The Interactional Business of Doing Business: Managing Legitimacy and Co-Constructing...
Discourse analysis was performed on how legitimacy was managed in e-commerce multilevel marketing (MLM) business presentations. Through analysis of extracts from three presentations, the author finds support for two broad claims.
Presenter: So we're gonna say, we're gonna take a leap here and say you
I'm gonna call you 'You Inc." okay?
We're gonnna say that you decide to be a business owner.
THESE LINES COME from the interaction between a presenter and prospect during a business plan presentation for an e-commerce multilevel marketing "opportunity." Since their inception in the 1940s, multilevel marketing (MLM1) organizations, like Amway and Mary Kay Cosmetics, have dealt with various social and legal challenges regarding the legitimacy of their business practices (Biggart, 1998; Pratt, 2000). MLM organizations have been described by some as cults (Butterneid, 1985), pyramid schemes (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997), or organizations rife with misleading, deceptive, and unethical behavior (Carter, 1999), such as the questionable use of evangelical discourse to promote the business (Hopfl & Maddrell, 1996), and the exploitation of personal relationships for financial gain (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997).
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