Sailing with the tide: How key market exchange audiences influence entrepreneurial framing strategies

Abstract

How do market exchange audiences influence entrepreneurial framing strategies? Research to date has not adequately addressed how entrepreneurs use framing strategies with key market exchange audiences in mind – specifically, consumers and peer producers – when launching compelling collective identities that evolve fields. In this research note, I propose a unique audience-centred perspective of entrepreneurial framing that differs from the more actor-centred framing found in past literature. This research note outlines distinct entrepreneurial framing strategies – contesting, coexisting, inclusive or harmonizing framing – that help entrepreneurs navigate varying consumer and peer producer audience contexts when launching novel collective identities. Coexisting and contesting framing are oppositional in nature to incumbents but differ with regard to addressing incumbents in either a contesting or compatible manner. Inclusive and harmonizing framing aim to resonate or bridge new collective identities with existing ones to gain acceptance of that innovation by a wider, unreceptive audience. I also address the fluidity and challenges of these framing strategies in achieving and maintaining a collective identity's legitimacy over time. In so doing, I address an undertheorized topic of how entrepreneurial framing strategies can engage varying consumers and peer producer audience dynamics – both receptive and unreceptive ones – over time.

How do key market audience dynamics shape entrepreneurial framing strategies that lead to change? Entrepreneurs use frames to emphasize elements that help audiences make sense of market activities and recognize actors as part of a market category (Hiatt and Carlos, 2019: 868; Navis and Glynn, 2011). Frames help entrepreneurs negotiate a shared understanding between themselves and market audiences of a situation that they believe needs to change (Benford and Snow, 2000: 615). Although entrepreneurial frames that engage audiences are imperative in market formation (e.g. Weber et al., 2008) and evolution (e.g. Hiatt and Carlos, 2019), there is surprisingly little understanding of how diverse audience dynamics shape such framing. In this research note, I propose a unique, more audience-centred perspective on entrepreneurial framing than that found in past literature that considers why and how entrepreneurs construct frames to introduce novelty based on key audience dynamics in their markets – in particular, producer and consumer audiences. In so doing, I consider why some entrepreneurs gain the audience recognition needed to spur market change while others do not (e.g. Cattani et al., 2020; Falchetti et al., 2022).

So why do I highlight here an audience-centred perspective of entrepreneurial framing? Entrepreneurship and organizational identity scholars traditionally have taken a more interior view of entrepreneurship that emphasizes how their unique organizational features (central, distinctive and enduring attributes) (Albert and Whetten, 1985) or organizational practices serve as touchstones for new market legitimacy (Navis and Glynn, 2010: 439–440). Yet, an essential determinant of whether entrepreneurs’ novel ideas are recognized by audiences as worthy of attention and support is whether those audiences ‘perceive those ideas as valuable on the basis of cues that matter to them’. (Cattani et al., 2020: 14). Indeed, not all types of market frames are effective when facing diverse key market audiences (Falchetti et al., 2022: 135; Markowska and Lopez-Vega, 2018), particularly since entrepreneurs compete with other organizations for the same audience attention (Zhao et al., 2018) and consumer interests often vary (e.g. Taeuscher and Rothe, 2024).

Who are key market audiences? A market is an economic exchange structure among two key audience members – producers and consumers – who label a market structure with shared value and meaning (Navis and Glynn, 2010: 441). I consider here how entrepreneurial framing, as rhetorical devices that ‘mobilize support and minimize resistance’, influences the engagement of key market audiences by constructing meaning around novel collective identities (Markowska and Lopez-Vega, 2018; Snihur et al., 2022: 579), or, rather, a group of loosely organized actors with a 'shared purpose and similar outputs' (Wry et al., 2011: 449). I argue that compelling collective identities that develop into new markets ultimately involve entrepreneurial framing that relates to situational circumstances – in this case, diverse consumer and producer audience dynamics. Scholarly work to date has, however, tended to portray audiences as homogenous entities, ignoring the fact that audience response to novelty may vary (Cattani et al., 2017: 969), or have focused on audience members that are external to the market exchange system, such as consultants (e.g. Corbo et al., 2022), financial investors (e.g. Hoorvitch Lavi and Yaniv, 2025; Navis and Glynn, 2011), or the media (e.g. Hiatt and Carlos, 2019). Responding to this research gap, I propose four market audience-centred entrepreneurial framing strategies – inclusive, contesting, co-existing or harmonizing – used to facilitate new collective identities that form the basis of new markets when facing varying key market audiences.

