In an industrial environment marked by technological, regulatory, and competitive uncertainty, the success of an innovation project does not rely solely on the quality of the solution developed. It depends on its ability to appear credible to various stakeholders: internal teams, top management, industrial partners, funders, and regulators. Legitimacy is the perceived alignment between the expertise of the project team and the competitive value of the idea. More broadly, it corresponds to the recognition granted by stakeholders, who see the project’s actions as desirable, appropriate, and aligned with their expectations. It is an essential intangible asset: without legitimacy, a project struggles to mobilize resources, convince others, and survive. A key question follows: which levers can be activated to strengthen this legitimacy and accelerate the acceptance of innovation projects within large industrial groups?
I. The different legitimacy levers
1. Pragmatic lever: proof through effectiveness
Pragmatic legitimacy is built on demonstrating the concrete usefulness of a project. It is assessed through the tangible benefits the innovation promises or delivers: improved productivity, cost reduction, increased competitiveness, energy gains, or reduced environmental impact. In a large group, this lever operates at two levels: internally, convincing business teams that the project deserves their engagement and resources; externally, demonstrating to industrial partners, potential clients, or regulatory authorities that the solution generates real and measurable impact. The stronger the operational evidence (pilots, prototypes, performance indicators), the stronger the project’s pragmatic legitimacy.
2. Identity lever: strategic coherence
Identity legitimacy refers to the capacity of a project to fit within a clear, understandable vision aligned with the company’s broader strategy. A technologically brilliant project that does not reflect the priorities of its audience—decarbonization, digitalization, supply chain resilience—risks being perceived as marginal or distracting and may lack support. Clarifying the project’s mission, specifying its added value, and explicitly linking it to the company’s major strategic challenges strengthens this lever. It is about showing that the project reflects the DNA of the stakeholders it mobilizes.
3. Organizational lever: structural robustness
An innovation project inspires confidence when it demonstrates that it relies on a solid organization: clear governance, appropriate steering processes, rigorous budget oversight, and risk-assessment mechanisms. These elements may be absent at the very beginning, but they quickly become essential for securing approval from financial, legal, or operational departments. Organizational legitimacy reassures stakeholders: it shows that the project is not just championed by a few enthusiastic individuals, but supported by sound methods, governance, and a credible deployment capacity. To maximize this lever, teams must implement processes and management practices understood and shared by those whose support is being sought.
II. Strategies and innovation methodologies that support legitimacy
1. Using strategy to clarify a vision
An innovation project must be intelligible to all stakeholders. Storytelling helps unify perceptions around a shared narrative: why the project is necessary, which problem it solves, and how it supports the company’s transformation. To achieve this, the project must use a shared, unifying language. Structured methodologies such as Vianeo’s enable this clarity. By helping project leaders lay out all the elements to consider, the methodology makes the project’s ambitions—its targeted market, its business model—legible. Tools like business model canvases, functional analyses, or innovation matrices also help situate the project within a familiar structure that reduces doubt and apprehension among stakeholders.
2. Roadmap and internal plan: structuring and projecting
Innovation departments know that credibility relies on the ability to project over time. A clear roadmap—indicating development stages, resource needs, planned tests, and critical milestones—is a strategic tool for legitimacy. Tools such as the Vianeo platform support such roadmapping. They help reduce uncertainty and demonstrate that the project progresses along a coherent, measurable, well-governed trajectory.
3. Industrial partnerships: transferring credibility
Innovation projects often lack the means or evidence needed to secure the support required to scale. The strategic answer lies in partnerships. Forming alliances with established players remains one of the most powerful ways to strengthen legitimacy. When a major OEM, a key supplier, or a sector authority associates with a project, they transfer part of their credibility and reassure other stakeholders. This transfer acts as a seal of validation: if a recognized partner has chosen to collaborate, the project is worth supporting.
III. Substitutions and trade-offs
The combination of levers varies depending on the project stage. In early phases, concrete evidence is limited and the project cannot yet organize itself like an established actor. Legitimacy therefore relies mainly on narrative clarity, strategic coherence, and partnerships. As the project progresses, pragmatic and organizational legitimacy take over thanks to operational results and internal structuring. For example, a project emerging from an innovation workshop must go through many steps before unlocking proof-of-concept funding. In the absence of proofs, it is the clarity and intelligibility of the narrative that can build the legitimacy needed to secure funds. In addition, the levers depend on the interlocutor: internally, identity-based legitimacy is central, whereas a potential partner, driven by transactional logic, will give priority to pragmatic legitimacy.
Conclusion
The legitimacy of an innovation project relies on a subtle balance between several levers: pragmatic, identity-based, organizational, and strategic. None is sufficient alone, but their articulation strengthens credibility throughout the project lifecycle. For innovation departments, the challenge is twofold: diagnosing weak levers at any given moment and implementing targeted mechanisms to reinforce them—whether through clearer governance, concrete evidence, or legitimacy-building partnerships. Innovation is never judged solely on its technical performance. It is evaluated based on its ability to convince, reassure, and align with collective momentum. The next article will explore another major challenge: balancing internal and external legitimacy, and how innovations must navigate between internal expectations and market demands that sometimes diverge.
