A different way of thinking about social movements

Comes to us from the organization behavior department of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and their magazine, which profiles various efforts by faculty at the school.

The story "Market Rebels" features professor Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao, and his work/book on the link between technology and/or product adoption and the "social movement" actions both inside and outside of an organization that are necessary for the technology to become adopted.


"Social Movements," features the work of Professor Sarah Soule, which has been published as Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility. From the article:

... how exactly do social movements create change? And at what stage do these movements have the most impact on governments and even on corporations?

Sarah Soule, the Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior, has looked at thousands of protests staged over numerous causes to find the answers. Her conclusions? Movements have their greatest effect in the early stages of policy debate on a given issue, before the debate becomes too broad and acrimonious and before cause supporters become too outspoken. And, she says, activism often begets more activism as groups that come together over one issue find future ground for agreement and take on yet more issues.

Before 2000, researchers had not proven empirically the power of protest to create change, says Soule, who joined the Business School's organizational behavior faculty in 2008 after teaching at Cornell and the University of Arizona. She and colleagues set out to find evidence of whether social movements make a difference, and if so, when they have the most impact.

A third article is about Green Marketing. It's not as scintillating as the other articles, but is interesting nonetheless. See "Green Business."