Social Movements and Markets,Industries,and Firms

Abstract

This essay reviews research at the nexus of organizational and social movement studies. It begins by surveying research drawing on social movement theories to explain some organizational process, then surveys research drawing on organizational theories to explain some social movement process. The essay concludes with several suggestions for future research.

Keywords

institutional theory organizational ecology organizational theories resource mobilization theory social movement theories

Introduction

In the autumn of 2011, many Americans were taken by surprise when protesters set up camp in Zucotti Park in New York City to protest growing economic inequality and its effect on political inequality in the United States. While known as “Occupy Wall Street,” similar protests rapidly cropped up in cities throughout the world. The Occupy Movement, as it has come to be called, is difficult to distill into just a few demands, but most of the local incarnations of the Movement remain true to a core set of ideas related to economic inequality and its resultant societal and political ills.

To scholars of social movements and organizations, the Movement provides a wonderful laboratory for exploring questions and testing hypotheses central to both of these fields. For example, even casual observers of the Movement notice that each protest event became a stage for many different issues, sometimes only loosely related to economic inequality. When I visited the Occupy London site at St. Paul’s Cathedral in November of 2011, for example, I was struck by the variety of different groups and organizations that had a presence at the event. Alongside groups clearly articulating the slogan, “We are the 99%,” and other slogans related to economic inequality, I saw PETA (suggesting that veganism could help end corporate greed), a tent for an organization devoted to freeing Abudullah Öcalan (the imprisoned leader of the Kurdish Workers’ Party in Turkey), and signs for an organization devoted to helping save the honeybee. To social movement scholars, such an agglomeration of groups begs questions about coalition formation and movement identity—questions about which the organizational literature has quite a lot to say.

Others might be curious about how the Occupy Movement’s tactics have changed in the wake of the removal of the encampments by city officials. While the Movement in many cities continued to host demonstrations and other marches into the winter of 2012, in April of 2012 many Occupy groups began to target shareholder meetings. For example, a San Francisco-based group called 99% Power targeted 36 different shareholder meetings (Rothacker, 2012) and another group, 99% Spring, targeted shareholder meetings across the US (Bottari, 2012).¹ The changing tactical repertoire of anti-corporate activists is something of note to organizational scholars interested in assessing how firms will be targeted, and it is something about which the social movements literature surely has something to say.

Finally, others are likely interested in assessing whether or not the Occupy Movement has had any measurable outcomes on the activities of corporations and banks, or on governments’ attempts to regulate the financial sector of their countries. While it is likely too soon to answer that question definitively, scholars of both social movements and organizations have the tools to approach questions of movement influence wisely.

The Occupy Movement has captured the imagination of scholars of both social movements and organizational studies, at least in part because the issues and themes of the Movement tap into a rich theoretical and empirical body of research that exists at the nexus of these two areas of scholarly inquiry (for recent reviews, see Davis, Morrill, Rao, & Soule, 2008; de Bakker & den Hond, 2008; King & Pearce, 2010). Thus, it seems like an opportune time to take stock of what we have learned so far from this research, but it is also important to begin looking forward in an effort to identify some areas and questions around which we should devote additional attention in the future.

As such, the purpose of this essay is two-fold. I begin by briefly reviewing recent empirical work at the nexus of organizational and social movement studies. I first examine work that attempts to explain some organizational process or phenomenon by drawing on social movement theory. Then, I examine work that attempts to explain some social movement process or phenomenon by drawing on organizational theory. After briefly reviewing this literature, I specify five areas of research that have hitherto been understudied and would benefit from the unique perspective situated at the nexus of social movement and organizational studies.

Organizational Research Drawing on Social Movement Scholarship

Organizational scholars drawing on social movement theories have asked a set of important questions, ranging from whether or not social movement activity impacts firms, to an assessment of how firms sometimes behave like social movements (Davis & Zald, 2005). This section describes the main questions that have been asked by organizations scholars drawing on social movement theories and research.

How do movements matter to firms and industries?

