Tribal entrepreneurs: caught in the crossfire of the tribal and market logics?

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is a statement that runs through the literature on consumer culture, one that contrasts tribal logic with market logic and asserts that they cannot be combined. This statement has become a black box of our discipline, in the Latourian sense of the term. This is especially visible when scholars are interested in tribal entrepreneurship. We want to open up this black box by interpreting the life of a mountain speleologist who invented a drilling tool that he started to produce in small batches and then made into a commercial success while continuing to practice his hobby with his tribe. Our paper shows that the binary opposition between the tribal logic and the market logic does not really exist in the experiences of tribal entrepreneurs. Indeed, our findings show they are often confronted with a multitude of logics, taking advantage of this multiplicity to navigate between apparently diverging logics.