Using legitimacy strategies to secure organisational survival over time: the case of EFRAG

In this paper, we study how the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) used different legitimacy strategies between 2004 and 2021 to secure its organisational survival. Although EFRAG is now an established player within the regulatory space of corporate reporting, the organisation’s path towards this position was not straightforward. Based on 20 interviews with current and former members of EFRAG and archival documents, we investigate how EFRAG initially gained and maintained its legitimacy and how it responded to a legitimacy crisis arising in the aftermath of the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Based on prior research on organisational strategies for legitimising actions, we derive a framework for our analysis and show how EFRAG has adapted various legitimacy strategies over time. We further find that the use of legitimacy strategies is constrained by various systemic factors and show how EFRAG’s adaptations to its legitimacy strategies led to new tensions. Our findings contribute to the literature on private regulatory organisations’ legitimacy and the political economy of standard setting.