Meeting expectations in the EU regulatory state? Regulatory communications amid conflicting institutional demands

European Union agencies are crucial institutional agents of the EU regulatory state. As such, they are faced with multiple expectations from a broad array of audiences. Reputation literature teaches us that the process of how organisations manage the expectations of their multifaceted audiences is central to organisational reputation. However, there has been little research about the diverse aspects of organisational reputation that EU agencies communicate to legitimise their existence. And how does this vary over time, across agencies, and why? More broadly, the study reflects on the implications of these attempts at self-presentation for the regulatory state's legitimising credentials. It introduces a novel measurement of reputational dimensions and draws on a quantitative analysis of all EU regulatory agencies' annual reports across time. Our findings indicate that agencies are becoming more reputationally-astute over time, expanding their reputational repertoire. However, this expansion is consistent with the tenants of the EU regulatory state.