In structural analyses of innovation, one substantive question looms large: What makes radical innovation possible if peripheral actors are more likely to originate radical ideas but are poorly positioned to promote them? An inductive study of the rise of Cubism, a revolutionary paradigm that overthrew classic principles of representation in art, results in a model where not only the periphery moves toward the core through collective action, as typically asserted, but the core also moves toward the periphery, becoming more receptive to radical ideas. The fragmentation of the art market in early 20th-century Paris served as the trigger. The proliferation of market niches and growing ambiguity over evaluation standards dramatically reduced the costs of experimentation in the periphery and the ability of the core to suppress radical ideas. A multilevel analysis linking individual creativity, peer networks, and the art field reveals how market developments fostered Spanish Cubist Pablo Picasso’s experiments and facilitated their diffusion in the absence of public support, a coherent movement, and even his active involvement. If past research attests to the importance of framing innovations and mobilizing resources in their support, this study brings attention to shifts in the structure of opportunities to do so.

We gain insight into the reasons why capitalists maintain social relationships with one another by analyzing a largely unexamined type of relationship-that which links "parallel peers" or non-competing enterprises in the same industry-and an institution-the industry peer network or IPN-that is specifically designed for supporting small, exclusive groups of parallel peers. A wide array of qualitative and quantitative data show parallel relationships in general, and IPNs in particular, to be surprisingly prevalent, especially in light of the focus of past research on horizontal and vertical relationships and institutions. In addition, analysis of parallel relationships and the institutions that cultivate them sheds light on key mechanisms by which capitalist enterprises learn from one another and motivate one another to achieve high performance. * May total more than 1.00 because some respondents (10.84% of the respondents giving names for learning contacts and 8.29% for the motivation contacts) apparently assigned one or more contact to both lists.

The analysis elaborates and illustrates a proposition on brokerage that is implicit in existing research-that through self-assembling their ties, brokers may trigger chains of events with systemic consequences that they can only partly control or benefit from. By relaxing the assumption of strategic control, the analysis contributes to reducing the discrepancy between micro and macro levels of analysis. This approach is illustrated with the case of the Ballets Russes and its founder Sergei Diaghilev, who revolutionized the arts in the early 20th century by aggregating developments in dance, music, design and literature. The role of a catalyst emerges in connecting artists on the supply side and in matching supply and demand for novelty. Catalysis was triggered by the interaction between identity and field-level fragmentation when the personal network of an unusually multifaceted broker became a platform for the interpenetration of heretofore disconnected social networks. However, in escalating Modernism Diaghilev's brokerage contributed to the demise of the social world that generated the Ballets Russes.

This paper addresses the recognized need for connecting scholarship on materiality and evaluation by conceptualizing how materiality provides grounds for “valuation entrepreneurship.” It extends the scope of materiality scholarship by considering an ignored organizational outcome while offering stronger evidence for the role of supply-side factors in social evaluation. The theoretical model posits that materiality affords opportunities for identity construction and social organization that can lead to the emergence of a new theory of value contesting the evaluative regime. This framework is applied to the reanalysis of a famous case: Impressionism. The analysis shows that new materials and methods of painting served as a “focus” for the social organization of artists with a shared identity of craftsmen. These artists espoused a new theory of value that advocated the “unfinishedness” of artworks and used natural perception as an objective basis for contestation of the “subjective” evaluative regime at the salons. The contestation had political overtones, drawing on cultural resources and scientific tenets to justify the valorization of individuality and decentralization of art appraisal. An endogenous account of culture in action presents materiality as a natural counterpoint to the emphasis on conceptualization.