Doctoral Dissertation Research: Relational Pragmatics and Institution Work in Transitioning Industry

本项目将探讨涉及农产品的产业如何在不同监管水平的背景下发展。对现有产业的研究很多，但对新产品产业如何发展的研究很少。此外，这些新兴行业往往受到其所在环境的不同法规的约束，包括管理生产、营销和销售的联邦和州法规之间的冲突。这种冲突给企业家和公众带来了不确定性。该项目将分析不同的政治、文化和经济进程如何塑造新产业的结构方式，并分析这些力量和不确定性对企业家的影响。更具体地说，这项研究将解决两个问题。首先，当新产业发展时，谁有能力改变制度？其次，这些制度变化所产生的结构如何更广泛地影响企业家的经验、框架和实践？该项目超越了哪些社会背景与法律和商业习俗等制度的变化或多或少相关的问题，因为它还探讨了谁正在发展实时影响这些过程的能力。这项研究将提供对不断发展的行业的见解，可能对负责制定法规以控制行业运营的州和国家政策制定者有用。它还将为支持创业提供见解，从而促进更高水平的创业和就业。该项目将采用混合方法的研究设计，包括对三个不同州的分析，每个州都采取不同的方法来管理新农产品。该项目将包括与各州参与者进行的70次半结构化深度访谈，这些访谈将使用MAXQDA 2018 Analytics Pro软件进行分析，以确定数据中的模式，这些模式将用于开发理论命题。这些主张将通过随后对许多州选定的企业家的横断面调查进行测试，目标回复率为408名参与者。将这两种方法结合起来，确定哪些制度将随着时间的推移而持续下去，哪些制度将无法持续下去。该项目的研究成果将为关注供给侧的制度组织理论、文化社会学的实践理论和社会控制理论提供信息，以建立一个综合框架来解释微观层面的产业活动如何产生宏观层面的社会变革。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will address how industries involving agricultural products evolve within the context of differing levels of regulation. There are many studies of existing industries, but few regarding how industries for new products evolve. In addition, these new industries are often subject to varying regulations across the contexts in which they are located, including conflict between federal and state regulations governing production, marketing and sales. This conflict creates uncertainty for entrepreneurs and for the general public. This project will analyze how different political, cultural, and economic processes are shaping the ways that new industries are structured, and analyze the effects of these forces and uncertainties on entrepreneurs. More specifically, this study will address two questions. First, when new industries evolve, who develops the capacity to change institutions? Second, how does the resulting structure from these institutional changes affect the experiences, frameworks, and practices of entrepreneurs more broadly? The project moves beyond questions about which social contexts are more and less likely to be associated with changes in institutions such as laws and customs of business because it also explores who is developing the capacity to influence these processes in real time. This research will provide insights into evolving industries that may be useful to state and national policymakers tasked with developing regulations to control industry operations. It will also provide insights to support entrepreneurship, thus contributing to higher levels of business creation and employment. This project will use a mixed-methods research design that includes analysis of three different states, each of which takes a different approach to regulating new agricultural products. The project will include 70 semi-structured in-depth interviews with participants across the states, which will be analyzed using MAXQDA 2018 Analytics Pro software in order to identify patterns in the data that will be used in developing theoretical propositions. These propositions will be tested with a subsequent cross-sectional survey of selected entrepreneurs across many states with a target response rate of 408 participants. These two approaches are combined to determine which institutions will persist over time and which ones will fail to persist. Findings from this project will inform organizational theories of institutions focusing on the supply-side, sociology of culture theories of practice, and theories of social control in an effort to develop an integrated framework to explain how micro-level industry activities can produce macro-level social change.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.