Distilling Authenticity: Materiality and Narratives in Canadian Distilleries’ Authenticity Work
研究了加拿大威士忌行业中老牌和微型酿酒厂如何通过物质资产（如产品特征、关键人物和建筑设计）来支撑其真实性叙事，揭示了物质性如何既约束又促进真实性主张的构建。
Authenticity is increasingly seen as a source of competitive advantage in many industries. Accordingly, authenticity work, the organizational efforts to develop and sustain believable authenticity claims, has emerged as an important organizational practice. We examined the interplay of materiality and narratives underpinning producers’<br/>authenticity work in the context of incumbent and micro-distilleries<br/>operating in the Canadian whisky industry. We found that producers’<br/>material endowments, especially central product features, anchored what authenticity claims they could credibly narrate. Other material<br/>endowments, such as key people and architectural design, were used to reinforce the integrity of authenticity claims. Our study extends our understanding of authenticity as a valued organizational resource. First,<br/>we identify two mechanisms, anchoring and reinforcement, through which materiality both constrains and facilitates organizations’ authenticity narratives. Second, our research brings to the fore how audience members’ experiential closeness to producers colors their<br/>perceptions of authenticity, and we show how material artifacts can<br/>enhance such closeness. Third, our findings enrich the understanding of competitive value of authenticity in the context of strategy by unpacking how producers’ material endowments may constitute a resource or a liability.