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Politics, Symbolic Action and Myth Making in Pursuit of Legitimacy

School of Management and Finance, University of Nottingham, U.K.

This paper focuses on the micropolitical behaviour of a group of four indi viduals who were able to gain acceptance for their interpretation of events as a project unfolded through symbolic action, myth making and control over the flow of information. It is suggested that these devices were resorted to in order to create a façade of project-risk minimization in ways which were in part self-deceptive and ego-enhancing. The research contribution this paper makes is twofold. First, it illustrates the social, symbolic and political processes by which a select group were able to manipulate other actors' understandings of complex organizational events. Second, it suggests that apparently irrational and uninformed decisions may have a rational and intelligible basis when inter preted as politically motivated symbolic acts required for legitimation purposes.

Organization Studies, Vol. 15, No. 6, 861-878 (1994)
DOI: 10.1177/017084069401500605


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