Now It Makes More Sense: How Narratives Can Help Atypical Actors Increase Market Appeal

Abstract

Extensive research shows that atypical actors who defy established contextual standards and norms are subject to skepticism and face a higher risk of rejection. Indeed, atypical actors combine features, behaviors, or products in unconventional ways, thereby generating confusion and instilling doubts about their legitimacy. Nevertheless, atypicality is often viewed as a precursor to sociocultural innovation and a strategy to expand the capacity to deliver valued goods and services. Contextualizing the conditions under which atypicality is celebrated or punished has been a significant theoretical challenge for organizational scholars interested in reconciling this tension. Thus far, scholars have focused primarily on audience-related factors or actors’ characteristics (e.g., status and reputation). Here, we explore how atypical actors can leverage linguistic features of their narratives to counteract evaluative discounts by analyzing a unique collection of 78,758 narratives from crafters on Etsy, the largest digital marketplace for handmade items. Marrying processing fluency theory with linguistics literature and relying on a combination of topic modeling, automated textual analysis, and econometrics, we show that categorically atypical producers who make more use of abstraction, cohesive cues, and conventional topics in their narratives are more likely to overcome the evaluative discounts they would ordinarily experience.

Valuation entrepreneurship through product‐design and blame‐avoidance strategies: How Tesla managed to change the public perception of sustainable innovations

“…First, our study heeds the call to examine how actors can leverage material artifacts for the purpose of valuation entrepreneurship (Sgourev, 2021). Whereas the use of discursive strategies for this purpose has been researched quite frequently (e.g., Cutolo & Ferriani, 2023; McDonald & Gao, 2019; Taeuscher et al, 2021; Vossen & Ihl, 2020), the use of material artifacts has hitherto received scant attention (cf. Huff et al, 2021; Sgourev, 2021).…”

“…Two reasons render valuation entrepreneurship a fruitful context for studying reputational politics and closing this knowledge gap. First, the reputation of an organization affects how consumers evaluate its innovative products and reflects how effective the organization is in its attempts to change their evaluations (Cutolo & Ferriani, 2023;Sgourev & Althuizen, 2017). Second, some scholars call the actors engaging in reputational politics "reputational entrepreneurs" (e.g., Fine, 1996Fine, , 2019, thereby proposing the term "reputational entrepreneurship" as a synonym for reputational politics.…”

“…The same pattern can be observed in the literature on valuation entrepreneurship. Most studies investigate how valuation entrepreneurs can use discursive strategies to effect changes in evaluations (e.g., Cutolo & Ferriani, 2023; McDonald & Gao, 2019; Taeuscher et al, 2021; Vossen & Ihl, 2020), whereas the use of material artifacts for this purpose has received scant attention (cf. Huff et al, 2021; Sgourev, 2021).…”

“…Although properties of form and function drive how consumers evaluate products, the translation of product design into consumer evaluations is neither automatic nor fixed (Lamont, 2012; Sgourev & Althuizen, 2017). Rather, consumer evaluations are influenced by the reputation of the firm selling the product, especially in the case of unconventional offerings (Cutolo & Ferriani, 2023; Zuckerman, 2017). Organizational reputation designates “an evaluative—and often comparative—representation of a focal organization [… which] influences the behavior of stakeholder audiences toward the organization” (Ravasi et al, 2018, p. 574).…”

“…Scholars started to investigate the strategies that companies can apply for this purpose. Prior research on valuation entrepreneurship has mostly focused on discursive strategies (e.g., Cutolo & Ferriani, 2023; McDonald & Gao, 2019; Taeuscher et al, 2021; Vossen & Ihl, 2020), whereas product design strategies have received scant attention (cf. Huff et al, 2021; Jones et al, 2017; Sgourev, 2021).…”