Rethinking consumer resistance through institutional entrepreneurship

Introduction

The marketing literature mostly conceptualizes consumer resistance as a microlevel phenomenon, focusing on individual characteristics, dispositions to resist, and actions against the market (Penaloza & Price, 1993; Roux, 2007; Valor, Díaz, & Merino, 2017). The literature thus restricts the study of consumer resistance to the individual straitjacket that hinders marketing from grasping the institutional determinants and outcomes of resistance behaviors. In line with cultural explanations of consumption, consumers are embedded in social and cultural contexts that shape and dictate their behaviors (Chaney & Ben Slimane, 2014). Although previous literature has helped to understand consumers’ motivations to resist, we argue that resistance is indeed a multifaceted phenomenon on which literature left much untold.

Critical studies emerging in response to the way marketing research has evolved since its inception have pinpointed some limitations (Dholakia, 2012; Tadajewski, 2010). Among these, a particularly keen criticism concerns the level of analysis adopted by marketing research, where consumer-centered approaches are overwhelming. Although undoubtedly useful, these approaches simplify much broader and more complex phenomena (Dholakia, 2012). According to Dholakia (2012), only by adopting macrolevels of analysis can market researchers observe the ideologies, myths, and institutions involved in the development of markets.

During the last three decades, institutional theory has imposed itself as the most powerful theory of the environment that tackles how macroprocesses shape organization and individual behaviors (Greenwood, Oliver, Lawrence, & Meyer, 2017). Institutional theory considers markets as social arenas where a variety of actors construct and struggle over the meaning of consumption practices. When meaning attached to consumption practices gains stability, it becomes reified and the practices will be taken for granted and then institutionalized. From an institutional point of view, consumers are depicted as either passive meaning takers or as proactive meaning makers and givers (Ben Slimane, Chaney, Humphreys, & Leca, in press). The later view opens up avenues of considering consumers that resist to consumption practices as able to shape the institutions that determine practices in the market. They become therefore institutional entrepreneurs (Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004).

It is from this perspective and to address the criticisms previously stated that this article examines consumer resistance from an institutional perspective. The first part of this article provides an overview of microlevel of analysis works on consumer resistance. Then, the second section introduces institutional theory and the notion of institutional entrepreneur. The last part uses institutional entrepreneurship to identify two profiles of resistant consumers: rebel and entryist. The former refuses to consume and to comply to institutional prescriptions. She can be eager to disrupt market settings and create alternative practices which she value highly. The latter resists to the institutional setting that keep them out of the market and perform strategies that aim at empowering left behind consumers. Building on the recent developments within institutional theory (Greenwood et al., 2017), we frame two mechanisms that can explain how rebels and entryists can act as institutional entrepreneurs: emotions and collective identity building. We depict rebels as dissatisfied creative and entryists as justiciaries who are concerned by bringing justice and fairness within markets. These developments are then discussed, and a research agenda is presented.

Consumer resistance: a restrictive microlevel approach

In response to hyper-consumption, many studies have focused on how consumers are able to avoid or reject offers made to them. As early as 1970, Hirschman, in his famous “exit, voice, loyalty” model, distinguished three possible consumer reactions to situations of dissatisfaction with a company. The silent act of exit shows that in situations of dissatisfaction, consumers can decide to change suppliers. Loyalty reflects a widespread belief: consumers’ sense of loyalty is strong enough to tolerate and accept any discontent. Consumers can also express themselves (voice) by protesting against the company. Similarly, Fournier (1998) shows that when they do not want to respond favorably to a commercial offer, consumers can adopt different behaviors, represented in a continuum ranging from avoidance to minimization behaviors and rebellion.

Consumers can thus exhibit a form of market resistance (Penaloza & Price, 1993). In the social sciences, resistance occurs when three conditions are met (Roux, 2007): (1) a force is exerted on the subject, (2) the subject perceives the force, and (3) the subject tries to cancel the effects of the force. When individuals are subjected to commercial solicitations, they are under pressure. If they perceive this commercial solicitation as a force and do not want to give in, they are opposed to consumption and undertake a form of market resistance (Valor et al., 2017). Iyer and Muncy (2009) distinguish different anti-consumption behaviors depending on whether the goal is collective or personal and whether the object of non-consumption is general or specific to certain products or brands. Consequently, resistant and anti-consumption behaviors may vary from simply not consuming a product (Hogg, 1998) or voluntary simplicity (Shaw & Newholm, 2002) to boycotts (Kozinets & Handelman, 2004) and other more extreme forms of market rejection (Holt, 2002).