Organizational scholars have been trying to assess the impact of social movement activity (e.g., protest, boycotts, legal actions, etc.) on firms, markets, and even industries. As such, this work draws primarily on the literature in social movement studies that is concerned with understanding the impact of social movements on some system of authority, typically the state (Snow & Soule, 2010). Social movement scholars working on the question of impacts have mainly focused on the relative impact of movement resources (e.g., money, participants, skills), an open political opportunity structure (e.g., the presence of elite allies and the absence of repression), and cultural frames articulated by the movement. It is not surprising that organizations scholars interested in the impact of social movements have turned to this same set of explanatory factors. For example, King’s (2008) study of the effect of boycotts on firm concessions argues that the opportunity structure of firms (e.g., factors such as recent declines in sales revenues or reputational changes) structure the effect of a boycott on firms’ concessions, especially when there has been a great deal of media attention to the firm. Further King and Soule (2007) examine the effect of protest directed at publicly traded companies on targeted companies’ stock price changes and argue that resources (e.g., more protesters, the presence of a social movement organization at the protest event) ought to increase the effect of protest on stock price changes.

While these studies are concerned with the effect of movements on firms, other studies look at how activists impact entire industries or markets. For example, Zietsma and Winn (2008) study the impact of activism on the British Columbian forest industry by focusing on the specific clusters of tactics used by that industry’s critics. Another example of work focusing on how movements impact markets or industries is Hiatt, Sine, and Tolbert (2010), which examines how temperance activism in the US stimulated the growth and development of the soft-drink industry (as an alternative to alcoholic beverages) at the same time it dampened the growth of the brewing industry.² In this case, one movement (temperance) is found to impact two different industries, in two different ways. Finally, Balsiger (2010), Micheletti and Stolle (2007), and Dubuisson-Quellier (2009) show how political consumerism can lead to changes in the apparel industry via its ability to increase demand for ethically produced and sourced clothing.

And, finally, in addition to work that looks at how activists impact firms, markets, and industries, other work examines how movements promote and legitimate new organizational forms. For example, Schneiberg (2002) argues that the strength of state-level movements (in particular, the Grange) impacted the proliferation of mutual companies in fire insurance, a new organizational form (see also Schneiberg, King, & Smith, 2008).³

Most of the scholarly work discussed thus far conceptualizes social movements and activism as existing outside of organizations, markets, and industries. However, some organizations scholars have looked at movements that bubble up from within firms, along the lines of what Zald and Berger (1978) talked about in their classic article on coup d’etat and insurgency within organizations. For example, Soule (2009) describes the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers’ Union, which was formed at Polaroid in the 1970s when employees of that company discovered that Polaroid was providing the film used in the passbooks that were used in South Africa in the apartheid era. Another example of research on activism that has its genesis from within the company ranks is work by Raeburn (2004) and Briscoe and Safford (2008) that examines how gay and lesbian activist groups within Fortune 500 companies in the US have positively impacted their firms’ decisions regarding domestic partnership issues. In addition, Lounsbury (2001) argues that variation in the staffing of university recycling programs was importantly shaped by activism within the universities. Finally, Scully and Segal (2002) examine employee activism, ranging in form from identity-raising events to lobbying top executives, associated with a number of issues (e.g., diversity, women and minority issues, and so on) in a high tech firm, “PineCo.”⁴

How do organizations impact the movements?

In addition to asking how social movements matter to firms, industries, and markets, organizational scholarship has also flipped the causal arrow and asked how organizations and firms can impact the trajectory of social movements. One important way this might happen is when firms enter into collaborations with movements that once challenged them. For example, Coca Cola has been criticized very heavily for its use of water in developing nations, most especially in India. In recent years, Coca Cola has sought advice from several NGOs, including the World Wildlife Federation, and has entered into partnerships and collaborations in an effort to respond to criticisms by changing its practices.⁵ Similarly, when Shell Oil was criticized by Greenpeace for its handling of the Brent Spar storage container, and by human rights groups for its operations in Nigeria, it reacted by forming political coalitions with challenging groups (see Holzer, 2008).

While such collaborations do not necessarily impact the trajectory of social movements and social movement organizations (SMOs), some have argued that these lead to co-optation of movements by firms. For example, Chasin (2001) talks about how several large firms provided funding for gay rights organizations and initiatives in an attempt to try to encourage these activist organizations to cease their boycotts against them. Chasin (2001) convincingly argues that gay rights organizations’ willingness (driven perhaps by necessity) to accept money from these firms fundamentally altered the trajectory of the Gay Rights Movement in the United States.

In addition to this, the trajectory of social movements directed at firms may be altered when firms attempt to repress them. For example, while not the focus of her book, Raeburn (2004) notes that some of the firms she studied penalized employees who actively sought domestic partnership benefits. In the previous decade, Taylor and Raeburn (1995) discuss the way in which gay and lesbian activists in sociology departments in the US were often reprimanded by their departments for their activism. Finally, in her discussion of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers’ Union, Soule (2009) notes that some of the activist Polaroid employees were dismissed from the company for their rabble-rousing. Thus, when firms retaliate against activists from within their walls, the trajectory of a given movement can be dramatically altered, as can the biographies of individual activists.