Inclusive framing portrays novel collective identities as complementary to existing ones. Such framing is ideal in fields dominated by prominent incumbents who tend to silence the voice of peer producers with diverse perspectives or who are looking for solutions to catastrophic field change (e.g. Ierfino-Blachford, 2020; Sine and David, 2003). Indeed, incumbents tend to tolerate entrants who target niches that are complementary or, rather, seek to enhance incumbents’ positions (Markman and Waldron, 2014). For example, in mature fields, scholars have found that entrepreneurs who successfully introduced new markets do so by engaging incumbents through framing their nascent category as beneficial to the wider producer audience (Ierfino-Blachford and David, 2025). In another example, when launching the fair-trade coffee product market, TransFair USA aimed to maximize the scale of their endeavours by developing a complementary brand to that of large producers. They did so by speaking the language of the boardrooms and making volume compromises to better align with prominent players’ interests (Rosenthal, 2011: 179). Collaborating with incumbents is also key for entrepreneurs facing unsupportive consumers whose value profiles do not align with that of the nascent collective identity and, consequently, reject innovations that are at odds with what they are used to in a field (Kavanagh et al., 2021). Because early consumers of novelty face more ambiguity and risk, entrepreneurs may need to overcome such risk by collaborating with credible, prominent incumbents who invoke a sense of familiarity and trust (Fisher, 2020; Navis and Glynn, 2010).

Contesting framing arises from loosely organized coalitions whose goal is to contest prominent practices (Weber et al., 2008: 531). Such framing is exclusive of incumbents and may even distinguish practices in the larger sector by devaluing incumbents who use conventional methods. For example, small, alternative traders and farmers that followed strict fair-trade practices wanted high barriers to entry for corporate players who may enter with weak standards and no volume requirements in order to take advantage of market trends rather than to help developing countries where products were grown (Rosenthal, 2011). As part of the World Fair Trade Organization, these alternative players subsequently launched their own certification that required all products sold by a company to be fair-traded (Rosenthal, 2011). Contesting framing may thus result from a growing population of actors that see powerful incumbents as ‘deviant’ due to their opposing interests (Helms and Oliver, 2015: 477). Moreover, entrepreneurs who use contesting framing often act in ways consistent with their own values and thus do not seek the legitimacy of their novel collective identities through collaborating with prominent incumbents with diverse values. For instance, Christèle Merter, who founded La Gentle Factory and identified herself as an eco-responsible entrepreneur, only worked with like-minded individuals (Boulocher-Passet et al., 2025). Contesting framing may arise in fields comprised of many consumer and producer groups with plural perspectives, which provide entrepreneurs with opportunities to find a homologous niche consumer audience attuned to their novel collective identity's values (Cattani et al., 2014) and with less visibility (due to the fragmented nature of the field) from prominent incumbents who may otherwise squash their efforts (Sgourev, 2013). Contesting framing may align with consumers’ needs through emphasizing disruptive innovations to gain attention in crowded categories (Taeuscher and Rothe, 2024) or through emotional resonance that may move target recipients (e.g. sustainability) (Giorgi, 2017: 721).

Co-existing framing may occur in fields where consolidation and decreasing product diversity create spaces for entrepreneurs to develop novelty that targets niche consumers who are not adequately served within a field (Carroll and Swaminathan, 2000). Large producers often would rather not venture very far into 'small esoteric markets' (at least at first) where it is too difficult to make a profit or too costly to serve (Carroll and Swaminathan, 2000: 727). For example, during 1960s and 1970s, mass producers ignored alternative, small players in organic food niche markets due to production and distribution differences between organic products, which are locally sourced, spoil quickly, and require refrigeration, and mass-produced products. Influenced by nutrition guidelines that concerned health risks associated with saturated fat (e.g. cardiovascular disease) and mainstream consumers’ demand for convenient products, large producers instead launched the ‘Fear of Fat’ era, producing thousands of new fat-free products (e.g. cookies and salad dressings) that resulted in exceptional profit through the use of simple processing and long shelf lives (Layman, 2014). Hence, in fields characterized by a dominant producer audience and multiple, diverse consumer audiences, entrepreneurs introduce novelty in highly specialized niche spaces that lie away from the larger incumbents’ intense competitive pressure (Markman and Waldron, 2014). Entrepreneurs may frame their efforts as co-existing with and nondisruptive but exclusive and distant from those of mass producers (Carroll and Swaminathan, 2000). For instance, in the Italian broadcasting industry, the owner of Imperia TV described his peripheral station as not competing for the same programs as the national broadcasters, who were not interested in local content (Reis et al., 2013: 484).