By way of illustration, Cottet, Ferrandi, and Lichtlé (2008) have studied consumer resistance behaviors toward advertising. They highlight different sources of resistance: a saturation effect regarding advertising that leads to psychological and physical repression, the feeling of being constantly manipulated and to be a kind of puppet and a more general rejection of materialism and thus an idealization of the world without commercial pressure. Also investigating advertising, Fransen, Verlegh, Kirmani, and Smit (2015) have studied resistance strategies developed by consumers. First, they show that individuals use avoidance: a physical avoidance that involves developing a variety of strategies aimed at not seeing or hearing the ad (leaving the room, talk to others, go to the bathroom, etc.), a mechanical avoidance that includes zapping, zipping, or muting the television or radio when the commercials start and a cognitive avoidance that involves not paying attention to the ads. Second, individuals use contesting strategies that involve systematically questioning the content of the ad as well as its source. Third, Fransen et al. (2015) show that individuals use empowering strategies such as receiving social support, suggesting that consumers find in resistance ways to assert themselves as individuals.

Overall, consumer resistance thus can “on the one hand, be viewed as an individual propensity to oppose, and on the other, as a specific response triggered by the dissonant elements of a situation” (Roux, 2007, p. 66). As this definition suggests, marketing work addressing consumer resistance has largely adopted the consumer as the level of analysis. Although there is obviously an interest in studying resistance in the direct relationship between consumers and companies, we argue that resistance is rather a global phenomenon that can be studied through a macroperspective. Individuals are indeed heteronomous actors embedded in a web of institutional settings that dictate the way they interpret and understand reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). We contend that taking an institutional lens would allow to generate a more complete understanding of resistance to market.

Institutional theory and institutional entrepreneurship: a macroperspective on market

In a span of four decades, institutional theory has imposed itself on the realm of organization studies as an enduring and powerful paradigm that come to grip with organizational behaviors and their interaction with their environment (Greenwood et al., 2017). Institutional theory birth is heavily indebted to the phenomenology work by Berger and Luckmann (1966) who consider that reality is socially constructed by actors who through their repetitive interactions typify social arrangements and give them a rule like status. Central to Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) work and to institutional theory is automatic cognition which limits actor’s choices to taken for granted social arrangements (DiMaggio, 1997). Social practices are not only entrenched in collective and shared cognitive schemas by actors but also endorsed by social and political processes that sanction deviant behaviors. From an institutional perspective, social actors are depicted as social meaning producers and social meaning negotiators.

An institutional view of markets portrays the variety of actors who can shape the meaning of consumption practices and influence the way markets evolve, beyond the simple company-consumers dyad (Humphreys, 2010). In their study of the rise and fall of the insecticide DDT, Maguire and Hardy (2009) bring one of the most vivid illustrations of institutional dynamics of markets. DDT reached its golden age during the Second World War where it was used to protect soldiers from insect-borne diseases. Scientists and the administration recommended the wide use of DDT to civilian purposes in the aftermath of the war. DDT was therefore infused with the social meaning of an efficient insecticide with a variety of uses. This led to its institutionalization since actor’s adoption of the product became automatic and thoughtless. As this social meaning spread, sales of DDT reached a climax. However, during the sixties, the meaning of DDT had been challenged by a book written by the biologist Rachel Carson. Other scientists joined Rachel Carson attacks of DDT of being a persistent insecticide that kills flora and fauna. Afterward, ecological activists using media and protests voiced their concerns against DDT. The ban of DDT in 1973 settled down the change of the social meaning of DDT from a miraculous insecticide to a poison. As a result, the DDT market collapsed. This study shows that scientists, activists, media, and politicians play a prominent role in shaping market dynamics. Humphreys (2010) work on the gambling industry show how the de-stigmatization of the practice of gambling tainted with organized crimes and drug traffic opened up new avenues of market growth and expansion as gambling became a cool social practice and a collective experience shared by friends. Changes in macrocultural schemas lead companies to discover new opportunities and to launch new products.