How do movements impact regulatory bodies, which in turn impact firms and industries?

A third set of questions attempts to understand how movements impact some intermediary body in an effort to exert leverage over some firm, market, or industry. Probably the classic example of this is when movements work toward governmental regulation of some industry. For example, Schneiberg and Soule (2005) examine the role of movements and activism in favor of rate regulation in the fire insurance industry. In this case, the movement targeted the state in hopes of increasing regulation around rates in this particular industry. Further, Soule (2009) describes US activist attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to strengthen governmental regulation of the tuna fishing industry in an effort to decrease the number of dolphin deaths associated with the use of purse seine nets. More recently, Olzak and Soule (2009) study the effect of the environmental protest on environmental legislation in the United States, noting that a great deal of this legislation was fundamentally about governmental regulation of business and industry. In addition, Kellogg (2011) focuses on how patients’ rights groups mobilized to force the US Congress to limit the number of hours worked by medical residents to 80 per week.

As well as the regulatory power of the state, in recent years we have also seen the rise of private regulatory bodies and organizations that certify the supply chain. For example, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), and Social Accountability International have all sprung up in recent years as private entities designed to monitor and/or regulate production.⁶ Tim Bartley (2007, 2010) has studied the role of social movements in the creation of these regulatory bodies over the past 10 to 20 years. Similar to studies that show that movements can impact governmental regulation, Bartley shows that movements can also spawn private regulatory bodies, which in turn can impact businesses and industries. Another example of this is the creation of the Workers Rights Consortium, which was formed as an alternative to the industry-sponsored Fair Labor Association (Chang & Carroll, 2008; Soule, 2009).

How do firms and industries act like social movements?

Scholarship has also noted that firms and industries (in addition to being targets of, and collaborators with, social movements) can also sometimes act as movements do; that is, they can be agents of social change via their lobbying (e.g., Bonardi, Holburn, & van den Bergh, 2006; Hansen & Mitchell, 2000; Keim & Zeithaml, 1986; Vogel, 1978, 2005) and other activities (e.g., Grier, Munger, & Roberts, 1994). For example, Davis and Thompson (1994) study movements among corporate elites to press state legislatures to pass legislation to limit hostile corporate takeovers. In related work, Vogus and Davis (2005) examine the effects that social movements among corporate managers have on state anti-takeover legislation. More recently, Walmart has been active in lobbying states against banning plastic grocery bags, and Chevron actively lobbies against alternative energy legislation in many states. The Center for Public Integrity periodically issues reports disclosing information about firms’ contracts with large, Washington-based lobbying firms, the most recent of which shows an astounding consolidation in this sector.⁷

Firms also contract with professional grassroots lobbying firms (PGLF), which specialize in mobilizing stakeholders who act on behalf of the political goals of the firm (Walker, in preparation). Known popularly as “astroturf” movements, skeptics argue that unsuspecting activists are duped into grassroots mobilization on behalf of corporations. For example, the National Smokers Alliance, an organization that opposed restrictions on smoking in public places, was created and funded by Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm hired by Phillip Morris.⁸ Lee (2010) describes an early example of “astroturfing” by the founder of the Public Cup Vendor Company (a precursor to the Dixie Cup Company). In this case, the Company was behind a massive public health campaign designed to get people to use disposable cups in an effort to prevent the spread of disease from the common, shared metal cups available at the time.

In addition to lobbying, another example of firms acting like social movements is when institutional investors (such as banks, unions, insurance companies, pension funds, and the like) sponsor shareholder resolutions around some issue. The logic of this activity is that institutional investors, because they typically own large blocks of stock, can effect change at the companies they target. Research has shown that shareholder proposals sponsored by institutional investors are more likely than those sponsored by non-institutional investors to win concessions from companies (Davis & Thompson, 1994; Gillan & Starks, 2000; Proffitt & Spicer, 2006).

Social Movement Scholarship Drawing on Organizational Studies

The classic example of social movement scholarship that draws explicitly on organizational theory is resource mobilization theory (RMT), as developed in a number of theoretical pieces by Mayer Zald and John McCarthy and their associates (Zald & McCarthy, 1987). The original RMT articles borrowed heavily from economics, and sought to bring a true organizational perspective to social movement studies. RMT encouraged scholars to attend to social movement organizations by studying them as organizations (see especially Zald & Ash, 1966). As a result, RMT moved scholars away from studying the individual bases of social movement activity to studying the importance of organizational resources to mobilization processes. This work represented a sea change in the study of social movements and laid the groundwork for subsequent scholars to look toward organizational studies for cues on how to understand social movement organizations as organizations (see review in Clemens & Minkoff, 2004). As was the case with organization studies research drawing on the social movement literature, much of this research can be organized by the broad substantive questions asked by the researchers.

