically for European Union member states. The index allows intercountry as well as longitudinal comparisons. Changes over time reflect varying levels of confidence in the political system and may serve as leading indicators for differences in the economic, social, and political stability of member states. Source data for the index are derived from the European Social Survey, taken between 2002 and 2012 in 35 countries. The index is built around three dimensions (legality, justification, and consent). Results from the index vary among member states but, overall, show a tendency toward diminishing legitimacy. Citizens trust their police forces and laws, but are dissatisfied with institutions and the economy. Moreover, they feel increasing distance from their leaders, their representative bodies, and the effectiveness of political institutions. These trends highlight the need for public–private efforts to increase the legitimacy of European Union member states.

Great progress has been made in the field of marketing and sustainability. Nevertheless, there is still an important gap between the behavior and beliefs of society and markets about sustainability, and companies&rsquo, capability to understand and face this trend. Digital marketing is key to filling this gap. However, research in digital marketing and sustainability is very scarce. The purpose of this research is to examine the literature in the subject, since 2009 until 2018, and to elaborate a research agenda about digital marketing and sustainability. Through a previous analysis based on bibliometrics, a research agenda has been developed that shows the main challenges for the digital marketing and sustainability field: (1) customer orientation and value proposition, (2) digital consumer&rsquo, s behavior, (3) digital green marketing, (4) competitive advantage, (5) supply chain, and (6) capabilities. This work contributes to the development of the research in digital marketing and sustainability, suggesting various challenges for the field that lead to future lines of research, and favoring the development of a new research approach capable of reducing the existing gap between society and business on sustainability issues.