Empowering the underdog: Soft power in the development of collective institutional entrepreneurship in business markets

Abstract

This paper develops a soft power model to enable non-elite institutional entrepreneurs to fundamentally reshape their field. Based on a Judo strategy framework, this model integrates previously suggested soft power tactics into a coherent set of principles. More specifically, it explains how previous soft power insights adhere to underlying principles of movement, balance and leverage. Structured according to these principles, this paper theorizes how soft power strategies can be a sufficient condition to overcome the embedded agency and mobilization problems of collective institutional entrepreneurship. The applicability is furthermore illustrated with a case of an institutional entrepreneurship initiative in the Dutch electro-technical installation industry. As such, the paper informs an undertheorized scenario of institutional entrepreneurship which we argue is more relevant for business markets than hard power approaches.