Prelims

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HOW ALTERNATIVE IS ALTERNATIVE?

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ADVANCES IN THE STUDY OF ENTREPRENUERSHIP, INNOVATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Series Editors: Matthew M. Mars and Hope Jensen Schau

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Title Page

ADVANCES IN THE STUDY OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP, INNOVATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH - VOLUME 29

HOW ALTERNATIVE IS ALTERNATIVE? THE ROLE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT, FORM, AND FUNCTION IN THE EMERGENCE OF ALTERNATIVE MARKETSCAPES

EDITED BY

MATTHEW M. MARS

The University of Arizona, USA

AND

HOPE JENSEN SCHAU

The University of Arizona, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2022

Editorial matter and selection © 2022 Matthew M. Mars and Hope Jensen Schau.

Individual chapters © 2022 The authors

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80071-774-9 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80071-773-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80071-775-6 (Epub)

ISSN: 1048-4736 (Series)

Contents

About the Contributors

T. Alden Gassert is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He received his PhD in Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His scholarship focuses on arithmetic dynamics.

Karin Berglund, Professor in Business Administration specializing in entrepreneurship at Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, Sweden. Her interest is in the expansion of entrepreneurship to new contexts and emerging forms of alternative entrepreneurship and innovation. Research projects involve ethnographic studies of community development, women’s entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial practices in the public sector, policy studies, and experimental methodological approaches. The overarching research interest lies in studying the emergence of novel forms of entrepreneurship and to gain deeper insight into the emergence of entrepreneurial cultures and the power effects this entails. With feminist and other critical approaches, she is interested in contributing to a sociological understanding of entrepreneurship and has edited books on Societal entrepreneurship and Revitalising Entrepreneurship Education and published in outlets such as Gender Work & Organisation, Organization, Scandinavian Journal of Management, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, International Small Business Journal and the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research.

Kaleb Boyl is a graduate of Hobart & William Smith Colleges. As part of the entrepreneurial studies minor program, he worked with Craig Talmage on an independent study project, which informed the majority of this book.

Chika Kondo is a doctoral candidate at Kyoto University Graduate School of Agriculture. Her work focuses on alternative food systems and organic small-scale farmers and their role in transforming food systems. The working title of her dissertation is “Alternative Food Networks in Japan: Embracing diversity and the struggle of solidarity since the peak of the Teikei Movement. She recently published an article on existing teikei groups exploring intergenerational producer-consumer solidarity, diverse economies, and movement building.

Jessica Lindbergh, Associate Professor at Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research interest lies within the field of entrepreneurship, more specifically social entrepreneurship, rural entrepreneurship and regional development, entrepreneurship and community development, and entrepreneurial learning in international business as well as the development of business and financial relationships. She has published in journals such as Entrepreneurship – Theory and Practice, Journal of International Business Studies, International Business Review, Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, Social Enterprise Journal and Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development.

Matthew M. Mars, PhD, is an Associate Professor, Leadership and Innovation, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at The University of Arizona. Mars’s research focuses on how entrepreneurial logics and strategies become embedded in and influence academic cultures, community development initiatives, and social movements. He has published in a range of academic journals that include Agriculture and Human Values, Community Development, Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, Journal of Management Inquiry, Minerva, Review of Higher Education, and Rural Sociology.

Liz Pocock is the CEO of Startup Tucson and the TENWEST Impact Festival and has over 10 years of experience in economic development, community building and non-profit organizational management. As CEO, Liz has helped lead Startup in serving over 2,500 entrepreneurs a year, grown the TENWEST Impact Festival to over 14,000 attendees in 2019. She has helped the organization secure local, state, and federal grant funding and has also led Startup Tucson in being recognized for several national awards in their support of regional entrepreneurship and the Tucson community. Licensed in Arizona, Liz received her J.D. from the University of Arizona College of Law. Liz is an Adjunct Lecturer of Leadership and Innovation within the Department of Agricultural Education, Technology & Innovation, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and has also been an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship for the business school. Prior to joining Startup Tucson, Liz was the Supervising Research Attorney and Development Director for the National Law Center where she implemented international legal commercial reform and training projects for the State Department, USAID, and the World Bank. Outside of Startup, Liz is the Vice-Chair of the Downtown Tucson Partnership Board, serves on the Tucson Convention Center Commission, Chairs the Tucson Innovation Partnership and is on the Tucson City of Gastronomy Board. She is also a trained mediator, Google Women Techmaker, member of the SBDC and Pima Community College Business Advisory Groups as well as a Commercialization Partner for Tech Launch Arizona. She was a Tucson 40 under 40 recipient in 2019 and was the 2020 Tucson Women of Influence Rising Star Winner.

