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Institutional entrepreneurship and the negotiation and blending of multiple logics in the Southern Arizona local food system

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Abstract

In this paper, we explore the entrepreneurial leadership strategies and routine work of actors located across a diverse array of organizational settings (i.e., farmers’ markets, community farms, community-supported agriculture programs, food and seed banks, local food print media) that combine to shape and sustain the Southern Arizona (AZ) local food system (LFS). We use the theoretical principles of institutional entrepreneurship and logic multiplicity to show how the strategies and routine work of local food actors at the organizational level combine to negotiate system-level meaning and structure within and across the Southern AZ LFS, which is an otherwise seemingly fragmented and contentious social space. We illustrate how the entrepreneurial work performed within multiple organizations and organizational types converge to form a hybrid (or blended) local food logic. Implications are discussed and recommendations for practice are proposed.

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Notes

  1. The four farmers’ market managers included in our sample were at the time of data collection (June 2014–October 2015) responsible for the oversight of 13 of the 22 markets known to operate in Pima County.

Abbreviations

AZ:

Arizona

CSA:

Community-supported agriculture

LFS:

Local food system

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Dorrance Scholarship Programs for its support of this project.

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  1. Department of Agricultural Education, University of Arizona, 1110 E. South Campus Dr., Saguaro Hall, Room 205C, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    Matthew M. Mars

  2. Department of Marketing, University of Arizona, 1130 E. Helen St., McClelland Hall, Room 210L, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    Hope Jensen Schau

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Mars, M.M., Schau, H.J. Institutional entrepreneurship and the negotiation and blending of multiple logics in the Southern Arizona local food system. Agric Hum Values 34, 407–422 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-016-9722-3

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