Are SMOs subject to the same ecological pressures as for-profit firms?

Several movement scholars have drawn on organizational ecology to study some population of social movement organizations, with the goal of understanding whether or not social movement organization (SMOs) are governed by the same ecological processes that have been shown repeatedly to govern other types of organizations and firms. The classic work that borrowed from the organizational ecology perspective and applied it to social movements is that by Minkoff (e.g., 1997). In a series of papers and a book drawing on her data collected from the Encyclopedia of Associations, Minkoff examines the dynamics of competition, legitimacy, and mutualism among advocacy organizations associated with the women’s and race and ethnic civil rights movements.

Minkoff’s work inspired a number of other scholars to both collect data on populations of organizations and to use organizational ecology to understand population dynamics associated with both the peace and the environmental movements in the United States (e.g., Edwards & Foley, 2003; Edwards & Marullo, 1995; McLaughlin & Khawaja, 2000). A more recent example is the research on the population of transnational environmental organizations conducted by Murphy (2005), who is interested mainly in the emergence of these organizations and draws on concepts core to organizational ecology (e.g., density dependence, legitimacy, and mutualism) and statistical modeling techniques associated with the organizational ecology perspective to study the rates of founding of new environmental organizations operating at the transnational level. Further, Vermeulen (2006) has recently published an interesting study of immigrant organizations in several European cities using classic organizational ecology to explain the growth and persistence of these organizations, even during times of anti-immigrant sentiment.

In another recent treatment, Soule and King (2008) look at how inter-organizational competition and organizational concentration, two facets of organizational populations often examined by organizational ecologists (especially those associated with resource partitioning theories), impact levels of movement organizational disbanding. Finally, and even more recently, Walker, McCarthy, and Baumgartner (2011) examine two different organizational populations (member and non-member advocacy organizations) in three separate movements (peace, women’s, and human rights). Drawing on ideas central to organizational ecology, they find that the density of non-member advocacy organizations does not decrease that of member advocacy organizations, lending support to ideas about mutualism amongst these two populations.⁹

What factors explain social movement organizational adaption and change?

In addition to studying how population dynamics impact the founding and survival of SMOs, other scholars have looked at organizational adaption and change. Perhaps one of the earliest and most important attempts at this is the work by Clemens (1997), who describes the way in which oppositional organizations adopt new organizational forms, expanding their organizational repertoire in ways that make them more efficacious when making claims against the state. In her comparison of women’s, labor, and agrarian organizations in the United States in the late nineteenth century, Clemens (1997) describes a variety of different associational models (e.g., military, union, political, cooperatives, clubs, etc.) and shows how organizations change strategies or adopt new organizational models out of necessity. Clemens (1997) also discusses the idea that some models are simply not appropriate for some organizations (even though they exist in the broader cultural toolkit of a given place, at a given time).

Another study of SMO change focuses on the question of the diffusion of innovative protest tactics across SMOs in the US (Soule, 1997). Specifically, Soule (2009) argues that mimetic isomorphism (a concept drawn directly from neo-institutional theory) helped to explain the rapid diffusion of the shantytown protest tactic that was used by student anti-apartheid activists in the United States in the 1980s. Soule (1997), like Clemens (1997), early on saw the compatibility of neo-institutional theory’s ideas about organizational change and what social movement theorists were arguing about changes in strategic and tactical repertoires.

How do movement organizational networks and fields impact movement processes?

The network approach to the study of social movements recognizes (as do organizational ecology and neo-institutional theories) that social movement organizations are not bounded entities; rather they are embedded in a web of connections to other organizations (both within the movement and outside of the movement). This network of relations with other organizations structures organizational interactions, fosters the sharing of resources, and promotes collaborations. Also, this network allows for the sharing of ideas, frames, tactics, and personnel across organizational boundaries.