Hope Jensen Schau is an Eller Professor of Marketing at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. Dr Schau’s research focuses on market practices, consumption journeys, brand building, integrated marketing communications, the impact of technology on marketplace relationships, and collaborative value creation. She is President-elect of the Consumer Culture Theory Consortium, an Associate Editor at the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, an Area Editor for the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing and the Journal of Business Research.

Birgitta Schwartz, Professor in Business Administration with a specialization in entrepreneurship at Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research is about entrepreneurship and how entrepreneurs try to make a better society regarding environmental and social issues interplaying with other actors in the processes of societal entrepreneurship. She has published in the area of environmental strategies, CSR, standardization of environmental and social issues in organizations, animal welfare issues, Fair Trade, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. She has edited the book Societal Entrepreneurship and published in journals such as Business Strategy and the Environment, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Culture and Organization, and Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development.

Gordon E. Shockley is an Associate Professor of Social Entrepreneurship in the School of Community Resources and Development at Arizona State University. He publishes his research in many social-science journals, including Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Journal of Arts Management, Law & Society, Journal on Policy and Complex Systems, Public Administration Review, and Journal of Social Entrepreneurship. He also has produced many book chapters and an edited book, Non-market Entrepreneurship: Interdisciplinary Approaches (2008, Edward Elgar) and is currently collaborating on a new peer-reviewed book project with Routledge. He has served as chair and board member for several terms of the Social Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Section of ARNOVA as well as a board member of the Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations Section of APSA. He currently serves on the board of Social Theory, Politics, and the Arts annual conference as well as on the editorial boards of Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts and Journal of Social Entrepreneurship.

Atsushi Suzuki is a doctoral candidate at Kyoto University Graduate School of Agriculture. At present, his work focuses on young and beginning farmers, with particular focus on the role of regional farmers’ groups and cooperatives support programs for new farmers. He holds a master’s degree in Agriculture from Kobe University where he researched and focused on the production and distribution of sake-brewing rice (sakamai).

Craig A. Talmage is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS), a private liberal arts institution, in Geneva, New York, USA. Dr Talmage helped build the popular entrepreneurial studies minor program at HWS, as its first tenure-track faculty member. His scholarship and teaching focus on dark side theory and critical perspectives on community development, social entrepreneurship, and social enterprise. He holds a PhD in Community Resources and Development from Arizona State University, where he also is a Faculty Associate in the School of Public Affairs in the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions.

Tyler E. Thorp is a doctoral candidate in Higher Education at the University of Arizona, where she also earned a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Education. She currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Introduction

Matthew M. Mars and Hope Jensen Schau

There is growing interest in marketscapes that offer both producers and consumers with alternatives to dominant market systems and structures. While alternative markets are not clearly defined, the notion of “alternative” broadly centers on entrepreneurial strategies and market models that operate outside of the mainstream. If successful, alternative ventures and marketspaces can be profoundly disruptive. For example, consider ride share apps such as Uber and Lyft that have transformed the personal transportation market and in doing so have mostly displaced conventional taxi services. More often though, alternative ventures and marketscapes emerge as co-existing substitutions to the mainstream, as in the case of local farmers’ markets that operate concurrent to supermarket chains.

