Repairing legitimacy through discourses: insights from the Volkswagen's 2015 diesel scandal

Purpose – This study explores how corporate discourses enact legitimation strategies aimed at repairing pragmatic, moral and cognitive legitimacy types (Suchman, 1995) after a scandal involving sustainability, namely the Volkswagen’s 2015 diesel scandal. Design/methodology/approach – By drawing on the discursive nature of legitimacy (Phillips et al., 2004), this study conducts a critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) to identify how the scandal is depicted and which semantic, grammatical and lexical features characterise discourses. It then relates discourses and their features to legitimation strategies that help repair diverse types of legitimacy. Findings – To repair pragmatic legitimacy, discourses on a few actors and processes enact strategies of creating monitors and avoiding panic. Such discourses include grammatical features only. To repair moral legitimacy, discourses on the event, actors, processes and topics of apology, trust, and integrity, enriched with grammatical and lexical features, mobilize disassociation, excuse, justify and restructure strategies. Discourses on the event, actors, processes and topics of corporate qualities, history and future strategy help repair cognitive legitimacy by enacting an avoiding panic strategy. Grammatical, lexical and semantic features characterize such discourses. Originality/value – This study offers insights into the connection among discourses, relegitimation strategies, and legitimacy types by combining the discursive nature of legitimacy with critical discourse analysis. It also contributes to the growing literature on how organizations face the legitimacy challenges raised by scandals involving sustainability. Research implications – The study reveals the potentials of critical discourse analysis to bring out from texts practical modes of communicating, and specifically those discourses and features of discourses that serve legitimacy purposes.