Social movement scholars working within the network approach focus on the connections between different social movement organizations, either within or across different social movements. For example, using data on membership overlaps, Osa (2003) constructs a network of movement organizations active in the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1960s and 1970s. Once constructed, Osa (2003) studies the effects of various network properties (e.g., the number of brokers, the number of cliques, network size) on the emergence of protest and also on the probability of repression by the state. Elsewhere, using data on the network of environmental organizations active in Milan in the 1980s, Diani (2003) shows that more central organizations were more likely to be identified by other organizations as leaders and to be connected to political institutions. He also identifies the importance of organizations that serve as brokers in the network, arguing that while these organizations were not as likely to be in the public eye, they nonetheless played the important role of holding the network together. Finally, using an organizational survey of environmental movement organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ansell (2003) explores the effects of several different kinds of embeddedness—positional, structural, and relational—on ideas and beliefs about collaborative governance.

One example of recent research that draws explicitly on organizational approaches to embeddedness is Larson and Soule (2009). As mentioned above, this research seeks to explain aggregate levels of protest in the United States, and one of the central findings is that organizations that participate in coalitions have higher levels of protest. Also drawing on the networks approach, Han (2009) shows the importance to social movement processes of individuals who are able to form bridges between disparate social movement groups. Finally, Andrews and Edwards (2005) consider the effects of local environmental organizations’ affiliations with national groups on their likelihood of forming coalitions with other local groups.

Some Suggestions for Future Research

Given this brief review of research at the convergence of social movement and organizational studies, it is important to also make some suggestions for where scholars might focus their energy as we move forward. In particular, I would like to suggest five future areas of inquiry, most of which are (in one way or another) extensions of the literature reviewed in the previous two sections.

Repression of activism in organizational settings

There is a long history of research in social movements and political science on how states repress citizens who are engaged in making claims against the state (see Davenport, 2007 for a review). This work focuses on overt forms of repression (such as when states deploy the national guard or some wing of the military to control protesters or when police “crack down” on a protest event and arrest participants), as well as more covert forms of repression (such as when the state infiltrates social movement organizations). However, this research has not looked extensively at the question of how firms retaliate against activists who challenge them.

One possibility is that firms maintain their own private security forces, which can deal with any kind of direct challenge, whether the challenge is from those within the organization or external to it (King & Soule, 2007). One such organization in the United States is a firm called the Special Response Corporation, which boasts on its website that it “provides specialized security services in times of crisis or heightened vulnerability…from safeguarding corporate facilities to executive protection.” The website goes on to note that they have “provided a critical measure of protection to Fortune 500 companies and local businesses alike.”¹⁰ Related to this is a host of other security firms that provide “strike security” to firms. One such firm, Modern Industrial Services, advertises on its website, “When a labor union threatens to shut your business down, turn to MIS to keep it running.”¹¹ Thus, one possible way that firms respond to activists is through private security forces that act as state police forces do when dealing with activists that challenge the state.

Another possibility is that firms retaliate directly against employees who challenge them through employee dismissal or other reprimands. One example of this is the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers’ Union, a case discussed earlier, in which activists were fired from Polaroid for organizing protests against the company. As mentioned above, while not central to their studies, both Taylor and Raeburn (1995) and Raeburn (2004) describe penalties associated with employee activism, such as lower salaries and lower rates of promotion of employee activists.

While a smattering of studies hint at repression by firms, the topic is somewhat understudied. I would like to suggest here that questions about how organizations retaliate against activists (either those from within their own walls or those who criticize from outside of the organization) could draw on the vast literature on how states repress social movement activists. The literature on state repression of activism is rich and varied and primarily spans sociology and political science (e.g., Davenport, 2007; Davenport, Soule, & Armstrong, 2011; Earl, Soule, & McCarthy, 2003; Soule & Davenport, 2009). In line with this research, it would be interesting to consider how the form of employee activism impacts the likelihood and severity of reprimands against activists. For example, are certain tactical forms, such as protest, more likely to be reprimanded than tactics such as press releases?

On the flipside, one could also imagine a study that uses organizational theories and models to understand the growth and development of private policing in the United States. For example, what explains the growth of private security forces (e.g., the Special Response Corporation, described above) in the United States as an organizational form? To what extent is this organizational form subject to pressures toward isomorphism with respect to their methods of controlling protesters? Has the US reached a carrying capacity with respect to these firms? Are these particular to the US? Using organizational tools and theories to understand this particular industry might shed light on a topic that we, as organizations scholars, know little about.

Weapons of the weak

The political scientist James Scott (1985) examines the way in which those who are left out of the hegemonic power structure of a state exert power and influence, albeit in less radical (and perhaps less collective) ways. Scott starts with the question of why peasant revolts are so rare, and then he focuses on how peasants in various countries and various time periods engage in various kinds of resistance that, while not as dramatic as revolt, certainly indicate that they are resisting their employers. In his work, Scott notes that most scholars look for outward, obvious forms of resistance and revolt and, as a result, they neglect the more common phenomenon of resistance.

