The nut-rage case: A legitimacy challenge against Korean air

Abstract

The importance of legitimacy, in both academic and business contexts, has been growing gradually, as stakeholders focus less on just the goods and services they purchase; legitimacy becomes standalone selling factor to many individuals, which numerous organizations including multi-national corporation cannot ignore.

This thesis paper aims to comprehend the complex process of legitimacy defense involving multi-stakeholders, with contributions to the existing organization studies on legitimacy by researching how the media challenges and delegitimizes defensive corporate accounts deployed to control public sentiment. The primary objective of this thesis paper is to identify the delegitimization strategies employed by the Korean media to challenge Korean Air’s countermeasures after the nut-rage incident that occurred on 5th December 2014.

Based on previous research conducted, notably that of van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999) and Vaara et al. (2006), categorization and analysis of Korean media articles, and corporate defensive accounts was conducted. Then critical discourse analysis (CDA) was adopted a key analysis tool, for developing an understanding of the delegitimization process. Using these two strategies, the strategic media texts and the subsequent corporate defensive accounts were categorized into four sensemaking strategies: authorization, rationalization, moral evaluation and normalization (mythopoesis was exempted).

An insight into the process of delegitimization is shown by the findings of this paper, indicating that normative legitimacy challenges were most prevalent, with a small proportion of pragmatic challenges however no cognitive legitimacy challenges were identified. The causes behind the distribution of these legitimacy challenges is then discussed in-depth. Why Korean Air’s countermeasures yielded outcomes which were far beyond what would have originally been expected is also discussed.

Although the contextual background of this paper is rather unique, it is still able to provide practical outcomes for future research and organizational process. It sheds light on the unique forms of multinational corporations (MNCs) within Korea: Chaebol, and how their existence affects corporate culture and associated legitimacy challenges. The importance of the media is also highlighted, as their contribution in conducting legitimacy challenges is significant.