Multilevel Marketing: What's The Catch?

Bloch, Brian

doi:10.1108/eb010267

Cited by 17 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…It is problematic because it veils that recruiting others and helping them to succeed serves the personal interest in building up one's own group and earning off its activities. Additionally, it legitimises the socially tainted behaviour of making money off personal relationships (Bloch 1996). The last row refers to the ideal that Amway is a fair community in a rather unfair business world.…”

Section: Discussion: Mis/use Of Spiritual Elementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spiritual Cleansing: A Case Study on how Spirituality Can Be Mis/used by a Company

Groß¹

2010

mrev

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Organisational spirituality has gained popularity. While some authors see a spiritually fulfilling workplace as a benefit for employees and organisations alike, critical authors point out the potentially totalising effects of organisations that try to colonise employees' minds, hearts and souls. Whereas most existing critical studies are based on literature analyses and mainly refer to societal developments and how organisations are affected by them, the paper at hand provides a single case study on the organisational level. The case study allows a more detailed examination of how organisations can employ spirituality to serve organisational goals. The article identifies three aspects in which workplace spirituality can be misused: to mislead members about the nature of their work, about what an organisation can offer to its members and about the societal value of an organisation.

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Section: Discussion: Mis/use Of Spiritual Elementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…9 These offer personal reports by former distributors and their perception of the Amway Corporation. Some former distributors have also published their own books about their experiences as Amway members in the US (Andrews 2001;Bloch 1996;Dean 1996;Scheibeler 2004) and in Germany (Sonnabend 1998).…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spiritual Cleansing: A Case Study on how Spirituality Can Be Mis/used by a Company

Groß¹

2010

mrev

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“…The nature of social capital structure that the participants can access is also relevant. Scholars and MLM advisors have suggested that personal relationships are a fundamental part of making MLMs succeed, which implies that MLM success is connected to and dependent on social capital structures that have both strong and weak ties (see Adagbon, 2007; Bloch, 1996; Christensen, 2016; Dolan and Scott, 2009; Grayson, 1996; Sparks and Schenk, 2001). In most MLMs, distributors purchase products wholesale and sell them to customers, who are typically family members, friends, and acquaintances.…”

Section: Theoretical Connections Among Social Capital Institutions mentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutions, the social capital structure, and multilevel marketing companies

Lofthouse

Storr

2020

Journal of Institutional Economics

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In multilevel marketing companies (MLMs), member-distributors earn income from selling products and recruiting new members. Successful MLMs require a social capital structure where members can access and mobilize both strong and weak social ties. Utah has a disproportionate share of MLM companies located in the state and a disproportionate number of MLM participants. We argue that Utah's dominant religious institutions have led to the emergence of a social capital structure, making MLMs particularly viable. Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state; roughly half its population identifies as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The LDS Church's institutions foster a social capital structure where (almost all) members have access to and can leverage social capital in all its forms. LDS institutions encourage members to make meaningful social connections characterized by trust and reciprocity with other church members in local neighborhoods and across the world.

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“…9 These offer personal reports by former distributors and their perception of the Amway Corporation. Some former distributors have also published their own books about their experiences as Amway members (Andrews 2001;Bloch 1996;Dean 1996;Scheibeler 2004).…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on ‘Enterprise’: Control and Autonomy in a Direct Selling Organisation

Groß¹,

Jung²

2009

mrev

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Entrepreneurialism within organisations has been praised for serving employees and employers alike, but it has also been criticised as exercising power over employees in an unobtrusive, yet effective way. Within the literature from both advocates and critics, two dichotomies prevail. First, 'enterprise' is considered as a monolithic concept that is either 'liberating' or governing employees; second, it tends to be viewed as strongly opposed to 'bureaucracy'. Recent studies have started to challenge these hitherto often one-sided characterisations by showing that individuals react and respond differently to entrepreneurialism and that bureaucratic elements can co-exist within entrepreneurial companies. However, by drawing on empirical evidence from an entrepreneurial company, we demonstrate that enterprise within an organisation itself is a complex and paradoxical instrument of power and governance in organisations. We suppose that enterprise cannot stand on its own but is instead based upon organisational practices that are at the same time liberating and controlling, entrepreneurial and bureaucratic. Such a view not only allows one to pay attention to the fractions that are caused when the ideal of the individual self-made man is transferred to organisations, but also to question the enterprise discourse itself.

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Multilevel Marketing: What's The Catch?

Cited by 17 publications

References 0 publications

Spiritual Cleansing: A Case Study on how Spirituality Can Be Mis/used by a Company

Spiritual Cleansing: A Case Study on how Spirituality Can Be Mis/used by a Company

Institutions, the social capital structure, and multilevel marketing companies

Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on ‘Enterprise’: Control and Autonomy in a Direct Selling Organisation

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