True or false? : a study on the legitimacy of the food industry

Today, issues regarding sustainability seem to be a well-known occurrence for many, resulting in companies paying more attention to what they say and do. Therefore, it is important for companies to establish a sustainability report, seemingly functioning as a way of letting stakeholders know that they are taking responsibility. The problem with such reports is that various legitimacy strategies can be employed when demonstrating their results. This study sheds light on how the Swedish food industry, specifically ICA, Coop and Axfood, take advantage of these strategies in order to refine their negative results. Furthermore, the study takes a contrasting approach, acknowledging any possible changes in how the three companies have exploited these strategies over the past five years. By adopting a qualitative method, 15 sustainability reports from the aforementioned companies were examined, showing that five different legitimacy strategies were used when laying out negative results. For instance, it was clear that the companies often utilized a” call-to-action” strategy, portraying a work for change. This transformed negative results into positive ones, consecutively legitimizing their actions. Concludingly, the companies regularly employ these strategies and there was no specific change in their way of using them.