Mitigating divestment stigma: a legitimation perspective

Purpose - Foreign divestment (FD) has often different roles such as being a corporate diversification strategy, and of such divestment may have effects on a company's image and reputation. Ongoing businesses trends including internationalization, deregulation and diversification have forced executives to exploit image and reputation as strategic corporate resources, which make them the target of a firm's active management. The paper aims at developing the understanding of the framing techniques of discursive legitimation and of the strategies used by companies when signalizing their FD decision. Design/methodology/approach - To examine the framing strategies used by companies to legitimize their FD decisions, the authors used the case study methodology using a critical discursive analysis. Using companies' press releases regarding FD of Western multinational companies (MNCs), the authors examined for the specific frame used in each release. After identification through initial coding, the dominant frames were recognized by recording patterns in technique, content, themes, patterns of keywords, quotes and semantic method. Findings - This study demonstrated that legitimation is an integral part of framing press release. Companies framing of their FD decisions can be interpreted as an attempt to not only prevent negative repercussion from stakeholders but also to legitimize the FD decisions to protect the company's image and reputation. Originality/value - By examining the elements of FD press releases, the authors uncovered the microelements of the framing techniques used by MNCs to legitimize their decision.