SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY AND THE EVOLUTION OF NEW ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS.

Abstract

New organizational forms face formidable obstacles in that new roles have to be learned, external ties to supporters are often lacking, and they often must rely on social relations among strangers. Consequently, new organizations suffer from a liability of newness and often fail. But, some new organizational forms survive and grow. In part, this occurs because some new organizational populations have superior technology or simply contain organizations that fit the existing environmental contingencies. Often, however, these organizations overcome substantial obstacles through collective strategies that bear an uncanny resemblance to tactics and strategies adopted by organizations that spearhead social movements. Like social movements, a key task for participants in emerging industries is to gain cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy. In attempting to achieve this legitimacy, interactions between firms often take on a social movement like character. Cooperation rather than competition is the norm as founders attempt to mobilize resources through collective action such as the formation of trade associations and mutual benefit societies. In this paper, we will focus on two aspects of social movements that seem to influence the emergence of new organizational forms: (a) the structure of opportunities and constraints that promote or retard the mobilization of resources and (b) the generation of collective action frames.