Community building as institutional entrepreneurship: exploring the emergence of a popular music community.
Guiney, John A. ; Zheng, Congcong
INTRODUCTION
How institutions are created, maintained, shaped, and changed are
the central interests of institutional entrepreneurship (Bruton,
Ahlstrom, & Li, 2010). Current research on institutional
entrepreneurship has investigated the questions of how institutional
orders are changed by different types of social actors in industry
fields, either in the center of the field or in the periphery (Greenwood
& Suddaby, 2006; Greenwood, Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002; Maguire
& Hardy, 2009; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004). Wherever the
locations of institutional changes are, current research on
institutional entrepreneurship has focused on the change of
institutional order as the sole outcome of institutional change. In this
conception, actors either achieve institutional change or fail to do so
and the result of international entrepreneurship is dichotomous.
In reality, there could be a range of results that are associated
with the institutional entrepreneurship, including partial change of
institutional order (Glynn, 2000), or the creation of a community that
cultivates a different set of orders, rules, and values within the
community. Yet little is known about how institutional entrepreneurs
construct an alternative social order when they build a community in
parallel to mature institutions. Do they predominantly engage in changes
to undermine the cognitive pillar of the institution,
"theorization" to justify a new order (Greenwood, Suddaby et
al. 2002), or policing or deterring to reinforce the new order (Lawrence
and Suddaby 2006)? This lack of clarity is matched by the uncertainty
about how the work of institutional entrepreneurs differs from
"institutional followers" and how these behaviors are linked
to "institutional work" (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006).
Before we move on, we explain the concept of community used in this
paper. Sociologists have studied communities extensively since the early
nineteenth century (Tonnies, [1887] 1957; Durkheim [1897] 1951; [1911]
1965). Since then, the idea of community has been accepted as a symbol
of safety and familiarity (Brint, 2001). Communities are
"aggregates of people who share common activities and/or beliefs
and who are bound together principally by relations of affect, loyalty,
common values, and/or personal concern (i.e., interest in the
personalities and life events of one another)" (Brint, 2001: p8;
emphasis in original). They are conceptually different from
institutions, which are a pre-existing web of socially constructed,
taken-for-granted prescriptions of appropriate behavior (Scott, 2001).
Communities and institutions are both governed by cognitive-cultural,
normative, and regulative forces but the forces prevailing in them are
of a different nature (Marquis, Glynn, & Davis, 2007; Peredo &
Chrisman, 2006). Importantly, communities are distinguished from
institutions regarding the following two aspects: the extent of
formality and the degree of regulation. Compared to institutions,
communities are less formal; participants develop a sense of familiarity
with one another through frequent social interactions rather than formal
role specification. In contrast, institutions tend to orient towards
formality and participants/actors tend to occupy specific roles in a
pre-established structure. In terms of regulations, while in
institutions, "... regulative processes involve the capacity to
establish rules, inspect or review others' conformity to them, and,
as necessary, manipulate sanctions--rewards or punishments--in an
attempt to influence future behavior"(Scott, 2001, p35), the
regulative forces in communities are based on interpersonal
relationships and lack the coercive power of institutions.
Using qualitative procedures, we explore the creation and emergence
of an elective community that is based on choice and activity (Brint,
2001). In contrast to geographic-based communities such as small scale
communities of place or neighborhood groups, an elective community such
as a fan community of a music group is based on relationship ties bound
by choice and activity. Stated differently, the members of the fan
community of a band may live in different cities, countries, or even
continents; and their linkage to one another is through choosing and
liking the band and through activities such as listening to the music
and sharing the musical experience by engaging in discussions or
attending concerts. The community that we explore is the fan community
of the Grateful Dead. Known as "one of the most remarkable business
stories in rock 'n' roll history" (Memmott, 1995), the
Grateful Dead dramatically changed the American musical landscape
beginning in the late 1960s. By leveraging their community of fans, more
commonly known as Deadheads, the band was able to create a unique
business model that was unlike the prevailing business models in the
record industry (Hirsch, 2000), thereby providing a template for future
musicians such as the bands Phish and String Cheese.
This case allows us to analyze what institutional entrepreneurs do
to create a community that parallels the existing institutions of the
record industry, the changes they focus on, and how they relate to the
institutional "followers" who abide by the rules of industry.
This study contributes to institutional entrepreneurship research and
research on community by understanding what institutional entrepreneurs
do to build a community. Our paper illustrates how entrepreneurs were
able to create and foster a community through cognitive, normative, and
regulative forces. Although considerable work in institutional
entrepreneurship exists on how actors/entrepreneurs frame issues, make
choices, and pursue behaviors to introduce new beliefs, norms, and
practices into the social structures, they tend to focus on the success
or failure of institutional change as the sole outcome for institutional
entrepreneurs (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Greenwood, Suddaby, &
Hinnings, 2002; Garud, Jain, & Kumaraswamy, 2002). Relatively little
research has been done on alternative outcomes of institutional
entrepreneurship, such as the creation of a community where actors can
develop, justify, foster, and share a different set of beliefs than
those of prevailing institutions. An appreciation of how entrepreneurs
can carve out enclaves of communities within institutions can add to our
understanding of how people respond to multiplicity of institutional
environments (Greenwood, Diaz, Li, & Lorente, 2010). When facing
multiple, incongruous, or even conflicting institutional demands,
entrepreneurs can actively create communities that harbor a different
sets of values and beliefs.
