Figure 2
The figure shows four adjacent boxed sections presenting categories related to brand legitimacy. The left box is titled “Antecedents of brand legitimacy”, and contains a vertically listed set of labeled points. These points read as follows, “Brand origin (For example, country-of-manufacture)”, “Corporate reputation”, “Market dynamics”, “Materiality”, “Objects expressive capabilities”, “Perception of social responsibility”, “Racial inequality or racialization”, “Service quality dimensions”, “Social acceptance”, “Social impact”, and “Visual characteristics of C S R reports”. The top central box is titled “Mediators of brand legitimacy”, and contains the following listed terms, “Altruistic attributions”, “Consumers’ perceptions”, “Governance strategy (For example, contract customization; relational governance)”, “Institutional perceptions”, “Legitimacy pressure”, “Market ambiguity”, “Perceived self-congruity”, “Perceived sensitivity to ethic culture”, and “Processing fluency”. Beneath the central mediators box, in a smaller separate box, appears the heading “Moderators of brand legitimacy”, and a corresponding smaller list containing four labeled terms which read, “Brand loyalty”, “Corporate attribution”, “Emotions (For example, hope, fear)”, and “Perceived vulnerability”. To the right, a vertically oriented box is titled “Manifestations of brand legitimacy asterisk”, and contains a list of the following labeled terms, “General”, “Cognitive”, “Cultural”, “External”, “Internal”, “Market”, “Moral or normative”, “Political”, “Pragmatic or instrumental”, “Regulative”, “Relational”, “Social”, and “Territorial”.Overview of brand legitimacy literature Notes: * In the legitimacy literature, the three main dimensions of legitimacy are Cognitive, Moral/Normative, and Pragmatic/Instrumental, each with various sub-dimensions (see, e.g. Suchman, 1995 for a typology and definitions). It is also recognized in the literature that some aspects of legitimacy overlap and conflict, when it is used as a construct in Institutional Theory and Social Psychology (Tost, 2011). It is beyond the scope of this review to reconcile these differences/overlaps or to create a new typology of brand legitimacy. Thus, this list was based on the type(s) of legitimacy as reported in the 78 studies in Study 2. Source: Authors’ own illustration.