When international and multinational companies seek to establish legitimacy, it will necessarily involve different stakeholders locally and globally. This paper analyses the corporate communication of such companies with a view to differentiating the discursive construction of customers, investors, staff and governments.

Annual reports of airlines are used to test previous results based on a concept of Eastern  interdependence and Western independence. It is argued that the notion of legitimacy hinges on accountability, and that in the reports, management purposefully construes the stakeholders they feel accountable to. Whereas there is a clear line in the way legitimacy is built vis-à-vis investors, the East-West difference turns out to be thoroughly ambiguous in relation to the position of the staff.