We present our study in four sections. We first discuss theoretical
orientation in the current literature on institutional entrepreneurship,
establishing the central themes in the extant literature. Subsequently,
we describe our qualitative research procedures. The third section
presents the case study, discusses the processes of community emergence,
and draws a framework of community emergence. And finally, we discuss
the contribution and implications of our research.
THEORETICAL ORIENTATION
In this paper, we follow Scott's (2006, p133) definition that
"institutions consist of cognitive, normative, and regulative
structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social
behavior". The cognitive structure of the institution depends
heavily on the social interactions between its members. Berger and
Luckmann (1967) and Scott (2006, p135) argue that "social life is
only possible because and to the extent that individuals in interaction
create common frameworks and understanding that support collective
action". Without a cognitive base on which to conduct these
interactions, actors would be working individually for personal goals
and interests, preventing them from effectively moving toward the
completion of a common goal. The cognitive structure of the
institutional environment helps to create a common language and common
processes that individuals follow and maintain.
The normative structure provides a moral framework for social life.
Norms reflect common values, and participants derive these values and
structures based on what is appropriate within the institutional
context. Participants feel socially obligated to others, share common
values, follow, permeate, and spread such norms in order to solidify the
social structure and strengthen the bonds between actors.
The regulative structure refers to systems of rules as a governance
system--the "rules of a game" (Scott, 2006, p133). There are
not only a written set of rules that participants must follow, but also
a set of informal regulatory structures that exist at the sector,
industry, and societal levels. Members of the society are expected to
adhere to these rules out of expediency. Usually enforced by coercion,
individuals follow these regulations in order to avoid sanctions or to
gain rewards. Behaviors that conform to the existing rules and laws are
seen as legitimate.
Institutional theory, as initially formulated, suggests that social
behaviors are patterned and reproduced because participants tend to view
social structures as rationalized myths that are taken for granted, and
followed as a prescribed guide for proper behaviors (Meyer & Rowan,
1977). Even though institutional theory has originally emphasized the
conformity of participants to institutional orders, recent research on
institutional theory and institutional entrepreneurship underscores the
importance of human agency, i.e., the struggles and the behaviors of
interested actors in maintaining and changing institutional orders
(Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Greenwood, Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002;
Garud, Jain, & Kumaraswamy, 2002; Mcguire, Hardy, Lawrence, 2004).
Institutional entrepreneurs are actors who work towards changing or
creating institutions by engaging in forward-looking agency (Dorado
2005).
Recent scholars have sought to explore in more detail the
activities involved in institutional entrepreneurship (Lawrence and
Suddaby 2006). Yet the broad literature remains divided as to exactly
which areas of activities the entrepreneurs focus on to introduce a new
social order. According to some authors, institutional entrepreneurs
mainly focus on the regulative areas and establish rules and construct
rewards and sanctions that enforce these rules (Elsbach and Sutton 1992;
Fox-Wolfgramm, Boal et al. 1998; Russo 2001). A second stream of
research highlights the normative structure of institutions and attends
to the identities, roles, values and norms that underpin institutions
(Townley 1997; Townley, Cooper et al. 2003; Zilber 2002). In this view,
entrepreneurs affect institutional change by re-making the connections
between sets of practices and the moral and cultural foundations of
these practices, thereby reformulating the normative foundations of
institutions. Participants may still carry out the same practices, but
with a different set of meanings and motivations. Lastly, institutional
entrepreneurs may work on cultural and cognitive areas of institutions
by undermining the beliefs, assumptions, and frames that inform the
existing institutional order (Hargadon and Douglas 2001; Lounsbury 2001;
Orsato, den Hond et al. 2002). Through changing meanings, they introduce
or create new institutions and invite other interested actors to engage
in new practices and participate in the new institutions.
In addition, existing research has yet to show how institutional
followers differ from institutional entrepreneurs when facing a similar
institutional environment. Do institutional followers passively conform
to institutional orders as "cultural dopes" (DiMaggio 1988;
Hirsch and Loundsbury 1997), or do they actively support, repair, or
recreate the social mechanisms that underlie prevailing institutions?
Recent work on institutional entrepreneurship has drawn attention to the
fact that few institutions possess powerful self-productive mechanisms.
As a result, maintenance work is often needed for institutions to
persist (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006). However, little attention has been
devoted to how institutional followers and entrepreneurs differ, given
similar environments. This paper focuses on how institutional
entrepreneurs build an elective community, focusing on the fan community
of the Grateful Dead.
METHODS
Rationale
This study began as an exploration into the relationship between
institutions, entrepreneurs, and communities. The research design was
based on inductive logic to obtain and gain insights, as a type of
"naturalistic inquiry" (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Miles
& Huberman, 1994). The aim of naturalistic inquiry is to generalize
from a case to a theory rather than from a sample to a population. This
is accomplished through interpreting the data, and iterating between
data and theoretical constructs until a stage of theoretical saturation
is reached (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Qualitative procedures were
used for four reasons. First, the changes observed over time in the
Grateful Dead's business structure were not immediately apparent
and obviously measurable; instead, they resulted from complex social
interactions and subconscious and conscious decisions by the band's
decision makers and the societal members of the community. Second,
inductive techniques allowed us to clarify the sequence of events within
and surrounding the community; we could detangle and clarify the causes
of these events and offer a timeline in which to analyze historical
events. Third, quantitative research would have failed to examine the
societal structure under investigation in proper depth. Finally,
qualitative methods enabled us to develop and substantiate a theory in
this relatively new research area. Our study has drawn upon two sources
of data: interviews and archival material.
