Administrative Science Quarterly is a research journal that
for the last few years has published roughly 20 articles per year, which is
slightly more than what some other journals will publish in 1.5 months. ASQ is
very selective, yet we have found a way to be even more selective by also
recognizing excellence in the articles we publish. Every year an award is given
to one article for its scholarly contribution over the previous 5 years. These
articles are available here, and I will give one example in this blog. It is
about grass-fed beef.
Those who are into gourmet or health food dining will
recognize grass-fed beef as specially produced to the cleanest, most
environmental, and most original standards, and as being a premium product that
can be obtained in the best restaurants and stores. They are unlikely to know
that grass-fed beef used to be sold at a discount because it lacked the fat
marbling and tenderness of beef from cattle produced the standard way, with a
finishing period where the cattle were eating corn and grain in feedlots. How
did the discounted product of the past become today’s premium product?
The answer is given in an ASQ article by Klaus Weber, Kathryn Heinze, and Michaela DeSouzey. It involves a social movement that helped drive
forward activists and entrepreneurs who coalesced around the ideas of
authenticity in farming, sustainable nature management, and using only natural
materials and processes. All of these principles were in opposition to normal
farming methods, which the activists saw as industrial, non-sustainable, and
relying on artificial materials and approaches. These activists were a social
movement, but they did not have a company, a set of customers, a way to market
what was special about grass-fed beef, or even a clear way to earn a living.
Instead, they produced a language, a social grouping, and a belief system that
a set of entrepreneurs could organize around.
The next steps were creation of the new market for the
now-premium product of grass-fed beef. Farms switched to grass-fed methods,
often helped by other farms or by publications devoted to these methods. The
entrepreneurs and other parts of the industry, including the social movement,
created informal standards for how to conduct grass-fed farming. They sought
out customers for the growing set of producers and volume of (now-premium)
beef. Throughout this process, a social movement organized around ideas of
protecting nature, preventing cruelty to animals, and promoting human health
rallied resources in ways that created a new niche of an industry, and an
opportunity for entrepreneurs.
The key insight from this research is the sequence of
events: entrepreneurs with new ideas and products can in principle build
markets through individual efforts, but it is difficult to accomplish. Once a
social movement has made a cultural foundation, entrepreneurial effort is much
easier, so it is accelerated and more likely to succeed. The sequence leading
to the grass-fed beef you may be eating soon started with an idea and a
language to use in making it a reality.