Harmonizing framing involves resonating cultural resources from a declining collective identity with that of popular ones. Declining collective identities are unable to achieve audience consensus regarding their value compared to existing ones (Jones et al., 2012) because they have become obsolete (Seo and Creed, 2002) or are perceived as old-fashioned (Granqvist and Siltaoja, 2020). Yet, category revitalization may be attempted by entrepreneurs who are part of dedicated hobbyist or traditionalist communities (Granqvist and Siltaoja, 2020: 20) and see value in the declining category. For instance, in the 1970s, Ska, a music genre that originated in Jamaica and eventually became absent from the radio, was revived when Jerry Dammers of ‘The Specials’ blended Ska with the popular genre at the time, Punk Rock, creating what is now known as ‘Ska Punk’ (Cross, 2018). In another example, the symphony orchestra's decline pressured orchestra managers to frame classical music in a ‘pop-like’ way and to develop effective digital versions of their music to align with current consumer interests, which contrasted the orchestras’ traditional live concert formats (Kavanagh et al., 2021). Consequently, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra launched the ‘Sonic Evolution’ concert series that featured collaborations between the orchestra and popular genre musicians (e.g. rap) (Kavanagh et al., 2021: 7). Entrepreneurs may use harmonizing framing in fields with diverse peer producer and unsupportive consumer audiences to distance themselves from declining identity elements and align themselves with ones that appeal to consumers’ interests (Figure 1, Table 1).

Figure 1.

Entrepreneurial framing strategies and audience diversity.

Table 1.

Entrepreneurial framing strategies influenced by consumer and peer producer audience dynamics.

Framing strategies	Types of relationship between new and existing collective identities	Audience context	Example
Inclusive framing	Nascent collective identity’s purpose and outputs are complementary to existing ones. Nascent collective identity features framed as enhancing or nondisruptive of existing identities. Potential for coordination and exchange interactions as well as perceived usefulness amongst a wide audience. Aiming to resonate with and include dominate incumbents.	Dominant incumbent producer audience. Potential jolt causes mainstream producers to search for and resonate with nascent collective identity solutions. Lack of supportive consumer audience.	TransFair USA’s vision was to be a complementary brand to the large players’ current brands. TransFair spoke the language of the boardrooms and made volume compromises to align with prominent players’ identities and interests (Rosenthal, 2011: 179).
Contesting framing	Nascent collective identity’s focus on contesting incumbents.	Fragmented peer producer audiences with plural perspectives that enable spaces for the development of distinct collective identities. Diverse consumer groups with varying interests, making it easier to find homologous consumer audience attuned to entrepreneurial beliefs and values.	Small, alternative traders and farmers who followed strict Fair-Trade launched their own brand that required all products sold by a company to be fairly traded, not just one product or line of products (Rosenthal, 2011: 184). They argued that such changes would distinguish companies from large corporations who produce fair trade products to take advantage of market trends rather than to help developing countries.
Coexisting framing	· Collective identities that are oppositional and nondisruptive of incumbents by focusing on serving an underserved consumer market that is not of interest to prominent incumbents.	Diverse niche consumer audiences, underserved by dominant, prominent incumbents. Cohesive and strong incumbents who have no interest at first in nascent collective identity practices and purposes. Alternative channels to serve supportive, diverse niche consumers.	US punk movement in the mid-1970s which found a small welcoming, niche consumer audience through alternative, small venues in New York rather than mainstream channels (Cross, 2017).
Harmonizing framing	Resonating new and old collective identities	Occurs in fields with diverse peer producer groups such as hobbyists who value declining nascent collective identity. Homogenous and unsupportive consumer audience for collective identity that members’ hope to revive. Often use distribution channels that are nontraditional to declining collective identity and cater to collective identities that have a great deal of consumer support.	In the late 1970s, Ska, a music genre that originated in Jamaica and eventually became absent from the radio, was revived when Jerry Dammers of the band ‘the Specials’ blended Ska with the popular genre at the time, Punk Rock, creating what is now known as ‘Ska Punk’ (Cross, 2018).