SOURCES OF DATA
Informants
Two categories of actors were interviewed. One group consisted of
former members of the Grateful Dead's inner business structure
(i.e., managers, crew, and staff). Among others, we interviewed sound
engineer Dan Healy, who worked exclusively with the band from late 1960s
until the death of Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist, in 1995; Dennis
McNally, the band's long-term publicist and author of a Grateful
Dead biography (McNally, 2003); Billy "Kidd" Candelario,
crewman and previous manager of Grateful Dead Merchandising; and David
Gans, host of the nationally syndicated radio show--The Grateful Dead
Hour and author of several books on the Grateful Dead (Gans, 1985). All
interviews were conducted in semi-structured fashion. Some of the
respondents attended business meetings and voted on issues that directly
impacted the creation of community, and all of them were familiar with
the business structures of the Grateful Dead.
The second group of interviews were conducted with fans and members
of the community. Each member of this group had a different level of
community involvement and interacted with the community during
overlapping periods of time. Some of the community members interviewed
were tapers, a specific subset of the community who would use a variety
of recording setups in the audience to record and archive live shows.
Primary among the fans we interviewed were Dan Hupert, a lawyer in the
State of New York, and Barry Barnes, a professor of leadership. All of
the respondents of this group were knowledgeable about the culture,
norms, and regulations of the Grateful Dead community.
All interviews lasted around an hour to an hour and half in length,
were recorded, and subsequently transcribed within 24 hours of interview
conduction. All interviews were conducted according to an interview
protocol that was developed by the researchers based on the roles of the
interviewees in the community (band insiders or fans). The interview
methodology has been described in the Appendix section. To minimize
interviewer bias, a sample of the interviews was conducted by two
researchers. Apart from primary interviews, we also consulted extensive
text and video interviews conducted with the band members by the media
dating from 1965 to the present (see archival data sources in Table 1).
These second-hand interviews provided insight into the internal growth
and regulation of the fan community and offered contextual information
that showed the change in attitude and approach of the band over time. A
summary of data sources and the number of interviews conducted are
listed in Table 1 above.
Archival Data
Four categories of archival data were collected. The first category
of archival data comprised of books, texts, and interviews that provided
insight on the members of the band. Biographies, autobiographies,
personal interviews and obituaries were researched in depth to gain a
better understanding of the band members (Gans, 1985; Garcia, Reich,
& Wenner, 2003; McNally, 2003). By better understanding the driving
forces behind the band and the band members' ethics and behaviors,
we were able to understand the entrepreneurs behind the creation of the
community and the origins of community values. These articles also
allowed us to validate and establish a main timeline of events
surrounding the development of the band and the community.
Second, we referenced articles focusing on the popular media
accounts of the band and the community. We searched every article
published on Grateful Dead on the Lexus-Nexus database. These articles
were a rich source of information and provided additional insight on the
band and its relationship with the community (e.g., Bogaev, 2002;
Pareles, 1995; Strauss, 1998). These articles gave direct insight into
the community and interactions that occurred within and outside of the
fan community. Spanning over forty years, beginning in the late 1960s
until the present day, these articles also discussed the band's
influence on other "jam bands" (i.e., bands such as Phish and
String Cheese that relied heavily on improvisation in their shows) that
have arrived on the scene since the Grateful Dead. This second category
of data was vital in understanding the roles within the Grateful Dead
community and the societal views of the community. These articles
explained the dialect, language, values, and practices that arose within
the community. There were diverse opinions of the band and the
narratives changed over time, and these articles provided a general
background on the evolution of the band and its community.
The third category of data comprised of trade magazine articles
(e.g., Billboard, Rolling Stones, etc.), analysis, and other industry
publications in the popular music industry that covered the years of
1965-1995. This category of data provided insights on the industry
structures, culture, and institutional environment during the lifespan
of the band (Passman, 2009). And finally, we also consulted academic
articles in various disciplines such as business, sociology, and
philosophy (Adams & Sardiello, 2000; Gimbel, 2007) including
business cases regarding the Grateful Dead (Hamermesh, Marshall, &
Pirmohamed, 2002).
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Data collection and analysis occurred in five steps. As stated
earlier, we used inductive methods to obtain insights into the community
and community development (Miles & Huberman, 1994). All primary and
secondary data was managed through the NVIVO software. To increase
reliability and validity of information derived from a large number of
primary and secondary sources, we created a document coding protocol
that linked the original texts with theoretical constructs and construct
relations. The data was organized in chronological order, and relevant
data segment was coded according to content and its sources. This coding
method provided researchers with a main summary of events.
After gathering the initial data, independent analysis of the
data-set by both researchers was conducted. We based our assessment on
two sets of research questions formulated at the beginning of the
process: 1) What type of institutions in the music industry did the band
face at their startup? How did the business model and strategy of
Grateful Dead differ from that of the bands which followed the dominant
institutions at the time? 2) How did the band create a community that
supported their alternative business model? What were the roles of the
fans in creating the community?
After independent analysis was completed, thematic trends were
extracted from the data. For example, one key component of the
regulative force of the Grateful Dead Community--self-regulation
--emerged. In addition, critical instances of similarities and
differences between the Grateful Dead model and the common practices of
its contemporary bands (e.g., bands such as Rolling Stone) were
addressed. Once the original set of themes was defined, the ideas were
carefully cross-referenced with the original sources. Similar to
Greenwood & Suddaby (2006), at this stage, the data was analyzed
using latent analysis and subsequently interpreted based on the
researchers' expertise on the subject and contextual knowledge of
the band. The fifth and final step in the analysis involved the
researchers conducting further interviews with several more fan members
of the Grateful Dead community, in order to test the validity of the
themes discovered. This last step, combined with the additional
collection of data concentrating on specific periods during the
community's lifespan, allowed for an additional verification of the
themes that emerged in the earlier stages of data analysis. The
verification of themes as a result of the additional data gathered,
solidified our interpretation of the data.
