Legitimacy work in hybrid coalitions: the case of platform co-operatives in France

Collective legitimacy work poses challenges distinct from those faced by single organizations. Coalitions of heterogeneous actors must coordinate legitimacy strategies across members while projecting coherent claims externally. Yet existing research offers limited guidance on how these tensions are managed. Digital platform cooperatives (DPCs), which aim to offer a more democratic alternative to the sharing economy, exemplify this challenge. Facing barriers to legitimacy in markets dominated by investor-owned platforms, they increasingly pursue legitimacy work collectively rather than individually. This paper examines how DPCs engage in collective legitimacy work through Plateformes en Communs (PeC), a French meta-organization coordinating diverse DPCs and allied actors. Drawing on an in-depth longitudinal case study, we show that divergences among coalition members structure four strategic spheres of legitimacy work, at the intersection of two domains, economic and sociopolitical, and two strategies, conformance and manipulation. PeC's legitimacy strategies are mediated by tensions between heterogeneous members and external stakeholder demands, and we treat the discursive practices through which these strategies are enacted as traces of legitimacy work. Our findings contribute to research on hybrid organizations, cooperatives, and institutional work, highlighting the critical role of boundary spanners, internal cohesion, and collective infrastructure in advancing cooperative alternatives in the digital economy.