Institutional theory also gives powerful explanations on how the architecture of markets is shaped by institutional process of collective rationalization and diffusion of social meaning. For instance, Rao, Monin, and Durand (2003) describe how institutions and entrenched macrocultural schemes in the French Haute Cuisine market dictate a strict definition of set of practices such as the way menu are named, the rules of cooking, the archetypical ingredient that can be used, the role of the Chef, and the organization of the menu. Starting from the seventies, the question of how actors bring about institutional change became a hot topic within institutional theory. In his seminal work on agency and strategic action within institutional theory, DiMaggio (1988) coined the concept of institutional entrepreneur to refer to those actors who purposefully create and change institutions. Institutional entrepreneurship refers to “the activities of actors who have an interest in particular institutional arrangements and who leverage resources to create new institutions or to transform existing ones” (Maguire et al., 2004, p. 657).

However, one of the criticisms that can be addressed to institutional views of markets and marketing processes hinges on the little interest devoted to consumers as change agents within markets (Ben Slimane et al., in press). Indeed, the works discussed above endow companies, media, scientists, and activists with the capacity of constructing, maintaining, and altering institutional settings that shape consumptions practices and market architecture. Consumers are therefore considered as mere meaning takers. Nonetheless, the role of consumers had been acknowledged in shaping markets such as the automobile industry in its beginning and the brewing industry in the United States during the nineties (Rao, 2008). For instance, Carroll and Swaminathan (2000) show how dissatisfied consumers with industrial, tasteless, and mass-market beers triggered a social movement of founding microbreweries that claim authenticity through the use of traditional recipes and ingredients. A decade later, the microbreweries market grows significantly and became a threat to the mass market brands. Revisiting the history of the birth of the automobile industry in the United States, Rao (2008) debunked the idea that Henry Ford was the almighty entrepreneur who established the automobile industry. Indeed, a social movement powered by early adopters and consumers organized in automobile clubs played a crucial role in constructing the social meaning of using and owing a car.

Central issues that fueled institutional entrepreneurship literature hinge on the motivations and the stimuli of actors to trigger institutional change. In this article, we argue that consumer resistance may be a stimuli and a motivation for consumers to act as institutional entrepreneurs and to bring about institutional changes.

An institutional view of consumer resistance

In this article, we contend that consumer resistance has institutional antecedents and is a stimulus for institutional change. Building on this assumption, we portray consumers who resist as institutional entrepreneurs who can shape institutions. We therefore connect microlevel responses to institutional pressures to the macrolevel of institutions. Our framework posits two mechanisms through which such connections can unfold: triggering emotion and building collective identity.

Resistant consumers as institutional entrepreneurs

Among individuals who do not consume (Figure 1), it is possible to distinguish between two groups of individuals (Ben Slimane, Chaney, & Mbengue, 2014):

The first group encompasses individuals who do not have any barriers to consumption but do not want to consume. This reflects intentional non-consumption (Cherrier, Black, & Lee, 2011). According to the literature on resistance (Roux, 2007), two subcategories of individuals emerge here:

Those who do not wish to consume and have a certain propensity to oppose the market;

Those who do not wish to consume but do not have a propensity to oppose the market, thus showing passivity.

The second group consists of individuals who want to consume but are excluded from the market because of the existence of consumption barriers. The poverty barrier is undoubtedly one of the most underlined barriers (Chakravarti, 2006). According to Prahalad (2009), 4 billion people on the planet, described as the “bottom of the pyramid,” are kept out of consumption because companies consider their poverty is a matter of fate. Other barriers include physical characteristics (overweight, handicap) and a lack of skills (limited skills to consume). The most enduring barriers are cognitive by nature, they are inner to managers’ perception and the rationalized myth they carry and share with others in their industry. For instance, in the fashion industry, it is taken for granted that fashion is only for thin people. Before the advent of the Nintendo Wii, the rationalized myth lies in considering that gaming is restricted to young and hardcore gamers. With regard to institutional theory, this second category can also be divided into two subcategories of individuals:

Those who wish to consume but are excluded because of barriers and who resign themselves to the situation;

Those who wish to consume but are excluded because of barriers and who try to change the situation.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Resistant consumers as institutional entrepreneurs.

