Playing the Double Game: How Ecopreneurs Cope with Opposing Field Logics in Moralized Markets

Abstract

Moralized markets are economic markets in which moral aspects are explicitly used to legitimize decisions. Companies involved in such markets have to cope simultaneously with opposing logics: While they strive for economic growth, their existence is bound to their moral integrity, too. This chapter investigates how ecopreneurs manage this inherent conflict of moralized markets. Based on interviews, documentary analysis and sample purchases, an empirical case study highlights the example of well-renowned ecopreneurial dairies distributing their milk via ecologically disreputable discount stores. By looking into the related struggle between moral and economic expectations, the chapter sheds light on one particular coping strategy: The tacit creation and maintenance of separate fields for moral and economic logics. This strategy of fragmentation is referred to as ‘double game.’ The study emanates from competing logics approaches to hybrid organizations by adopting a field theoretical, Bourdieusian perspective. Its explicit focus on opposing logics and on coping strategies that go beyond reconciliation opens up new perspectives for both sustainability and organization studies.

Citation

Suckert, L. (2019), "Playing the Double Game: How Ecopreneurs Cope with Opposing Field Logics in Moralized Markets", Schiller-Merkens, S. and Balsiger, P. (Ed.) The Contested Moralities of Markets (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 63), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 107-126. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20190000063014