Loos, C., Spraul, K. Measuring first-order legitimacy judgments: development of the corporate profession legitimacy scale. Review of Managerial Science (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-026-01019-8

In their new article, Cynthia Loos and Katharina Spraul develop and validate a new scale for measuring corporate profession legitimacy at the micro level. The study asks how people come to see emerging professions as appropriate, credible, and worth supporting.

Corporate professions are not settled institutions. Their legitimacy has to be earned in ongoing interaction with others, especially in fields such as sustainability management, project management, HR management, and consulting, where roles, expertise, and expectations are still evolving.

The authors conceptualize corporate profession legitimacy as a multidimensional construct composed of instrumental, social, and technical legitimacy. This captures whether a profession is seen as useful, socially appropriate, and technically competent, and it reflects the idea that legitimacy is not one simple judgment but a combination of distinct evaluative dimensions.

The scale development process produces a robust tool for studying these judgments in emerging corporate professions. The results show that the construct can be measured in a reliable and meaningful way, which opens up new possibilities for empirical research on legitimacy in organizational settings.

The main contribution lies in offering a sharper way to understand how legitimacy is formed and why it matters for practice. In particular, the study makes it possible to examine how legitimacy relates to willingness to cooperate, a link with clear practical relevance for organizations that depend on acceptance, collaboration, and support.

Link to the full article (open access): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-026-01019-8