Being Special in an Ordinary Way: Swedish Hospitals’ Strategic Web Communication

Abstract

Strategic communication is today a salient feature of public organisations as they put more efforts into communicating self-presentations to their various stakeholders. This article assumes that strategic communication may pave the way for a legitimacy-reputation dilemma, because organisations in highly institutionalised fields operate under strong isomorphic pressures to behave in line with shared norms and values in order to gain legitimacy. The article contributes to the discussion of the legitimacy-reputation dilemma by adding a sociological institutional perspective to strategic communication theory. Based on a qualitative in-depth study of what are assumed to be the most communicative hospitals in Sweden, the article investigates which strategies are used to balance the tension between legitimacy and reputation. The findings reveal that hospitals avoid unwanted institutional associations by communicating that they are ‘special in an ordinary way’.

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