CASE ANALYSIS
Case Background
The Grateful Dead (also referred to as the Dead) was one of the
highly influential bands from the 1960s, and one of the most successful
touring bands in the US. Combining record deals, touring, and
merchandising, it was also one of the highest grossing bands of all
time. Throughout its career (1965-1995), the band recorded more than 20
albums and appeared in 2,317 concerts in 298 cities. In 1991-1995, the
band played 85-110 shows annually and was each year among the highest
grossing acts in the U.S. concert business (Economist, 1996). In 1991,
at $32.7m, and in 1993, at $45.6m, the band grossed more than any singer
or group. The Dead was the No. 6 touring act of 1994, grossing nearly
$50 million and drawing 1.2 million concert goers to 77 sold-out dates.
The band grossed more than some major league baseball teams in some
years (Will, 1995).
The band started in 1965 in San Francisco as the Warlocks, with
guitarist Jerry Garcia, guitarist/vocalist Bob Weir, keyboardist Ron
"Pigpen" McKernan, bassist Phil Lesh, and drummer Bill
Kreutzmann; percussionist Mickey Hart joined shortly thereafter. Within
a year, the Warlocks were renamed the Grateful Dead. Over the years,
besides the band, the Grateful Dead have spawned offshoot businesses
such as the Grateful Dead Ticket Office, Ice Nine Publishing which
licenses the compositions of the Grateful Dead, and the now defunct
Grateful Dead Records (Derobertis, 1995).
Information derived from interviews, media accounts, and books led
us to identify Grateful Dead as an institutional entrepreneur for
several reasons. First, it was the first "jam band" and its
business model served as a "template" for subsequent artists
such as Phish, String Cheese, and Neil Young. The
recordings/performances of jam bands often feature extended musical
improvisation ("jams") over rhythmic grooves and chord
patterns and long sets of music that cross genre boundaries. More than
traditional musical artists, jam bands rely heavily on touring and
cultivation of fan relationship to generate revenues. Second, although
Grateful Dead was not the first Rock 'n' Roll band to
recognize the importance of a fan community, it was one of the first
bands that systematically incorporated the community's input in its
business decisions. For instance, it was one of the first bands which
included a community representative with voting rights in its board,
which signified the importance of the Deadhead community in band
decision. Finally, Grateful Dead, through its reliance on the community,
was the driving force behind the movement for musicians to disconnect
from the prevailing institutions of the record industry and rely on
concerts ticket sales, merchandising, and other non-record revenues for
income generation. Forty five years after the founding of the Dead,
touring, sponsorship, and merchandising have overtaken record sales as
the major revenue streams for musical artists (Heller 2010). Building
the fan community played a key role in disconnecting, disassociating and
undermining the then prevailing institutions in the record industry.
The Comparison of Extant Institutions in the Recording Industry and
the Grateful Dead
The business approach of Grateful Dead is vastly different than the
approaches of its contemporary bands such as the Rolling Stones (Mengel,
2008). The comparisons drawn in Table 2 illustrate the different career
paths of the two bands, which operated in the music industry during the
same time, but relied on opposing methods to garner and maintain
success. While the Grateful Dead were touring extensively, racking up
around 2,317 shows between the years of 1965 and 1995, the Rolling
Stones preformed slightly over a third as many concerts, just over 700
concerts. Instead, the Rolling Stones relied on studio albums and radio
airplay to achieve success in the 60s and 70s, the beginning of their
career. By producing 22 studio records, 11 of which went multi-platinum
(selling 2,000,000 or more copies per record), and 8 number-one singles,
the Rolling Stones followed the institutional path to success (i.e., the
record industry). In contrast, the Grateful Dead leveraged their
community of fans for their path to stardom (Passman, 2009). With only
one top-ten hit (Touch of Gray in 1987) almost 22 years after the
band's inception, and only 4 multi-platinum records, the Dead could
not and did not rely on the traditional institutional path to the top.
Instead, community played a crucial role in their business success.
Both bands were ultimately honored with the Grammy Lifetime
Achievement Awards: the Rolling Stones received this honor in 1987 and
the Grateful Dead, were honored in 2007, almost twelve years after the
death of guitarist Jerry Garcia. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame choose
the Rolling Stones for the forth class of inductees in 1989, while the
Grateful Dead was not inducted until 1994. The grassroots,
community-based approach used by the Grateful Dead may have taken longer
to garner the same success that a band such as the Rolling Stones gained
through institutional means, but the community that the Grateful Dead
built and maintained, would not have existed if the band followed the
institutional approach prescribed by the record industry. Table 2
summarizes the comparison between the two bands.
Below we describe how Grateful Dead created, developed, and
maintained the community, paying special attention to how they differ
from the prevailing model in the record industry.
Historically, the recording industry is dominated by the record
companies such as Warner Brothers, Columbia, Decca, etc. (Peterson and
Berger 1975). Prior to the emergence of digital music, it took large
organizations to manufacture, warehouse, promote, ship, and distribute
physical music media. Through vertical integration, record companies
took control of the production flow from raw materials (i.e., musical
talents in song writing, publishing, and performing); to sales and
promotion (e.g., promoting songs on radio programs and/or in movies);
and distribution (through wholesale dealerships and warehouses). In the
60s and 70s, within the institutions of the record industry, the
prevailing way for artists to make money was through recording their
music in the studio and putting it into the machine of the record
companies to reach the consumer. Touring, seen as ancillary to records,
was used as a way to promote records, and was usually done immediately
following the introduction of a new record (Serwer 2002). It was the
common belief among the artists that they had to struggle with their
first few albums and tour relentlessly before breaking through to a
mainstream audience (Strauss 1998). For instance, even though Bruce
Springsteen was seen as the new Bob Dylan when he was signed to CBS
Records (now Columbia) in 1973, it took him until his third album to be
considered a commercial success.
