Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: big beer, cool mobilization, chain store tax laws, United States, Green Party, Drug Wars (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rao, professor of organizational behavior and human resources at Stanford University, explores the role of collective action in promoting or hindering business innovation. Drawing heavily on theories of social movements, the author posits a cycle of hot causes, unexpected events or innovations, and cool mobilization, activities that channel emotional responses into popular mass actions that anchor new identities embracing or rejecting the hot cause. Rao presents several case studies in which activist behavior either encouraged or impeded the creation and expansion of new markets, technologies or new organizational structures. For example, early 20th-century automobile enthusiasts were able to placate fears about car safety (the hot cause) by staging hundreds of reliability contests that demonstrated the car's safety and practicality to a wide audience (the cool mobilization). Though dryly written and repetitive, the case studies themselves are fascinating and challenge traditional economic models that privilege individual consumer choice while ignoring broader social mobilizations. A final chapter offers advice and strategies for would-be market rebels looking to harness collective action, making this book a useful resource for both citizen activists and corporate leaders and marketers seeking popular support for their products. (Jan.)
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Review

The case studies . . . are fascinating and challenge traditional economic models that privilege individual consumer choice while ignoring broader social mobilizations. A final chapter offers advice and strategies for would-be market rebels looking to harness collective action, making this book a useful resource for both citizen activists and corporate leaders and marketers seeking popular support for their products.
(Publishers Weekly )

Market Rebels uses the grassroots movement that led to the widespread acceptance of the motor car as the starting point for a series of brief case studies that look at 'how activists make or break radical innovations.'
(Jonathan Birchall Financial Times )

In this volume, Hayagreeva Roa, the Atholl McBean professor of organizational behaviour and human resources at Stanford University's graduate school of business, provides a perspective on the evolution of markets that is largely absent from traditional economic and business literature.
(Micheal J. Kelly Ottawa Business Journal )

The narrative of economic growth is always one of challenges to established interests, In this sense, Rao's book appears at just the right time, when questions about whether and how to bail out entrenched interests--carmakers, financial conglomerates--are persistent.
(Carl Schramm Stanford Social Innovation Review )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 222 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691134561
• ISBN-13: 978-0691134567
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #83,437 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Useful Masterpiece, January 14, 2009

By	Robert I. Sutton "Stanford Professor and Author" (Stanford University, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Professor Rao has written a compelling, evidence-based,and remarkably useful book. As I wrote on my blog[...]:

The book is full of useful ideas, but perhaps the central one is that, if you want to mobilize networks of people and markets to embrace and spread an idea, you need the one-two punch of a "Hot Cause" and "Cool Solutions." A hot cause like deaths from tobacco or medical errors can be used as springboards to raise awareness, spark motivation, and ignite red-hot outrage. And naming these as enemies is an important step in mobilizing a network or market. But creating the heat isn't enough; the next step needs to be cool solutions. This doesn't just mean identifying technically feasible solutions, it also means finding ways to bind people together, to empower them to take steps that help solve the problem, and to create enduring commitment to implementing solutions.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tour de force treatise on social movements, April 3, 2009

By	Andrew Ward "co-author of Firing Back: How gr... (Watkinsville, GA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent book for anyone with an interest in social movements -- seeing how "hot causes" incite people to come together and engage in "cool mobilization" to influence markets. This is a very practical book and an interesting read for anyone who is engaged in community organization, responding to activists, or changing markets through social means. Rao gives many great examples ranging from the early automobile industry to microbrewing to nouvelle cuisine, which certainly keeps the reader's attention and interest. It is also a great book from an academic standpoint, giving a fabulous overview of the research on social movements, of which Rao himself is one of the major renowned contributors, yet in a very accessible way. Overall an outstanding book and one I highly recommend.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Market Rebels Rocks!, February 9, 2009

By	R. M. Sokoloff (Kansas City) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book reminded me of an event that took place about ten years ago, when Starbucks came to town and parked their store right next door to my favorite coffee shop in Westport. I thought it would be the end of the best café mocha in town.

Local merchants reacted as though the neighborhood was being invaded. They banded together, posted flyers in their windows, talking to and encouraging local residents to buy from locally owned businesses. It's what Rao describes in his book as "a Hot Cause," an event that stimulates the emotions of people and creates new meaning. Suddenly, at the local coffee shop, we weren't just buying coffee, we were engaging in acts of community loyalty. The local business owners had successfully created what Rao calls a "community of feeling" and through a "cool mobilization" they got merchants and neighbors engaged in actively supporting the Broadway Café' and protesting the opening of a "corporate" coffee shop. The campaign worked so well that the local coffee shop saw their business actually improve after Starbucks moved in right next door.

Rao's book wraps an absorbing, storytelling approach around solid, academic research showing how activists have been the key to the popularization of the automobile (and all this time I thought Henry Ford was solely responsible), the development of the personal computer, the successes, failures, and persistence of chain stores, and the spawning of microbreweries in the U.S.

The author does an amazing job describing how the same underlying processes that spawned all those wonderful innovations (assuming you think cars, good beer, and inexpensive laptops at Best Buy are a good thing) also powered such disparate causes as the antibiotechnology movement in Germany, the slow food (anti-fast food) movement in Europe, the deaf rights movement in France, and shareholder activism in the United States.

This book will unquestionably spur your thinking about how to get people aligned and engaged in your cause - whether it's a business opportunity or your favorite social cause.

One footnote, after ten years of head to head competition, the Starbucks moved out and the Broadway Café' continues to thrive.