Manipulating the political environment invites the backlash that erodes an agency’s legitimacy.

Evidence

The organization, therefore, actively worked its environment to receive the mandates it preferred. Austin Tobin was a master strategist, and guided the Authority successfully. The PA had to ‘structure the world so [it] could win’ (Riker, 1986, p. ix). Whenever the Authority would stay passive, the organization would be no more than a toll collector. When the Authority became too active in manipulating its environment, it invited criticism (Walsh, 1978, p. 295). … The jetport would be the first project Tobin failed to force through, and his efforts to do so would herald the start of declining legitimacy for his organization. — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 297

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: ‘The Agency That Won Too Much’ — how an organization’s mastery of its environment sows the seeds of its own legitimacy collapse.