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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Legitimacy Judgments about Corporate Tax Avoidance: A Deliberation Experiment
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Robin Schnider
  • Patrick Haack
  • Andreas Scherer
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Academy of Management. Proceedings
Publisher Academy of Management
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 2151-6561
Volume 2018
Number 1
Page Range online
Date 2018
Abstract Text Previous research has suggested that business firms need to engage in active dialogues with stakeholders to maintain their legitimacy. We investigate this “legitimation-as-deliberation” thesis in the context of global tax avoidance and explore whether and under what conditions deliberation leads to the legitimation or delegitimation of tax avoidance and the consultancies involved in facilitating tax avoidance. By conducting an experiment in which study participants discussed the issue of global tax avoidance with representatives of a tax accounting firm and/or representatives of an NGO critical of tax avoidance, we demonstrate that entering deliberations can indeed serve as legitimation strategy for firms. However, the direction and size of the effect depend on the relative persuasiveness of the representatives’ arguments. Moreover, representatives of the tax accounting firm have a stronger impact on participants’ legitimacy judgments about their organization, whereas representatives of the NGO mainly affect participants’ legitimacy judgments regarding the practice. Our study provides three contributions to management research. Phenomenologically, it sheds light on tax avoidance as an important but underexplored topic in management research. Methodologically, it develops an experimental design enabling causal inference about deliberative effects. Finally, theoretically, it conceptualizes legitimacy as a communicative process of making judgments.
Digital Object Identifier 10.5465/AMBPP.2018.258
Other Identification Number merlin-id:17128
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