Text Me! New Consumer Practices and Change in Organizational Fields

• Ansari, S. M. and Phillips, N. 2011. Text me! New consumer practices as a catalyst for institutional change. Organization Science, 22: 1579-1599.

47 Pages Posted: 4 Apr 2012 Last revised: 14 Oct 2012

See all articles by Shaz Ansari

Shaz Ansari

University of Cambridge - Judge Business School; Erasmus University, Rotterdam (EUR)

Nelson Phillips

Imperial College Business School

Date Written: April 4, 2012

Abstract

While scholars have provided increasingly well-developed theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of institutional entrepreneurs and other purposeful actors in bringing about change in organizational fields, much less attention has been paid to the role of unorganized, non-strategic actors in catalyzing change. In particular, the role of consumers remains largely uninvestigated. In this article, we draw on a case of the introduction of text messaging in the UK to explore the role of consumers in catalyzing change in organizational fields. Text messaging has become a widely diffused and institutionalized communication practice, in part changing mobile telephony from a voice-based, aural and synchronous experience to a text-based, visual and asynchronous experience. As consumers innovated and diffused new practices around this product, their actions led to significant changes in the field. We suggest how, and under what conditions, consumers are likely to innovate at the micro-level and, with the subsequent involvement of other actors, catalyze change at the field level. Our primary contribution is to show how the cumulative effect of the spontaneous activities of one important and particularly dispersed and unorganized group can lead to changes in a field. By showing how change can result from the uncoordinated actions of consumers accumulating and converging over time, we provide an alternative explanation of change in organizational fields that does not privilege purposeful actors such as institutional entrepreneurs.

Keywords: Keywords: Institutional Theory, Consumers, Creation and diffusion of practices, Field-level change, Mobile telephony, Text Messaging, Case Study

Suggested Citation

Ansari, Shahzad (S and Phillips, Nelson, Text Me! New Consumer Practices and Change in Organizational Fields (April 4, 2012). • Ansari, S. M. and Phillips, N. 2011. Text me! New consumer practices as a catalyst for institutional change. Organization Science, 22: 1579-1599. , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2034287 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2034287

Shahzad (S Ansari (Contact Author)

University of Cambridge - Judge Business School ( email )

Trumpington Street
Cambridge, CB2 1AG
United Kingdom

Erasmus University, Rotterdam (EUR) ( email )

P.O. Box 1738
Room T08-21
3000 DR Rotterdam, 3000 DR
Netherlands

Nelson Phillips

Imperial College Business School ( email )

South Kensington Campus
Exhibition Road
London SW7 2AZ, SW7 2AZ
United Kingdom

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