Abstract
The role that standards and the organizations that promote them play in markets is increasingly recognized as central to the development of new market sectors. While much of the past research on standards has focused on well established industries and technology settings in particular, we examine how standards-based certification organizations (SBCOs) exert both direct and indirect influence over market entry dynamics in a new industry sector. We propose that through key processes of standards creation and promotion, SBCOs have a direct impact on market entry for both certified and noncertified operations. If SBCOs are successful in getting their standards adopted and adhered to, they set in motion sector level dynamics that influence market entry decisions. The U.S. organic food industry serves as the empirical context for this study. We discuss the implications of the findings from this paper for the literatures on normative institutions and standards in new industry settings.
About the author:
Expertise
Strategic and entrepreneurial aspects of market creation with particular expertise in the creation and exploitation of market opportunities. Extensive experience leading research and consulting initiatives in the organic food and electric energy sectors
Publications
The infrastructure of collective action and policy content diffusion in the organic food industry (Academy of Management Journal, 2009); Tilting at windmills? The environmental movement and the emergence of the U.S. wind energy sector (Administrative Science Quarterly, 2009); Constructing market opportunities: Environmental movements and the transformation of regional regulatory regimes, Applied Evolutionary Economics and Economic Geography (Edward Elgar, 2007)
Research interest
Organisation theory, strategic management, economic sociology, entrepreneurship, industry creation and evolution, Inter-organizational field emergence and structuration, social movements, nexus of environmental sustainability and new market construction.
There will be a sandwich lunch beforehand in the boardroom from 12.00 – 12.30.
For more information please contact Dr Boris Maciejovsky at b.maciejovsky@imperial.ac.uk.