Abstract: This paper takes the YC social work station in District B of City A as a case study to explore the legitimacy generation mechanism of social work organizations embedding into community governance. Based on Scott’s three-dimensional legitimacy theory and situated within the institutional context of grassroots governance in China, the research constructs a three-stage analytical framework of “institutional access-relational mobilization-service practice”. The study finds that legitimacy generation is not achieved instantaneously, but rather emerges as a dynamic social process encompassing institutional authorization, value negotiation, and cognitive internalization. In the dimension of regulatory legitimacy, social work organizations obtain formal qualifications to enter the community governance system through the government purchase of services. In the dimension of normative legitimacy, social work organizations gradually gain social recognition by relying on community relationship networks and negotiating shared values. In the dimension of cognitive legitimacy, the sustained delivery of professional services enables residents’ identification with, and acceptance of, the role and function of social workers in everyday life. The three-dimensional legitimacy presents a phased and progressive logic, advancing from external institutional pressure, to social recognition, and ultimately to cognitive internalization, thereby reflecting the sequential characteristics of legitimacy generation in grassroots governance. The study not only deepens the academic understanding of the embedding processes of social work organizations in the community governance, but also provides empirical implications for the modernization of grassroots governance.

Key words: social work organizations, community governance, legitimacy theory, social process