(Bounded) Exit, voice, and politics: pandemic education in US and South Korea

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article theorizes how crises and markets shape the responses of consumers and producer organizations. We advance four propositions: 1) if a crisis requires major revisions in operational rules, less-exit sensitive (i.e., monopoly-like) organizations shall revise to aggregate preferences of organized producers; and more-exit sensitive (market-oriented) organizations, to the preferences of individual consumers; 2) if a sustained crisis widens the gap between incumbent organizations and consumer preferences, more consumers shall exit to alternative organizations; 3) if the incumbent organization controls valued resources, consumers shall select more-bounded exit options, which retain formal-legal ties with the incumbent; and 4) compared to less-bounded exit, more-bounded exit options shall enhance consumers’ collective voice about incumbent organizations. We inductively derive our theory from an exploratory analysis of educational organizations in US and South Korea during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Many consumers were dissatisfied with regular-public schools and considered various exit alternatives, including non-regular schools (e.g., private, charter [US], homeschooling [US], special-purpose [Korea]) and private supplemental education. Compared to less-bounded exit (e.g., private schools), more-bounded exit options (e.g., charter, PSE) grew more, and contributed more to consumer voice about regular-public schools, during the pandemic.