"Identity Realization, Multiple Logics and Legitimacy"

The aim of our paper is to analyze the identity realization and legitimation process of a newly founded organizational form. Particularly in emerging population, it is a challenging task for organizations to construct an identity. The efforts of organizations in search of an identity often lead to collective action that crystallizes into multiple competing institutional logics and, eventually, in different population sub-forms. In our paper, we analyze the consequences of this contestation among multiple logics, fueled by competing self-organizing collective actors, on the organizational founding rate. We claim that competition among collective actors affects the founding process in two opposing ways. One the one hand, it spurs the founding rate as entry barriers are reduced. On the other hand, the resulting heterogeneous entry tempers the rate as it undermines the population-level legitimacy commons by producing fuzziness. We also predict that differences in the sub-form’s perceived template quality will...