Corporate governance, social network analysis and business legitimacy

This chapter aims at contributing to the section of accounting, financial reporting, and business legitimacy of the Handbook of business legitimacy as it unfolds a discussion about how social processes that exist at socially constructed relations within business context could be understood. In particular, the chapter challenges the arguments behind three main concepts and puts them under the same umbrella in order to enrich the already existing and open for further discussions about relations between corporate governance, social network analysis, and business legitimacy. More specifically, the idea behind this discussion is to encourage researchers to utilize the social network analysis methodology as an engine as it enables to opening alternative perspectives of looking into discussions on business legitimacy in corporate governance and accounting contexts. In addition, the aim is to contribute to the field of public relations and philosophy of management by emphasizing the possibility of looking into the notion of legitimacy through networks, which are accounted as to be responsible for formulating of an interplay between business sector and society.