Syed Eraj Hassan

Topic

Social Evaluation: The Interplay Between Legitimacy and Authenticity

Gustavson School of Business

Date & location

• Wednesday, June 17, 2026
• 9:00 A.M.
• Clearihue Building, Room B017

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Roy Suddaby, Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Diego Coraiola, Gustavson School of Business, UVic (Member)
• Dr. Sudhir Nair, Gustavson School of Business, UVic (Member)
• Dr. William Foster, Professor of Management, University of Alberta (Outside Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Nelson Phillips, Department of Technology Management, University of California Santa Barbara

Chair of Oral Examination

• Prof. Conrad Alexandrowicz, Department of Theatre, UVic

Abstract

This dissertation examines the dynamic relationship between legitimacy and authenticity, two closely related yet distinct forms of social evaluation. Although their intertwinement shapes organizational and institutional phenomena across multiple levels of analysis, they have typically been studied in isolation. To explain how these forms of evaluation mutually constitute one another across time and space, I advance a value regimes perspective on social evaluation. I develop this perspective through a historical-institutional analysis of professional wrestling, a hybrid commercial form that simulates athletic competition in order to stage moral drama. The first empirical study conducts a comparative historical analysis of the industry’s emergence and institutional development in the United States, Japan, and Mexico. It shows that the coevolution of legitimacy and authenticity is historically and contextually contingent, shaped by the sociohistorical constitution of the dominant value regime in each national context. These dominant regimes create path-dependent ecologies within which subsequent authenticity challenges interact with incumbent forms of legitimacy, generating distinct coevolutionary trajectories. The second empirical study builds on the value regimes perspective by examining the modern evolution of the North American professional wrestling field within a layered media environment spanning traditional and digital platforms. As transnational practices enter this globalized and mediated field and markets become increasingly fragmented, the study shows how actors navigate evaluative pluralism to create and sustain value by negotiating legitimacy and authenticity across distinct evaluative communities. Drawing these studies together, I develop an integrated conceptual framework that maps the historical and contextual contingencies through which legitimacy and authenticity mutually shape one another over time. Ultimately, this dissertation offers a more contextual and processual account of social evaluation, showing how actors continuously negotiate the boundaries of what is legitimate, authentic, and valuable across competing evaluative worlds.