In a special issue of Management Communication Quarterly, Peter Fleming and Andre Spicer (2007) make a similar point as they review the literature on power and resistance in organizations. However, they note that in this literature, the tables have turned such that scholars went from not recognizing subtle and subversive forms of resistance to conceptualizing almost anything as resistance (or, in their words, seeing things like cynicism, irony, and sexual escapades at work as resistance).

While there is certainly some excellent research on resistance in organizations that is most tightly tied to critical management studies, I think there is some room to tie this literature more closely to the social movement literature. This has been done to some extent by Meyerson and Scully (1995) in their work on “tempered radicals,” which draws explicitly on Hirschman’s (1970) ideas of exit, voice, and loyalty. And, more recently Kellogg (2011) uses a social movements framework to explain mobilization of surgery residents and attending physicians against new regulations regarding the number of hours they could work. However, there is ample room for further exploration of what Scott has called the “weapons of the weak” and what is typically referred to by critical management scholars as “resistance,” “recalcitrance,” or “struggle.” For example, we might think more broadly about the repertoire of “weapons of the weak” as Fleming and Spicer suggest (see also Fleming & Sewell, 2002). What exactly “counts” as resistance and what does not? Are individual subversive acts the same as collective forms of resistance within organizations?

As well, there are certainly more proactive forms of employee resistance, such as those that Meyerson (2001) talks about (e.g., calling people on their racist and sexist jokes and behaviors within a workplace setting). But what about the more threatening forms of resistance, such as when employees steal from employers, sabotage projects, reduce their effort at work, or slander their company publicly? We know very little about these kinds of behaviors, very little about who is most likely to engage in which form, and next to nothing about whether employees carry out these activities collectively.¹²

In short, I am suggesting a deeper engagement of work by critical management studies by social movement scholars, such that ideas about power and resistance are integrated more centrally. As well, I am suggesting that critical management studies engage the social movement literature in a deeper way than has been done as of yet. This is a potentially fruitful area of inquiry and one where the collective learning potential is enormous.

The role of religion in social movements challenging corporations

When I was working on my book on corporate social responsibility and reading over newspaper accounts of protest events challenging companies in the United States, I was struck by just how many of these involved churches and religious groups.¹³ Similarly, King’s (2008) research on boycotts shows that many of the consumer boycotts in the US have been organized by religious organizations, and Proffitt and Spicer (2006) talk about the role of religious groups in mobilizing shareholder activism and framing the agenda for various human rights-related shareholder proposals. Of course, many know about the role of the Black Church in the Civil Rights Movement and how this movement targeted segregated businesses (Luders, 2010) and about the role of the Catholic Church in targeting weapons manufacturers in the United States (Meyer, 1990). However, the general area of religion and religious groups as challengers to firms, markets, and industries has not been explored as deeply as it could be.

That said, there are a number of recent pieces that have attempted to bring religion into the study of social movements and organizations. For example, Young (2007) talks about the way in which Evangelical Christianity was somewhat of a reactive movement against the expansion of markets across regional boundaries in the United States. In his case, religion allowed Evangelical Christians to see ‘sin’ in the market and to act upon this. A recent piece by Hiatt and his collaborators (discussed above) looks at the role of religious-based movements (here, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union) in stimulating innovation in the soft-drink industry. Chiarello (2011) discusses the role of religion and moral issues more broadly in the work of pharmacists in the US. In particular, her work looks at how pro-life pharmacists sometimes refuse to dispense emergency contraception and how there have been a handful of pharmacists who have been fired for doing this. Finally, Kozinets and Handelman (2004) write about how the consumer movement’s ideology is akin to religious or moral ideology.

Still, we know relatively little about the role of religion and religious movements in challenging corporations in the current era. And we know very little about this from a cross-national perspective. Is this purely an American phenomenon or is this something that also exists in other countries? There is certainly ample room for exploration of the role of religious movements and religious challenges to corporations.

Organizational identities and categories

In recent years, the organizational ecology literature has turned its lens to identity as a fundamental basis for identifying and categorizing organizations (see review in Negro, Koçak, & Hsu, 2010). Perhaps one of the most central questions in the empirical work on identities and categories concerns the effect of organizational identity on how well organizations fare in the market. Empirical work examining this question has discovered that the identity of organizations, individuals, and firms has profound effects on the ultimate trajectory of organizations.