Collective identities that are coherent, distinct and achieve coordinated growth (Melucci, 1995; Wry et al., 2011) result in sustainable social structures (e.g. markets) that impact the normative, cultural-cognitive and regulatory elements that maintain an organizational field's meaning and stability (Scott, 2001: 48; Weber et al., 2008: 546). A collective identity's distinctiveness defines category boundaries, enabling consumers to see the value in a collective identity vis-à-vis existing ones, while coherence involves ensuring the consistency of different collective identity framing (Snihur et al., 2022: 583), such as sustainability in the grass-fed beef category (Weber et al., 2008). A collective identity's resonance between entrepreneurs’ values, beliefs and aspirations and that of targeted audiences helps achieve the coordinated growth necessary for its legitimacy (Snihur et al., 2022: 588; Wry et al., 2011).

Inclusive, contesting, co-existing and harmonizing framing pose varying benefits and challenges to achieving and maintaining a collective identity's legitimacy. For instance, contesting frames may result in distinct collective identities compared to existing ones due to entrepreneurs’ insistence on following their ideologies, but may also limit members’ entrance – including prominent players – which affects entrepreneurial access to the capital and government protection needed for expanded growth (Aldrich and Fiol, 1994). Inclusive, co-existing and harmonizing framing, however, resonates with and attracts a wider audience, leading to a collective identity's coordinated growth (Wry et al., 2011). In the case of co-existing framing, novelty is framed as undisruptive and compatible with incumbents’ identities (Besharov and Smith, 2014), allowing entrepreneurs to not only highlight the distinctiveness of their collective identity but also resonate with existing institutions that provide the crucial resources needed to survive (Purdy and Gray, 2009, 358). Collective identities formed with inclusive or harmonizing frames will, however, have fuzzy boundaries that overlap with other categories, which may affect their distinctiveness and perceived value in the eyes of consumers (Hsu and Grodal, 2021). Moreover, inclusive framing may compromise a novel collective identity's purpose by giving incumbents more leeway to transform category elements to meet their own interests (Melucci, 1995).

Framing strategies are fluid. Entrepreneurs will thus continually (re)frame novel collective identities over time in response to changing producer and consumer dynamics to garner and maintain societal support (Snihur et al., 2022: 581). Entrepreneurs shift their framing strategies if the categorical dimensions required for legitimacy – resonance, coherence and distinctiveness – are threatened. For instance, they may shift from an inclusive to a contesting framing if such inclusive measures originally used to grow the category result in blurred boundaries between novel and pre-existing categories. Contesting framing may sharpen boundaries, signalling category distinctiveness to consumers. Moreover, entrepreneurs may switch from inclusive to contesting frames that highlight their disruptive innovations to gain consumer attention as categories become more crowded (Taeuscher and Rothe, 2024) and eventually, to harmonizing frames when that same category is in decline.

Entrepreneurs may also use hybrid framing. For instance, Canadian fine wine pioneers used both inclusive and co-existing framing strategies that portrayed their collective identity as something mass producers should engage in to advance the field, but, at the same time, set winemaking guidelines that ensured mass producers stayed true to the novel collective identity's values (Ierfino-Blachford and David, 2025). Such inclusive and compatible framing strategies may cause producers to adopt hybrid identities by separating their enactments into dedicated compartments or by blending enactments into new arrangements (Gümüsay et al., 2020: 124).

My research note offers key theory implications aimed to spark a broader conversation on audience-centred framing, answering scholars’ calls for more research that considers the ‘why’ and ‘how’ entrepreneurs may act on an opportunity for change, which differs from past research's focus on the ‘who’ or rather, entrepreneurial cognition (e.g. Wood et al., 2021). An audience-centred perspective on framing offers fruitful avenues for future research, which include further exploring: (1) contextual factors related to varying audience dynamics (e.g. industry maturity and regulations) that influence framing shifts; (2) how framing shifts are influenced by specific types of market audiences such as digitally based (e.g. crowdfunders) or non-Western ones; and (3) other types of audiences (e.g. investors) that go beyond the scope of this research note. Lastly, following more recent research on entrepreneurial cognition (e.g. Wood et al., 2021), future research could explore whether audience-based framing shifts tend to be anticipatory or reactive and why.

In conclusion, I present here a unique, more audience-centred perspective of how entrepreneurs ‘sail with the tides’ by constructing frames to navigate fields with supportive or constraining consumer and peer producer audiences in ways that will ultimately imbue value into their new collective identities and facilitate innovation.