Why the Microbrewery Movement? Organizational Dynamics of Resource Partitioning in the U.S. Brewing Industry

Oppositional Identities and Resource Partitioning: Distillery Ownership in Scotch Whisky, 1826–2009

“…If the relevant audience for a category have conflicting views about its meaning, confusion and categorical tension might emerge and spark the emergence of a new category in opposition to the prevailing one (Carroll and Swaminathan 2000). In Scotch whisky, two audiences were central in shaping category boundaries: foreign consumers and enthusiasts.…”

“…The reformulation of resource partitioning theory in terms of categorical identities by Carroll and Swaminathan (2000) was a major step forward in the study of categories and markets. Indeed the case of the "microbrewing" revolution-with its sharp and oppositional category code-has become a standard case for initial testing of alternative social cognitive formulations in the organization context.…”

“…Moreover, the shared understanding about the peripheral firms must be such that the offerings of the dominant producers cannot substitute for those of the peripheral producers. More generally, an oppositional identity, especially if rooted in notions of authenticity, can offer strong protection to specialist peripheral producers and limit the expansion of dominant firms from the center to the periphery (Carroll and Swaminathan 2000;Carroll et al 2002;Hannan, Pólos, and Carroll 2007;Pólos, Hannan, and Carroll 2010).…”

“…For instance, Carroll and Swaminathan (2000) highlight the oppositional code of "microbrewer"-one that excluded mass brewers and thereby protected the niche of the microbrewers (see also Swaminathan 2001;Greve, Pozner, and Rao 2006;Pozner and Rao 2006). Scotch-whisky production provides a compelling context to study the role of identity in resource partitioning.…”

Hedonic and transcendent conceptions of value

“…Moreover, in Carroll's (1985) resource partitioning model, specialists -with identities that are clearly more idiosyncratic than their generalist counterparts -only arise once a war of attrition has occurred among the generalists. Since specialist organizations seem more likely to induce a transcendent orientation than their generalist counterparts (see Carroll and Swaminathan 2000), it is far from clear that the transcendent conception of value inevitably gives way to the hedonic orientation. Finally, the importance of these conceptions of value to market evolution is suggested by its affinity with recent work that has come to define organizational form in terms of identity (Baron 2003, Pólos, Carroll, andHannan 2000).…”