Even though the prevailing institutions are championed by the
record companies, and do not favor the musicians, the musicians follow
the prescriptions of such institutions in hopes of getting their music
heard. "In the early days you got paid absolutely nothing,"
recalls Mick Jagger of Rolling Stones in a recent interview, "the
only people who earned money were the Beatles because they sold so many
records" (Serwer, 2002). The situation was so bad that by the mid
60s the Stones had reportedly sold ten million singles and five million
albums, but the band was still living hand to mouth. "I'll
never forget the deals I did in the 60s, which were just terrible. You
say, 'Oh, I'm a creative person, I won't worry about
this'. But that just doesn't work. Because everyone would just
steal every penny you've got", Jagger recalled.
The Grateful Dead also recognized the problems with the prevailing
institutions upheld by the record companies. The difference between the
Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones is that none of the early studio
records produced by the Dead was a commercial success. In the late 60s,
the Grateful Dead was carrying a relatively large amount of debt
($100,000). As mentioned by Phil Lesh in his memoir, "at this time
[in the 60s and 70s], and indeed up until we finally had a big record,
in 1987, none of the band members made anything above a cost-of-living
salary" (Lesh, 2005, p. 146). The roots of the band as a performing
band let them explore concerts and tours as a direct way to reach and
speak to the audience/consumers. It is through this exploration that a
community was built.
Setting the Cognitive Forces of the Community
Previous research on communities has recognized that the process of
isomorphism also functions at the level of communities (Marquis, Glynn,
& Davis, 2007). Communities, like institutions, are subject to the
isomorphic mechanisms of cognitive, normative, and regulative processes.
While we believe that these forces are less formal and probably weaker
at the community level than those at the institutional level, these
three forces nevertheless provide the foundation of community emergence.
We start with the cognitive processes. The cognitive force gave the
community a basis on which the meaning of the community was constructed,
facilitating the evolution from a set of disperse individuals to a
community with shared meanings. Two elements were in place for such
change: 1) reciprocity and 2) trust, and interpersonal relationships
formed on the basis of this trust. Reciprocity, a dyadic exchange in
which actors make simultaneous decisions together, laid the foundation
for the community (Vaisey, 2007). Reciprocity referred to social
exchange and mutual dependence of social actors to produce collective
goods (Vaisey, 2007). It meant slightly more to the Grateful Dead
community than just being neighborly; rather, it was a belief that the
band held true to their fans. Being described as "the people's
band", the band went to great lengths to provide the best
experience to the concert-goers. The sound engineer we interviewed
remarked "... we worked very hard to provide well; we were very
picky about where we played. One of my functions when we weren't
gigging was to travel around and search for venues. I did it myself and
I had people that did it for me ... We would travel to every venue and
inspect the venue, inspect the neighborhood, make sure that there's
room for the audience, make sure that it wouldn't cause problems in
the in the community and so on and so forth. We were for instance the
first people to put wheelchair platforms in a concert. Ok now it's
a law, at least in California ... But we were the first ones. The
promoters used to come threatening us because they would accuse us of
taking up seat space that they could be selling and making money on. So
all of the amenities that happened in the audience [before our
decisions] were really carved out of the stone mentality of the
promoters" (interview with sound engineer). The community
recognized this and rewarded the band. The community saw the band as the
providers of the music, their ultimate reason for coming to the show.
Appreciating the efforts that the band made, the fans avoided purchasing
scalped tickets and only purchased from official sources, thus retaining
most revenue to the band.
Reciprocity didn't stop at ticket purchases. Phil Lesh, the
bassist remarked in an interview, "the relationship between the
band and the Deadheads needs to be nurtured because they are us, and we
are them" (Strauss, 1998). The effort initiated by the band was
reciprocated by the fans. One fan we interviewed remarked that "in
1974 ... they [the Grateful Dead band] had a table [in a live concert]
where you could sign up and I did. I started getting mailings from them
after that and they would send out these little newsletters here is a
forty five [record] of their new single of US Blues.... then they sent
us some more newsletters and this little thirty three and a third
sampler [record] from stuff that they're working on. It was just
remarkable. I call that reaching out to your fans in a completely
unusual and unique way ... Later they created hotlines and they had
their message and their skull and roses album ... then the fans created
the first online virtual community, the well.com and a bunch of it was
dedicated to and run by Dead fans. They facilitated this whole thing in
a remarkable way". By responding to the efforts of the band and
developing their own activities, the fans were continuing to foster the
growth of the community.
Trust was the second element of the cognitive force. Trust in the
band and in other members of the community facilitated the formation of
bonds that were tighter than that of typical concert-goers. According to
Mickey Hart, the drummer, "The idea behind the Grateful Dead has
always been that the sum is greater than the parts" (Pareles,
1995). The band members trusted that when they came together, they could
rely on each other to draw the best out of themselves and create better
music. The trust within the band emanated to the community, creating the
second foundational element for the cognitive force among the fans.