The extant literature on alternative entrepreneurship marketspace development examines a vast range of models and initiatives for bringing greater diversity and heterogeneity to dominant, mainstream market structures. Examples of the topical foci of this literature include consumer-led interventions that challenge mainstream practices (e.g., Gollnhofer, Weijo, & Schouten, 2019; Kozinets & Handelman, 2004; Weijo, Martin, & Arnould, 2018) and industry-driven innovations such as the expansion of online market channels that further embed the local in the global (Lewis & Cockrill, 2002; Mazzarol, 2015). There is also a robust literature on counter-movements that aim to displace rather than transform global market structures. The most prominent of such movements is that which promotes the hyper-localization of both production and consumption (Ciuchta & O’Toole, 2018; Kurland & McCaffrey, 2016; Mars, 2020; Mars & Schau, 2018, 2019). The chapters composing the current volume contribute to this literature a unique blend of theoretical and applied perspectives on the entrepreneurial underpinnings of alternative marketspace development and market-based movements. Together, these chapters explore the meaning, unpack the complexities, and challenge the common assumptions of alternative entrepreneurship and marketspaces.

The volume opens with two theoretical perspectives on the nature of entrepreneurial inputs to alternative marketscape development. First, Craig A. Talmage, Kaleb Boyl, and T. Alden Gassert draw on dark side theory to confront the assumptions that alternative entrepreneurship is inherently “good.” By drawing on literary stories from the past and modern-day examples of renegade groups, Talmage and colleagues advance a theoretical view of misfit entrepreneurship. This view illuminates the ways in which alternative entrepreneurship may involve anti-social strategies that eschew established economic and legal institutions and/or blur the lines of what is and is not considered ethical behaviors and intentions. Provocations for further research into the heroism of alternative (or misfit) entrepreneurship and the ethical boundaries of alternative market movements are provided. Second, Jessica Lindbergh, Karin Berglund, and Birgitta Schwartz delve into the common perceptions of conventional entrepreneurship as a viable approach to addressing the many wicked environmental and social problems that threat modern day society. They rely on Gibson-Graham’s (2008) conceptualization of diverse economies to identify and underscore the incongruences between conventional capitalist models and progressive market movements. Using three case studies as descriptive points of reference, Lindbergh and colleagues illustrate the ways in which alternative entrepreneurs move between various organizational models and practices to advance societal change in alternatively entrepreneurial ways. The result is a compelling foundation on which to expand otherwise surprisingly narrow views of the role entrepreneurship plays in societal progress.

The next two chapters view alternative entrepreneurship and marketscape development in the context of organizational environments and collective movements. In the first of these two chapters, Gordon E. Shockley uses the concept of organizational centrifugalism to frame the strategies used by late nineteenth and early twentieth century avant-garde artists to create alterative marketscapes alongside the organizational spaces needed to support their innovations. Shockley presents readers with a compelling argument for the importance of balancing public engagement with organizational innovation during periods of alternative marketscape growth and development. In the second of these two chapters, Matthew M. Mars conducts a qualitative discourse analysis of the social entrepreneurship literature and in doing so reveals a paucity of research on the day-to-day realties of social entrepreneurship. This finding leads Mars to propose an ingenuity framework for studying the ways in which entrepreneurial change agents work to persist under the constraints of alternative market movement agendas.

The final three chapters present a series of case studies in which the challenges and opportunities of alternative entrepreneurship and marketscape formation are explored. First, Tyler E. Thorp uses a visual analysis to compare the storylines regarding local food products at farmers’ markets with those at chain supermarkets. The findings support Thorp’s argument that local food entrepreneurs fail to convey to consumers a compelling understanding of the meaning and value propositions of locally produced products and in doing so leave the identity of their alternative market movement open to corporate co-option. In the next chapter, Chika Kondo and Atsushi Suzuki develop a counter-perspective through four cases studies of alternative food networks in Japan. Kondo and Suzuki use the insights generated to suggest ways in which the integration of alternative entrepreneurship with mainstream market models can help to create more collaborative and sustainable food systems. In the final chapter, Liz Pocock describes the emergence and evolution of a community-based incubator that transformed its mission and model from seeking and supporting early-stage ventures with the promise of rapid scalability to a more inclusive approach centered on nurturing small-scale entrepreneurs with ties and commitments to the economic, environmental, and cultural fabrics of their community.