Restoring strategies legitimacy versus CEO personality: case study

Abstract

This study aims to identify the legitimacy strategies of Suchman's typology (1995) evidenced in the CEO letters of Banco BPN, ascertain whether there is evidence in those documents of narcissistic personality traits of the CEO and how these influenced the way the legitimacy strategies were implemented .

The research is based on a case study, BPN, and an analysis of letters from the CEO to shareholders for the period 2001 to 2011 was made. We chose the BPN, because it was a bank that grew very rapidly and due to his bad corporate behavior, was nationalized to preventing its bankruptcy and later sold to Banco BIC. Through content analysis the accounting narratives contained in the CEO letters were analised.

Findings show that BPN adopted predominantly strategies to gain legitimacy in the period 2001-2007, and strategies to restore legitimacy in the period until

2010. It is also possible to say that the change occurred in the strategies adopted was due to the occurrence of a negative event that has damaged, deeply, the legitimacy of the organization, not to the CEO change. Despite the legitimacy of strategies have been adopted correctly, the fall of the bank was inevitable. Findings clearly document several factors associated with bank failure, as executive fraud, misleading financial reports, inadequate disclosure, among others. The CEO letters do not show traces of destructive narcissism.