Thanks to
research by Rich DeJordy, Maureen Scully, Marc J. Ventresca, and W. E. Douglas Creed published in Administrative Science Quarterly, we now know more about who
the likely winners are in such a situation. They looked at many dimensions of
social movements, and the one that struck me most was the effect of early
success versus early setback. They studied social movement organizations
campaigning for domestic partner benefits to be offered by firms, an action
that costs firms some money (not much) and can expose them to conservative
counter-movements. Interestingly, they found that too much early success could
be a bad thing.
Most people
look at social movements as disconnected pieces and conclude that any social
movement organization with early success is a good outcome. But this is not
true. A social movement is usually an ecology of separate organizations, and
these observe each other, learn from each other, and stimulate each other. The
problem with early success is that it may have little to teach because the
circumstances are special; it leads to stagnation if the successful movement
organization has nothing left to do; and other movement organizations are less
likely to interact with the successful and stagnated organization. The “one win
and done” model does not sustain a social movement.
But isn’t an
early win better than facing early setbacks? That depends. The authors found
that opposition from target firms often led to refinement in the strategies
used by movement organizations, and it kept the activism high. Repeated
blocking by the target firm could make a movement organization stagnate, but
often the movement organizations were able to find some approach leading to
progress. These were exactly the movement organizations that stayed active and
continued to wield influence over firms. Other movement organizations observed
them and stayed in touch with them to learn how to overcome resistance and were
stimulated by their activism and success.
The key to
understanding social movements is not to focus too much on any single movement
organization, but instead to look at them as an ecosystem and study their
interactions. Interestingly, this is also a good way to analyze how firms
overcome adversity. Learning from other firms is always central in how firms
adapt to the environment, and a full view of the ecology of firms can help us
learn how they overcome mistakes and adversity.
We have
learnt much from looking at organizations one by one, and we will learn even
more that way. We have also discovered how many more lessons are available when
we look at ecosystems of organizations, and this will continue to propel our
research progress. For managers, the key insight is that other organizations
may already hold the key that unlocks the stagnation their organization is
trying to shake off.
DeJordy, R., Scully, M., Ventresca, M. J., & Creed, W. E. D. Inhabited Ecosystems: Propelling Transformative Social Change Between and Through Organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, forthcoming.