Trust was exhibited throughout the parking lot, on stage, and even in
the taping section where there was said to be "an ethic of
tolerance there, it was a safe place where people watched out for each
other. We would have people leave me thousands and thousands of dollars
of taping equipment just because we happen to be sitting in the row next
to them" (interview with a taper and fan).
The two elements 1) reciprocity and 2) trust, and interpersonal
relationships formed on the basis of this trust made up the cognitive
force of a community. The belief and understanding in the community is
that the experience with touring is richer and more holistic than the
passive listening experience that an audience/consumer usually attains
by purchasing and listening to a record. The creation of this cognitive
force was the first step in creating "strong relationships, which
over time, allow trust, cooperation, and a sense of collective action to
develop among members" (Peredo & Chrisman, 2006, p14). It was
the first step of building a community. The resulting network of
relationships between participants laid the foundation for a community
where norms, values, and rules could develop.
Setting the Normative Force of the Community
In the record industry, once artists are signed by record
companies, the expectations are for the artists to hone their song
writing and performing skills, have their songs recorded and produced by
the studios, and get the royalty fees once the records have been sold
and royalties computed (Passman, 2009). While the norm prescribed by the
record companies for the artists are tried-and-tested, institutional
entrepreneurs searched for their norm through experimentation and
improvisation.
The social norms were responsible for outlining a moral framework
by which the community members guided their conduct. Just as the
cognitive factors started with the band and spread throughout the
community, so did the norms. Through experimentation, the band developed
its identity. "When we started out, the idea was to play music and
see where that took us, and it took us on the road," says Bob Weir,
the guitarist and vocalist of the band, "We started out as a dance
band, and as the years went on, people started facing the stage and
listening, and we became a performing act." (Waddell, 2002).
Experimentation leads to its musical improvisation, which would become
synonymous with the Grateful Dead band and the shows. The band worked in
the style of Jazz musicians, continually improvising during shows and
changing their rendition of songs during each show. Unlike their
contemporaries, the Grateful Dead went to shows with no set lists. When
asked about the compelling elements of the show, a fan summarized,
"it's the improvisation--the creative aspect there in the
moment, something fresh and [a] new unexpected adventure. As a guy who
doesn't care for repetition particularly, that's one thing you
could certainly count on with the Grateful Dead: it was not going to be
routine; it wasn't going to be the same thing you'd ever seen
before no matter what" (interview with a fan). Experimentation was
also present in the band's business decisions. The band manager
remarked that "one thing about them is that you could take on a
project you wanted anything that you wanted to do, they were totally
willing to go ahead and put you in charge of it. But you better do a
good job" (interview with band manager).
The norm of experimentation also set in the community, such that
other community participants took initiative and developed the
experience of music and concert going as they saw fit. For instance,
Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant founded the Whole Earth
'Lectronic Link (the well.com) in 1985 as an online meeting place
for Grateful Dead fans. Community members also took initiative to create
enclaves for their own enjoyment of music. For example, hearing impaired
audience members created a "deaf zone", a barricaded area in
front of the stage at the concerts. They set it up in 1995 in Washington
with help from the Dead, creating the atmosphere of tolerance and
generosity.
Thus, with experimentation and improvisation, the normative
foundation of the community emerged and spread throughout the Grateful
Dead Community, creating a fan base that expected rather than feared
experiments, and looked to sharing with the band the experience of music
in real time. The experimentation and improvisation gave the
institutional entrepreneur an opportunity to engage in trial-and-error
learning, and was suitable for development of the community when there
were no guidelines to follow. The normative foundation of a community
was thus embedded and routinized into participants' day to day
routines and organizational practices.
Setting the Regulative Force of the Community
The norms of experimentation and improvisation served to guide the
development of community up to a point. When the community became larger
and larger, regulative forces started to set in the community. The third
force in the emergence of the Grateful Dead community was the regulative
force. The regulative force was defined by two elements: 1) setting the
boundary of appropriateness and 2) self-regulation. Setting the boundary
of appropriateness referred to the general, less personal regulation set
by the band and members within the community. The community and its
members agreed upon a general rule of behavior and conduct. One of such
rules was that the Grateful Dead concert experience was fundamentally
about the music. The band and the community recognized and created
regulations together to maximize the experience of the music for each
participant in the concert. "The Bill of Rights was you didn't
try to interfere with anybody because people were there to dance and
have a good time and listen to music" (interview with a fan).
While conserving such a bill of rights was relatively
straightforward when the concerts were small, as the community started
to expand and concerts grew, regulative measures evolved. The creation
of "the taper section" in the early 1980s by the sound
engineer and the band was a direct result of complaints that audience
members were getting harassed and their listening experience was being
impeded by those audience members who were trying to tape the show.
"At the point that the tapers began interfering with the ability of
the rest of the audience to enjoy the show, that's when something
had to happened", the sound engineer recalled, "I thought
about it for a long time, for about six months ... I flashed the idea of
the taper section [at the board meeting]. I wanted to put them behind me
[on the mixing board] because there were a lot of the seats. You
couldn't see past my mixing board anyway, so I figured, a lot of
seats were held out and let's put them here. Then the objective was
if you were in the taper section, you actually had rights at a concert.
Ordinarily [at that time] nobody had a right to take cameras or tape
recorders into any concerts and some people will be brutalized for doing
that ... All of a sudden I invented the concept of 'tapers'
rights'. Then I could say that if I catch you outside the taper
section, abusing regular ticket purchasers and concertgoers, I get to be
as severe as I need to be to stop you from doing that. So that's
basically [how] the taper section [was created]" (interview with
the sound engineer). By designating a special area behind the sound
booth, the Dead were able to allow taping, but also controlled the crowd
slightly and helped improve the experience of other concert-goers.
