Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to revisit the recent conceptualization of corporate legitimacy strategies in complex and heterogeneous environments by Scherer et al. (2013) through the analysis of a particular sector: the nuclear industry. As a controversial technology the whole nuclear industry is since its inception under permanent pressure to justify its “license to operate”. This impacts the strategic choices and options of any individual company operating in this industry. The literature focuses mainly on corporate strategies to gain, maintain, or defend legitimacy. In this study, we analyze the strategic responses of a company, which is perceived as definitely illegitimate in one social environment. The results of our analysis of the French nuclear giant’s Areva defense strategy in two different environments challenges many approaches and studies in legitimacy research. We argue that a long-term perspective on a business level is often more relevant than the short-term impact of an isolated incident for the legitimacy and the comprehension of response strategies of a corporation. We develop a theoretical framework for the categorization of sectorial legitimation and present an extension of the above mentioned conceptualization of corporate legitimacy strategies.