This article adopts an institutional view to rethink consumer resistance. Two types of consumers who resist market domination are identified: “rebels” and “entryists.” Rebels are able to consume but do not want to and oppose all or part of the market, whereas entryists want to consume but are kept out of the market. These two categories of resistant consumers are regarded as institutional entrepreneurs because they attempt to shape established institutions. Rebels are game changers, their resistance aims at disrupting market and consumption practices while entryists are justiciaries, their resistance aims at empowering those who are left behind. Implications for marketing of this renewed vision of consumer resistance are discussed in this article.
Ben SlimaneK.ChaneyD.HumphyreysA.LecaB. (in press). Bringing institutional theory to marketing: Taking stock and future research directions. Journal of Business Research. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.06.042
2.
Ben SlimaneK.ChaneyD.MbengueA. (2014). Introducing customer blind spots: A cognitive approach on noncustomers. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 22, 135–148.
3.
BergerP. L.LuckmannT. (1966). The social construction of reality. New York, NY: Anchor.
4.
BlanchetV. (2017). “We make markets”: The role of the Ethical Fashion Show in categorising the ethical fashion. Recherche et Applications en Marketing, 32, 26–45.
5.
CarrollG. R.SwaminathanA. (2000). Why the microbrewery movement? Organizational dynamics of resource partitioning in the US brewing industry. American Journal of Sociology, 106, 715–762.
6.
ChakravartiD. (2006). Voices unheard: The psychology of consumption in poverty and development. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 16, 363–376.
7.
ChaneyD.Ben SlimaneK. (2014). A neo-institutional analytic grid for extending marketing to institutional dimensions. Recherche et Applications en Marketing, 29, 95–111.
8.
CherrierH.BlackI.LeeM. (2011). Intentional non-consumption for sustainability: Consumer resistance and/or anti-consumption?European Journal of Marketing, 45, 1757–1767.
9.
CottetP.FerrandiJ.-M.LichtléM.-C. (2008). Les dimensions de la résistance à la publicité Une approche qualitative par la méthode des collages. [Dimensions of resistance to advertising: A qualitative approach through collage] Paper presented at the 13th Journees de Recherche en Marketing de Bourgogne, Dijon, Burgundy, France, 13–14 November.
10.
DalliD.CorciolaniM. (2008). Collective forms of resistance: The transformative power of moderate communities: Evidence from the BookCrossing case. International Journal of Market Research, 50, 757–775.
11.
Denegri-KnottJ.ZwickD.SchroederJ. E. (2006). Mapping consumer power: An integrative framework for marketing and consumer research. European Journal of Marketing, 40, 950–971.
12.
DholakiaN. (2012). Being critical in marketing studies: The imperative of macro perspectives. Journal of Macromarketing, 32, 220–225.
13.
DiMaggioP. J. (1988). Interest and agency in institutional theory. In ZuckerL. G. (Ed.), Research on institutional patterns: Environment and culture (pp. 3–32). Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co.
14.
DiMaggioP. J. (1997). Culture and cognition. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 263–287.
15.
DiMaggioP. J.PowellW. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147–160.
16.
DyerR. (1999). Making “white” people white. In MacKenzieD.WajcmanJ. (Eds.), The social shaping of technology (pp. 134–140). London, England: Open University Press.
17.
FournierS. (1998). Consumer resistance: Societal motivations, consumer manifestations, and implications in the marketing domain. In AlbaJ. W.HutchinsonW. (Eds.), Advances in consumer research (Vol. 25, pp. 88-90). Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
18.
FransenM. L.VerleghP. W.KirmaniA.SmitE. G. (2015). A typology of consumer strategies for resisting advertising, and a review of mechanisms for countering them. International Journal of Advertising, 34, 6–16.
19.
GieslerM.FischerE. (2017). Market system dynamics. Marketing Theory, 17, 3–8.
20.
GreenwoodR.OliverC.LawrenceT.MeyerR. (2017). Introduction. In GreenwoodR.OliverC.LawrenceT.MeyerR. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism (2nd ed., pp. 1–46). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
21.
HardyC.MaguireS. (2017). Institutional entrepreneurship and change in fields. The Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 261–280).
22.
HirschmanA. O. (1970). Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
23.
HoggM. K. (1998). Anti-constellations: Exploring the impact of negation on consumption. Journal of Marketing Management, 14, 133–158.
24.
HoltD. B. (2002). Why do brands cause trouble? A dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding. Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 70–90.
25.
HumphreysA. (2010). Megamarketing: The creation of markets as a social process. Journal of Marketing, 74(2), 1–19.
26.
IyerR.MuncyJ. A. (2009). Purpose and object of anti-consumption. Journal of Business Research, 62, 160–168.
27.
KozinetsR. V.HandelmanJ. M. (2004). Adversaries of consumption: Consumer movements, activism, and ideology. Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 691–704.
28.
MaguireS.HardyC. (2009). Discourse and deinstitutionalization: The decline of DDT. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 148–178.
29.
MaguireS.HardyC.LawrenceT. B. (2004). Institutional entrepreneurship in emerging fields: HIV/AIDS treatment advocacy in Canada. Academy of Management Journal, 47, 657–679.
30.
PenalozaL.PriceL. L. (1993). Consumer resistance: A conceptual overview. In McalisterL.RothschildM. L. (Eds.), Advances in consumer research (Vol. 20, pp. 123–128). Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
31.
PrahaladC. K. (2009). The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid: Eradicating poverty through profits. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
32.
RaoH. (2008). Market rebels: How activists make or break radical innovations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
33.
RaoH.MoninP.DurandR. (2003). Institutional change in Toque Ville: Nouvelle cuisine as an identity movement in French gastronomy. American Journal of Sociology, 108, 795–843.
34.
RouxD. (2007). Consumer resistance: Proposal for an integrative framework. Recherche et Applications en Marketing, 22, 59–79.
35.
ScarabotoD.FischerE. (2013). Frustrated Fatshionistas: An institutional theory perspective on consumer quests for greater choice in mainstream markets. Journal of Consumer Research, 39, 1234–1257.
36.
ScottW. R. (2013). Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests and identities. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
37.
ShawD.NewholmT. (2002). Voluntary simplicity and the ethics of consumption. Psychology & Marketing, 19, 167–185.
ValorC.DíazE. M.MerinoA. (2017). The discourse of the consumer resistance movement adversarial and prognostic framings through the lens of power. Journal of Macromarketing, 37, 72–84.
