How Big Data Can Destroy Organisations’ Legitimacy

In this piece we discuss how Big Data can shape, promote and hinder the legitimacy of organisations. Big Data presents both a challenge and an opportunity for organisations to influence stakeholders’ judgements about the desirability, propriety or appropriateness of the actions of the organisation. However, in order to shape such judgements, organisations have first to understand the different dimensions of legitimacy, which include regulatory, pragmatic, moral and cultural- cognitive aspects.