As shown in Figure 1, we distinguish between two kinds of situations. In the first situation, consumers’ response to institutions in market is either passiveness or resignation. Such response does not challenge the established institutions. In the second situation, resistant consumers are reflexive actors who are able to think outside the institutional prescriptions and then can bring about institutional change. Reflexivity enables resistant consumers to react against the oppression and the dominance of institutions in markets that render consumption practices unavoidable and generalized or tainted with meaning of exclusion and unfairness. According to institutional theory, reflexivity is the key endeavor in the process of bringing about institutional change. Therefore, resistant consumers with reflexivity commit themselves in process of institutional change and act as institutional entrepreneurs. We distinguish among two types of resistant consumers with reflexivity: rebels and entryists.

Individuals who have the capacity to consume but do not wish to do so because of an opposition to the market are “rebels.” They are in durable opposition because of political, religious, ideological, or environmental motivations (Valor et al., 2017). They seek to radically change the rules within the market. While they can be in opposition to specific companies that adopt unsuitable behaviors (child labor, non-eco-friendly processes, etc.), rebels often oppose the institutions of the market in its entirety (Kozinets & Handelman, 2004). Rebels’ reflexivity is driven by an emotion of oppression inner to the established market institutions.

Individuals who are not able to consume but wish to do so are “entryists.” Unlike rebels, they want to gain access to the market which they are excluded from because of rationalized myths such as thinness in fashion industry, beauty standards in cosmetics, skills and age in video game industry, or high income for high-tech applications and products. As entryists are socialized and evolve in the midst of established institutions, they view this exclusion from the market as unfair (Chaney & Ben Slimane, 2014). Entryist reflexivity is therefore triggered by emotion of unfairness and injustice.

Because their behavior is based on a reflexivity toward institutions triggered by emotions of oppression or injustice, resistant consumers can act as institutional entrepreneurs who are able to bring about institutional change (Maguire et al., 2004). Emotion is therefore key in the process of turning resistant consumers into institutional entrepreneurs. In line with recent works in institutional theory (Greenwood et al., 2017), we contend that emotion is a central conveyor of reflexivity. However, reflexivity is a stimulus for institutional change and is not enough to bring about change. Central to the process of institutional entrepreneurship is transforming reflexivity of actors at the microlevel to a collective action at the macrolevel of institutions (Maguire et al., 2004). According to Hardy and Maguire (2017), to initiate purposeful institutional change, institutional entrepreneurs have to mobilize other actors to trigger a collective action. A key endeavor for mobilization of resistant consumers hinges on the construction of a collective identity (Rao, 2008). Scaraboto and Fischer (2013) show for instance how plus-sized consumers, marginalized by the institution of thinness in the fashion industry, coalesced together and succeeded in changing the meaning of fashion industry, thus pushing companies to adopt new practices such as hiring plus-size models and releasing collections for plus-size people. As shown by Blanchet (2017), building collective identity of resistant consumers requires spaces where consumers meet and debate, the convergence around a common framing of the situation and the high involvement of a group of leaders who will play the role of spokespersons of the community.

Rebels and entryists vary in the nature of institutional change that they aim to bring about in their respective markets. Indeed, rebels feel oppressed by the institutions in the market. They can therefore commit themselves in two kinds of institutional entrepreneurship processes. First, they can contest the legitimacy of established practices and deinstitutionalize them. As a result, the market will collapse. Second, they can create an alternative space to counter the established institutions. The microbrewery movement fits with this strategy of building an alternative market. Rebels can therefore be portrayed as creative resistant consumers. Entryists are motivated by feeling of unfairness and injustice. The institutional change that they look to bring about would fix situations of consumers’ exclusion. They are mainly concerned by power relations in the market. Entryists are therefore justiciaries.

Discussion