In one line of research, scholars find that organizations (and other actors) that do not fit well into established categories suffer a variety of different penalties in the market. For example, feature film actors who are typecast into particular genres fare better in securing future work, presumably because they exhibit a clearer identity than do actors who span different film genres (Zuckerman et al., 2003). Similar effects are found by Hsu (2006) with respect to feature films; that is, films that fall into multiple genres (e.g., Western Musicals) have lower appeal than do films that are categorized into a single genre.

Another line of research on organizational identities is interested in the concept of authenticity (Carroll & O’Connor, 2011; Carroll & Wheaton, 2010) and, in particular, how organizational authenticity (one component of identity) affects the trajectory of organizations in the market. Organizations and products that are perceived of as authentic accrue various types of benefits. For example, perceived authenticity of goods increases their appeal in country music (Peterson, 1997), restaurants (Fine, 2004), blues music (Grazian, 2003), wines (Negro, Hannan, Rao, & Leung, 2006), specialty food products (Carroll & O’Connor, 2011), luxury leather goods (Carroll & O’Connor, 2011), and cuisine (Rao et al., 2005).

These insights have interesting implications for social movement scholars interested in identity (see review in Stryker, Owens, & White, 2000). Are social movement organizations that present an unclear identity (by, for example, spanning multiple issues) similarly penalized? Or are social movements that are perceived of as inauthentic (because, for example, they were co-opted or “sold out”) penalized?¹⁴ In the case of penalties for social movement organizations, we may be focused on such things as drawing fewer participants, garnering less media attention, having lower survival rates, creating schisms or factions, or losing resources. These kinds of questions have scarcely been picked up by social movement scholars; however, there are ample opportunities for doing so.¹⁵

Organizational learning via coalitions

Social movement scholars have become interested in the topic of social movement coalitions, paying close attention to the factors that seem to facilitate coalition formation between two or more social movement organizations (e.g., Van Dyke & McCammon, 2010).

While we have learned a lot from this research, which treats coalition formation as the key dependent variable, there has been little attention to coalitions as an independent variable (see Jones, Hutchinson, van Dyke, Gates, & Companion, 2001, Murphy, 2005, and Larson and Soule, 2009, for notable exceptions). On this point, organizational learning theorists provide important theoretical insights and methodological tools for understanding what happens once organizations collaborate. Organizational learning theory shows that knowledge-sharing between organizations is one benefit of organizational collaboration (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Grant, 1996; March, 1991). The social movement literature tells us that social movement organizations have an interest in learning how to organize and deploy specific protest tactics; hence we might assume that one consequence of movement organizational collaboration is the sharing of tactics via learning and diffusion processes.

Wang and Soule (2012) take these insights into account in their study of diffusion of protest tactics across organizational boundaries. They study the entire social movement sector of the United States (1960–1995), identifying ties (formed by co-protesting) between all organizations mentioned in newspaper articles as protesting. These authors present strong evidence for tactical diffusion via organizational collaboration. This kind of analysis is important to fostering the connection between organizational studies and social movements because it addresses an issue important to social movement scholars: tactical diffusion (e.g., Givan, Roberts, & Soule, 2010). However, it does this by drawing on organizational learning theory, something that social movement scholars of tactical diffusion have not previously done.¹⁶ Future research along these same lines might examine the effect of frame or issue diffusion via organizational collaboration and examine whether or not frames, issues, or tactics diffuse between organizations that are collaborating across national boundaries.

Conclusion

The purpose of this essay was to first describe some of the highlights of empirical research conducted at the nexus of two areas of social scientific inquiry—social movement and organizational studies—with an eye toward core questions in each area that have been enlightened, extended, and embellished by the other. To this end, I briefly reviewed some of the extant research at this nexus, focusing my comments first on research interested primarily in some organizational process but drawing on social movement theory and research to help understand the process. Then, I briefly reviewed research interested in some social movement process but using organizational theory and research to help understand the process. Many readers of Organization Studies are familiar with the first of these; that is research on some organizational process that draws on social movement studies. However, I expect that fewer are aware of the second of these.

