This article contributes to the theory of rhetorical institutionalism (Green & Li, 2011) by considering the relationship between institutional entrepreneurs and the institutional felds in which they operate as confgured by rhetorical strategies. Thus, we posit that the legitimacy of institutional entrepreneurs and institutional felds, respectively, is an inherently rhetorical construct (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005), whereby rhetorical engagement becomes central to the establishment, maintenance, and reform of institutions (Brown, Ainsworth & Grant, 2012; Green, Babb & Alpaslan, 2008). Working with an illustrative case of the Co-operative Bank's fnancial distress and leadership scandal, we identify three particular strategies of rhetorical engagement with competing institutional logics, which we label convergence, conflict, and divergence. Thus, we add to the theory of rhetorical institutionalism by arguing, broadly, that institutional felds are arenas of rhetorical engagement between competing institutional logics and identifying, more specifcally, three rhetorical strategies for constituting institutional legitimacy.