Thank you for (not) smoking: Essays on organizational theory and strategy in a contested industry

This dissertation consists of three essays that consider: i) the institutional change generated by the simultaneous actions of activist organizations and corporations, ii) the influence of coercive pressures and legitimacy threats on industry performance, and iii) the importance of the concept of legitimacy in organization and management scholarship, with particular emphasis on the strength of the performance implications of legitimacy. Using the empirical setting of a contested industry, this dissertation combines strategy and institutional theory in order to conceptualize and test how industry participants shape institutions, and simultaneously, how institutions shape industry strategies and performance. Hence, from a theoretical perspective, the dissertation intersects with the study of social movements and legal environments as well. In short, the essays that comprise this dissertation shed light on where institutional pressures and legitimacy threats originate, and how they affect industry performance.