Beyond the regulations implemented and enforced by the band
themselves, the Grateful Dead community members were expected to be
self-regulating. The community held "this sense that they were
responsible to each other. They were responsible to the band, because
the band had set an example. And it came down to something as simple as
'If you make a mess, if you destroy the [local] community, the band
can't come back--they won't be welcome.' So it was our
obligation not be too trashy, not be too rowdy, and to genuinely treat
each other with some respect" (interview with fans). Along with the
sense of freedom, there could be issues of enforcing the regulations.
Again we see, "because violence is discouraged, there were only
sort of two ways to treat them. One is verbally reproaching people and
saying 'hey don't do that, that's just not right'
and/or [the other is] shunning them ultimately. People who constantly
behaved badly simply found themselves frozen out" (interview with
fans). So the community was able to grow because community members took
it upon themselves to police the crowd in a way that would be socially
acceptable to other members of the community and, in a way that aligned
with the societal norms.
Even though the regulatory forces in a community are not as formal
or rigid as the ones guiding institutions, it seems that community also
needs a certain level of regulation. More than any type of institution
that relies on legal means to police and deter the use and misuse of
musical rights, an institutional entrepreneur seems to offer guidelines
and set the boundaries while relying on the participants of the
community to regulate the interactions themselves. This is significantly
different from institutions where participants may rely on coercion to
enforce rules, regulations and laws.
Overall, the development of the community is not a mechanical
process of following procedures and rules, but is an organic process. As
one of our interviewee summarized, "what I've always said was
that the process of becoming a deadhead was an organic experience ... it
involved almost always a human relationship and it involved not only
learning about the music, and learning the legend and the lore and the
mythology which almost immediately sprang up around the band ... but
[it] also [involved] learning a code of ethics and a code of
behaviors." It is through the above discussed cognitive, normative
and regulative processes that participants became a member of the
community.
DISCUSSION
We began this article by highlighting the important role that
institutional entrepreneurs play in the building of a community. We
narrowed our focus to examine the emergence of a music community that
functioned in parallel to the guiding institutions of the record
industry. We have reported how a community was created through the
combination of 1) cognitive, 2) normative and 3) regulative forces.
Central to our paper is the idea that institutional entrepreneurs
engage in works in the cognitive, normative, and regulative areas to
create a community that is distinct and different from the industry in
which they operate. We advance the theory of institutional
entrepreneurship that entrepreneurs can affect the institutional
environment they are in, not by directly challenging the institutional
order of the industry, but by working in parallel to the industry and
creating their own community; in other words, an entrepreneur can
continue to successfully operate within an industry without becoming
heavily embedded in traditional industry processes and structures.
During the process, the cognitive, normative, and regulative factors can
serve to guide, control, and regulate the behaviors of social actors
within that community. Previous authors see institutional entrepreneurs
as political actors pursuing networking and resource mobilization
activities (DiMaggio 1988), others have regarded them as
"framers" engaged in the areas of cultural cognitive work (Rao
1998; Creed, Scully et al. 2002). By showing that institutional
entrepreneurship as a multi-dimensional activity involving three areas
of institutional orders of cognitive, normative and regulative, we
provide empirical support for recent accounts pointing to the diversity
of "institutional work" (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006).
We begin by examining the cognitive force of community emergence.
Through the mechanisms of reciprocity and trust, entrepreneurs created a
one-to-one relationship between them and the community members, or
between the community members themselves. Such one-to-one relationships
ensure a high level of commitment for members for the community, hence
setting a strong foundation for the start of the community and for its
further growth.
We also examine the acceptance and spread of community norms.
Setting the norm is the stage in the community-building process, when
members of the community set up group policies, procedures and codes of
behaviors. It is also the time in which expectations for the community
are implemented and solidified. Through experimentation and
improvisation, institutional entrepreneur create a set of different
expectations for the participants, who then embed the expectations into
their behaviors to further develop the community.
The regulative force is usually associated with coercive power in
institutional theory; however, within a community, member participation
is often voluntary and as such coercive means do not work: regulative
forces other than coercion will be explored when participants try to
regulate the community. Social capital and feeling of acceptance and
belonging are of paramount importance for community members. As such,
once the entrepreneur set the boundary of appropriateness,
self-regulation is often used in community settings. By internalizing
the boundaries of appropriate action, community members are able to
regulate the members informally. Institutional entrepreneurship can
therefore be conceptualized as a multidimensional process where the
institutional entrepreneurs build three areas of an alternative social
order over time. Table 3 summaries the type of activities that an
institutional entrepreneur engages to build a community.
CONCLUSIONS
Researchers have long been interested in the issues of communities
and institutions as distinct research streams. Research on communities
have identified different types of communities (Brint, 2001) and
emphasized that even in today's globalized world, communities
continue to exert strong influence on the behaviors of individuals and
organizations (Marquis, Glynn, & Davis, 2007; Peredo & Chrisman,
2006). Previous research on institutional entrepreneurship (Greenwood
& Suddaby, 2006; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence, 2004) has focused
on the issues of how institutions and institutional orders are
maintained, reproduced, and sometimes changed. However, existing
researches have focused on the change of institutional orders as the
main outcome of institutional entrepreneurship. Thus entrepreneurs
either succeed in changing existing institutional orders or fail to so,
and no other possible outcome was investigated extensively.
