Sometimes, a decision is made before the formal selection process even begins.
What follows may no longer be a genuine search for the best candidate. Instead, the process can become a mechanism for constructing credibility, legitimacy, acceptance, and the appearance of merit around an already preferred outcome.
Credible individuals may be brought into the process. Their presence increases its perceived seriousness and competitiveness. Formal procedures are followed. Multiple candidates appear to compete. Yet the real function of the process may be different:
This raises a fundamental management question:
Is every selection process truly designed to choose?
Or are some selection processes designed to legitimize a choice that has already been made?
This is the starting point of a broader research inquiry into how organizations manufacture legitimacy around predetermined outcomes—and how the credibility of others becomes a resource in that process.