Social Movement Organization Leaders and the Creation of Markets for “Local” Goods
基于对本地主义运动的访谈研究，揭示了社会运动组织领导者如何通过双重角色（组织合法化与运动合法化）推动本地商品市场的创建，并分析了不同策略对消费者行为、生产者技能及交换性质的影响。
Research illustrates that social movements can fuel new markets and that these markets can create social change, but the role of leaders in this process is less understood. This exploratory interview-based study of the localism movement contributes to such understanding. It articulates the relationship of social movement leaders and the legitimacy of their organizations to new market creation. Specifically, leaders in this study engaged in a dual role to legitimize their organizations and to legitimize the movement. At an organizational level, leaders chose strategies that conformed to a conventional organizational model of the social movement organization (SMO) as a business network, much like a local chamber of commerce. At a movement level, the SMO’s level of legitimacy influenced the leader’s choice of strategies to grow a “local” market. These strategies aimed, primarily, to shape consumer purchase behavior and, secondarily, to foster the development of producers’ skills, and only in a tertiary way, to alter the nature of exchange. Finally, this study’s findings suggest a tension between the dual roles that may ultimately challenge the efficacy of the movement.