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Market Mediators And The Tradeoffs Of Legitimacy-Seeking Behaviors In A Nascent Category, Brandon Lee, Shon Hiatt, Michael Lounsbury
Market Mediators And The Tradeoffs Of Legitimacy-Seeking Behaviors In A Nascent Category, Brandon Lee, Shon Hiatt, Michael Lounsbury
Brandon Lee
Although existing research has demonstrated the importance of attaining legitimacy for new market categories, few scholars have considered the tradeoffs associated with such actions. Using the U.S. organic food product category as a context, we explore how one standards-based certification organization—the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF)—sought to balance efforts to legitimate a nascent market category with retaining a shared, distinctive identity among its members. Our findings suggest that legitimacy-seeking behaviors undertaken by the standards organization diluted the initial collective identity and founding ethos of its membership. However, by shifting the meaning of organic from the producer to the product, CCOF …