Challenging legitimacy in cultural fields : the case of Dundee Rep

Abstract

This thesis argues for a dualistic, epistemological, framework for the study of legitimacy which recognises the different ways it might be understood to exist, and as such be managed, within organisations. It is based on an ethnography of a Scottish professional theatre, Dundee Rep, undertaken over a 30 month period. The research adopts a social constructionist ontology and an epistemological framework based on the knowing that / knowing how framework of Gilbert Ryle to present three accounts of the legitimacy of the theatre – as belonging, becoming and integrated – and to challenge the notion implicit in the organisation studies literature that legitimacy is treated (and should be treated) as a belonging by organisations. The proposed integrated epistemological framing of legitimacy explains how notions of legitimacy as an emergent, negotiated perception and as a competitive resource possessed are both crucial to developing an integrated understanding of how legitimacy is produced at the organisational level.