Legitimacy judgments and prosociality: Organizational purpose explained

Abstract

Purpose is a set of common beliefs that guide organizational members’ actions toward long-term achievements, independently of an organization’s immediate profitability. Hence, purpose reveals new motivational mechanisms for employees’ engagement that legitimacy-as-judgment research and prosociality literature address. Drawing on these approaches, this chapter investigates the sources and consequences of organizational purpose. We suggest three avenues for research by emphasizing that purpose is not another organizational goal but differs in its conceptual nature, by addressing aggregation of micro-behavior in terms of incentive structures, and by accounting for the emergence and maintenance of purpose itself.