Revisiting Organizational Legitimation: Cognitive Diffusion and Sociopolitical Factors in the Evolution of Bulgarian Newspaper Enterprises, 1846-1992

Abstract

Arguments about constitutive and sociopolitical legitimation of organizational forms are applied to studying the evolutionary dynamics of the Bulgarian news paper industry as it transitioned through multiple political and institutional environments. The notion of relegitimation is advanced in the context of comparing the cognitive diffusion of the organizational form prior to the Communist takeover in 1946, and its revival in the collective memory of the public after 1989. Variation in the rate of organizational founding is also linked empirically to the strength of political turbulence. Violent political conflict deters new foundings, while institutionally mediated political activism has a positive effect on the rate of organizational entry.