The second purpose of this essay was to look forward and to suggest five new avenues of research. These were directed at both organizational and social movement scholars, and my hope was to stimulate more debate and discussion between these two traditions. Since I began this essay with the example of the recent Occupy protests, it seems appropriate to close the essay with a brief reflection of how the five new avenues of research that I suggested might be applied to the Occupy Movement.¹⁷

First, on the question of repression of Occupy protesters, social movement scholars might look to organizational scholars for ideas about how to think about police response to threat as an organizational issue. Police departments are organizations, as Earl and Soule (2006) note, and, as such, the differential ability and willingness to deploy force against protesters ought to be impacted by organizational capacity, organizational norms, and organizational design. For example, followers of the Occupy protests in the United States noted that one of the most heavily repressed encampments was the one in Oakland, California, where police used grenades filled with rubber pellets, “flash-bang grenades,” and pepper-ball guns (Walter, 2012).¹⁸ As it turns out, internal reports from the Oakland Police Department showed that “factors like poor planning, understaffing, and uneven officer training” contributed to what some have called the “over-policing” of the Occupy Oakland protests (Walter, 2012). Scholars interested in understanding the differential policing of the various Occupy protests throughout the US and in other countries might turn their attention to police departments, as Earl and Soule (2006) argued some time ago.

On the issue of “weapons of the weak,” one question that arises from the recent Occupy protests is the extent to which the public protests may have inspired less overt forms of action by those not even necessarily part of the Occupy movement itself. For example, the loosely coordinated “Move Your Money” and “Bank Transfer Day” movements, which were inspired by Occupy, encouraged people all over the United States to move their money from traditional banks to credit unions. During November, hundreds of thousands of people (many of whom were not part of the Occupy protests) did this (O’Toole, 2011). While not an overt revolution, the relatively small act of defiance—changing banks—by so many people certainly sent an important message to banks about the impact that small actions taken by many people can have.

Another example of such action may be the New York Times editorial published in March 2012 by Greg Smith, a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of that firm’s United States equity business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In the editorial, Smith (very much an insider to Wall Street and likely in the “1%”) revealed that he was resigning from his position, and he called on the board of directors to “weed out the morally bankrupt people” and stop taking “short-cuts” to make money. While Smith is not “weak” in the way that James Scott uses the term, and his editorial is not, of course, an overt revolution, his editorial publicized his grievances and called on the Goldman Sachs board, and thus may be thought of an act of protest.¹⁹

Third, the Occupy Movement would be an ideal setting in which to study the role of religion in anti-corporate protest (at least in many cities in the US and in London). I am certainly not the first to observe the ways in which religion and religious actors have been important to the Occupy Movement. This has been a topic of great interest to the media, where it has been noted that religious actors (e.g., priests, reverends, nuns) have provided both spiritual and material resources to Occupy protesters.²⁰ As well, the location of the Occupy London site at St. Paul’s Cathedral has been a topic of great interest to many (Carey, 2011). Nonetheless, the Occupy protests provide a laboratory for studying the role of religion in anti-corporate activism—for example, how it is used as a material and spiritual resource and whether and how religious actors are repressed.

Fourth, I suggested above that the theories on organizational identities and categories would be interesting to bring to bear on social movements. The Occupy protests also provide a setting in which one could use such theories. In particular, one of the early criticisms of Occupy was that there were no clear goals articulated by the Movement, which appeared to be a large stage for multiple organizations and groups. From the vantage point of the organizational identity literature, one might argue that the strategy of bringing in so many different groups with so many different issues ended up sending a muddled or unclear message. Using Occupy as a laboratory, scholarship might try to understand the tradeoffs (if any) between bringing in large numbers of groups and people and sending an unclear message about the goals of the overall protest.

Finally, I suggested that scholars think about how organizational learning theories can help us understand diffusion. Earlier I noted that Wang and Soule (2012) study tactical diffusion between organizations that protest together. Because the Occupy protests brought together many different groups, working on many different issues, the Occupy protests would be ideal for studying the diffusion of tactics and claims, as well as for understanding (as I note above) the dynamics of coalition formation.

Reflecting on several years of research by social movement and organizations scholars working at the nexus of these two areas, one can conclude that this has been a fruitful area of inquiry, producing a number of fine books, articles, and chapters. The two areas have succeeded in fostering communication between one another and both areas have learned a great deal from the other. As well, it is remarkable that scholars working in many different countries, using a variety of different methodologies, have been united in their appreciation of questions at the nexus of these two areas. In short, this nexus has become a true scientific community and will continue to prosper in the years to come. It is my hope that this essay will become part of a continued conversation that has, thus far, proven to be so fruitful.

Footnotes

Notes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Author biography

Sarah A. Soule is the Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Professor of Sociology, by courtesy, at Stanford University. Her research has long examined questions at the nexus of organizational and social movement studies. Recent publications appear in the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Research in Organizations, and the Administrative Science Quarterly. Her book, Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility (Cambridge University Press), also addresses this nexus.

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