Balancing 'Protective Disguise' with 'Harmonious Advocacy': Social Venture Legitimation in Authoritarian Contexts

This paper seeks to advance understanding of how new social venturescan gain legitimacy in authoritarian contexts. Through a study of a newdisability rights organization in post-revolutionary Egypt, we theorizehow authoritarianism poses distinct challenges for social ventures thatrequire different legitimation strategies than those commonly reported inthe literature. Specifically, we use our case study to build a theoreticalmodel that suggests social ventures need to achieve optimal assimilationby balancing protective disguise with harmonious advocacy. By explicitlytheorizing social venture legitimation in authoritarian contexts, weadvance the budding literature on social venture legitimation that has sofar predominantly considered legitimation in more democratic contexts.Moreover, our study shows that organizational legitimacy may need tobe conceptualized differently when examining social ventures—andindeed other forms of organization—in authoritarian regimes.