Adapting to contradiction : competing models of organization in the United States organic foods industry

This dissertation contributes to a developing conversation between social movements scholars and organizations researchers by investigating the influence of different cultural models of organization in the organic foods industry. Within this field of activity, the model of market efficiency promotes highly rationalized organizational forms. On the other hand, the model of humanism advocates personal and community development through participatory organizations. The dissertation analyzes how industry members and the organization that they run respond to these different models of organization. Market growth during the 1990s and 2000s propelled the organic industry in the direction of rationalization. This was especially evident in new legal structures that standardized the definition of organic production, regulated the use of organic marketing claims, and channeled a significant amount of consumer and social movement activism into institutionalized channels. However, even in the large grocery companies that now sell organic foods, rationalization remains uneven because these companies must respond to unpredictable features of the organic industry, the restructuring of the grocery industry, and campaigns organized by consumer activists. Models of rationalization have also affected the smaller, humanistically-inclined natural food co-op stores, whose leaders have used mechanisms of symbolic realignment, loose coupling and bricolage to maintain a countercultural identity while also adapting to a more competitive market. The competing models of organization also appear in organic industry members' explanations of their decision to work in the organic industry. While industry members generally agree that the organic industry is more environmentally beneficial than the conventional foods industry, they disagree about whether the ultimate goals of the industry should be the conversion of as much land as possible to organic management or transformation of the environmental consciousness of individuals. Finally, professionals show ambivalence about involving consumers in debates about the organic industry and about broader environmental politics. These findings contest the ability of scholars to draw clear boundaries between social movement and non-movement organizations and reassert the importance of culture in this growing field of researc