This study helps us paint an initial picture of the emergence of a
community as an institutional entrepreneurial effort. We found that this
involved a multi-dimensional process with cognitive, normative and
regulative works. Our research contributes to the institutional
entrepreneurship research by drawing attention to community as an
alternative outcome that can be achieved by institutional entrepreneurs
in the process. In our conceptualization, institutional entrepreneurs
can and indeed do change their institutional environment by creating a
community that supports their alternative values. Such a community
neither replaces nor substitutes the larger institutional environment.
Instead, it creates a layer in-between entrepreneurs and their outer
institutional environment, cushioning the entrepreneurs and other
participants of the community from external institutional pressures.
Our paper has examined the emergence process of a self-regulated
community within a highly institutionalized environment--the record
industry. Juxtaposing the business decisions and choices of Grateful
Dead and the bands that following existing institutional prescriptions,
we examined how the former successfully started, developed, and
maintained their fan community for nearly thirty years. Our contribution
to the institutional entrepreneurship research, therefore, has been to
understand how institutional entrepreneur differ from institutional
followers and what types of activities they engage in to formulate a new
set of social order.
Much work remains to be done. The popular music
industry--especially the record industry--is not representative of all
institutional fields. We consider our framework of community building
most applicable to entrepreneurship in the cultural area such as motion
picture industries, popular music industries and book publishing
industries. In order to generalize our understanding, future research
needs to investigate the process of community emergence in other types
of institutional fields, especially those industries that produce
tangible products rather than the intangible cultural products such as
music. Only when different types of institutional environments have been
taken into account, is it possible to create a general model. This
paper's contribution lies in putting forward a framework that
illustrates the how entrepreneurs were able to create a community within
a mature institutional field.
APPENDIX: INTERVIEW METHODOLOGY
After conducting an initial secondary research, the researchers
identified a list of potential interviewees including both band insiders
and fans. Secondary research demonstrated that this group of individuals
had extended experience with the band and the community, and were
knowledgeable about the contexts, history, and details of community
development. They were contacted through email and asked whether they
were willing to speak with the researchers regarding the community.
Majority of the interviews were conducted through telephone while some
of them were done face-to-face. At the end of each interview, the
researchers would inquire whether the interviewee knew of anyone else
who was knowledgeable about the community and was willing to speak to
us. These additional contacts were followed up and interviews were
conducted when possible.
A 17-question interview was administered to managers, crew, staff,
and other band insiders. The interview narrative asked the band insiders
to describe how the band evolved in the relationship with the community
through its lifetime. They were inquired in respect to business
strategy, business model, organizational structure, decision making
mechanisms, community relationship, and other key decisions related to
the community. All of the questions were open-ended and required
recollection of past events. Respondents were asked to put themselves in
the frame of reference of the particular historical time and to try not
to use the benefits of the hindsight.
Similarly, a 10-question interview was administered to fans
(including tapers) of the community. All questions were open-ended. The
interview narrative asked the fans to describe how they knew of the
band; whether they believed that they are part of the community; how the
community developed during their time with it; and how the Grateful Dead
fan community was different from the fan group of other bands and music
groups. If they categorized themselves as members of the community, the
researchers would probe and ask them to describe the culture, structure,
and other characteristics of the community.
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Table 1: Summary of Data Sources
Characteristics Descriptions
Archival Data
Number of audio/video 50
Internal sources: press release, 50 pages
band websites
External Sources: media 3000 pages
interviews, autobiographies,
biographies, obituaries, and fan
websites
Number of interviews 19
Informants: band insiders (# of manager (1); crewmen (2);
interviews) publicist (1); biographer (2);
artists (3); and photographer (1)
Informants: fans (# of interviews) fans starting to follow the band
since 1960s (2); fans starting to
follow the band since 1970s (3);
fans starting to follow the band
since 1980s (2); fans starting to
follow the band since 1990s (2)
Table 2: Comparison of the Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones
Dimensions Grateful Dead Rolling Stones
Year Started 1966 (The Warlocks) 1962
1967 (The Grateful
Dead)
Country of Origin USA England
Induction into Rock 1994 1989
and Roll Hall of Fame
Place on Rolling 55 4
Stone Magazine 100
Greatest Bands
# Studio Albums 16 22
Concerts 2,317 (1965--1995) 700+
Members Jerry Garcia Mick Jagger
Bob Wier Keith Richards
Phil Lesh Charlie Watts
Bill Kruetzmann Ronnie Wood
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan Bill Wyman
Micky Hart
Robert Hunter
Tom Constanten,
Keith Godchaux,
Donna Godchaux,
Brent Mydland,
Vince Welnick
John Perry Barlow
Business Model Grassroots (none) Traditional Record
Industry
Record Labels Warner Bros(1967) Decca (UK) (1965)
Greatful Dead (1973) London Records (US
Self-Marketed, Distribution) (1964)
Produced,
Manufactured,
Promoted, and
Distributed
Arista (1977) Rolling Stones
Records (1971)
Distributed through
partnerships
Rhino (2006) Virgin Records
(1994) Polydoor (UK
UniversalMusic
Group) (2008)
US Gold Records 13 16
US Platinum Records 2 16
US Multi Plat Records 4 11
#1 singles 1 (Touch of Grey) 8
Grammy Awards 0 (0) 2 (9)
(nominations)
Table 3: Community Building as Institutional Entrepreneurship
Areas of social Activities of Community building outcomes
governance institutional
entrepreneur
Cognitive Reciprocity Building a new belief
Interpersonal trust system through frequent
interpersonal interaction
Experimentation Actively infusing the
Normative Improvisation normative foundations of
the community into
participants' day to day
routines
Setting the boundary Creation of rules and
Regulative of appropriateness ensuring compliance through
Self-regulation self regulation
