Reverse Legitimation: A Bottom-Up Pathway for Peripheral Actors in Closed Institutional Fields

In the closed institutional field of universities, a few peripheral actors have successfully entered the field and achieved legal operations, but most similar organizations are still excluded by institutional barriers. The existing theory has defects: the triple helix model presupposes symmetrical power, the institutional entrepreneurship theory has elite bias, and the value co-creation theory does not touch the platform construction. This paper focuses on how the vulnerable and marginalized actors start from zero legitimacy and obtain the official recognition of closed public institutions through bottom-up actions. Based on the field observation of the strategic transformation of a small popular piano institution in Chinese universities, this paper carries out theoretical construction, puts forward the concept of "Reverse Legitimation", and constructs a three-stage process model of "peripheral exploration, pain point diagnosis, and ecological construction". The study found that the existence of action in this path preceded the acquisition of legitimacy. This concept supplements the time dimension for the theory of organizational legitimacy, extends value co-creation to the level of platform construction, and provides a supplementary explanation for the pre-institutionalization stage of the triple helix model.