Corporate Legitimacy: A Passport to Iron Law of Responsibility Evasion in Contemporary Business Space

The environment of business in Nigeria is overly getting more complex and unpredictable than ever before. This trend is occasioned by the rapid changes in social, technological, political, legal and economic forces which thus, mount both favorable and unfavorable pressures on organizations in their quest to maintain operational stability amid competition. In the light of this circumstance, organizations in their bid to remain operationally efficient often engage in some unethical behaviors which tend to question their legitimate standing and possible invocation of iron law of responsibility by the society. Following this observation, this paper theoretically examined the linkage between corporate legitimacy and iron law of responsibility evasion in modern business space. In pursuit of this, strategic adaptation. strategic manipulation and moral reasoning were adopted as manifest properties of the predictor variable. Consequent upon extant literature exploration, it was found that the society serves as a host to all businesses, and as such has the power to select in and out any business depending on its observed corporate behavior. The paper in line with the findings, concludes that corporate legitimacy is a strategic passport through which an organization’s activities and behavior is given validity and acceptance by the society to prosper. It was however recommended that that for a business to continually escape the wrath of iron law of responsibility and secure legitimacy, managers should embrace moral reasoning option in their quest to establish legitimacy, especially as it allows the organization to peacefully bargain or negotiate with the society on issues of social concern in order bring about a match between business practices and social expectations.