Resource partitioning theory maintains that in markets in which anti-mass-production cultural sentiments make producer identity relevant, there should be no direct competition between generalists and specialists. Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence suggests that after initial partitioning, such competition, and hence departitioning, is in some cases possible. We refine received insights of resource partitioning theory regarding the stability of niche markets, particularly those driven by identity movements, by introducing the notion that partitioning is a dynamic and even reversible process. Previous research has offered an answer to the question of why identity movements create partitioning: because they increase the dimensionality of the resource space and engender sanctioning of visible violations of the specialists' organizational form identity. In contrast, we offer an answer to the question of how and when markets may partition in a stable way: by generating sharply defined specialist form identities whose definitional code includes limits to organizational growth. Identity movements are underpinned with mechanisms that can facilitate or inhibit market partitioning, depending on their ability to generate sharp specialist form identities. We illustrate our argument through the case of organic farming in the United States, with reference to prior work on microbrews and micro-radio, and discuss implications for resource partitioning theory.
Research in organizational theory suggests that category-spanning organizations typically suffer penalties in evaluations, as consumers downgrade producers they see as violating authenticity norms. We challenge this view by linking two heretofore separate insights: first, that categorical boundaries erode as categories become taken-for-granted and, second, that consumers in a given category tend to become more heterogeneous as their numbers increase. We argue that newer consumers employ diverse evaluative schemata and rely less on established conceptions of authenticity than do veterans, leading to more generous evaluations as the ranks of consumers grow. Using the canonical case of craft beer, we test the effect of audience growth on consumer evaluations, particularly when producers violate categorical authenticity norms. Our analysis of an original dataset of more than 45,000 ratings of craft beers from a popular online forum finds both that overall beer ratings increase and that penalties to authenticity norm violations attenuate as the number of new reviewers participating in the evaluative process rises. These results refine our understanding of shifting demands for categorical purity, conceptions of authenticity, and consumer evaluations as functions of market growth.
Shareholder activists increasingly pressure corporations on social policy issues; yet, extant research provides little understanding of who these activists are and how they choose their corporate targets. In this article, we adopt an activist-centered approach and rely on hybrid organizational identity theory to determine, in a two-phase analysis, how shareholder activists define their economic and social identities and whether these identities are associated with specific target characteristics and tactical strategies. Our findings form the premise of a typology of institutional shareholder activists that is empirically derived and takes into account the wide range of hybrid organizational identities that shareholders exhibit. With a sample of 735 social policy shareholder proposals filed by 104 institutional shareholders in the 2009-2010 period, our study presents one of the first empirical tests examining the heterogeneity of identities within the broad stakeholder category of “social shareholder activists.” Our empirical evidence demonstrates that these shareholders’ mix of economic and social identities is systematically related to their targets’ characteristics and tactical strategies. The implications of our new typology for research on shareholder activism and the value of our findings for managers conclude this article.
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