H Rao
Biographic Data
| ID | 125446 |
|---|---|
| NAME | H Rao |
| GIVEN NAMES | H |
| FAMILY NAME | Rao |
| SIGNATURE | RAO H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1085-7038 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 864 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
How Tilly's Wunc Works: Bystander Evaluations of Social Movement Signals Lead to Mobilization
Social movements must mobilize participation from bystanders to survive, yet there is little research on how bystanders’ evaluations of social movements predict their likelihood to join. Charles Tilly offered a four-part theoretical “scorecard” by which people evaluate movements: worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment. The authors created a novel and psychometrically valid measure (WUNC-12) and then used three online experiments to test its p…
Online Conspiracy Groups: Micro-Bloggers, Bots, and Coronavirus Conspiracy Talk on Twitter
Conspiracies are consequential and social, yet online conspiracy groups that consist of individuals (and bots) seeking to explain events or a system have been neglected in sociology. We extract conspiracy talk about the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitter and use the biterm topic model (BTM) to provide a descriptive baseline for the discursive and social structure of online conspiracy groups. We find that individuals enter these communities through a ga…
Disgusted and Afraid: Consumer Choices under the Threat of Contagious Disease
Consumers regularly encounter cues of contagious disease in daily life-a commuter sneezes on the train, a colleague blows their nose in a meeting, or they read recent headlines about the dangerous spread of a disease. Research has overwhelmingly argued that the dominant response to these cues is disgust-an emotion that leads to a desire to reject and avoid potential contamination. We argue, however, that contagious disease cues can also elicit fe…
Crossing Categorical Boundaries: A Study of Diversification by Social Movement Organizations
When do protest organizations borrow issues or claims that are outside their traditional domains? Sociologists have examined the consequences of borrowing claims across movement boundaries, but not the antecedents of doing so. We argue that movement boundaries are strong when there is consensus about the core claims of a social movement, which we measure by cohesion and focus. Cohesion and focus enhance the legitimacy of a movement and impede mem…
Out of tune: The rise and fall of modernistic music in Brussels, 1919-1939
Echoes of the Past: Organizational Foundings as Sources of an Institutional Legacy of Mutualism
Conventional wisdom in organization theory holds that the environment imprints organizations at the time of their birth. We reverse the imagery and propose that early founding of a nonprofit organization in one domain imprints a community with a general institutional legacy of collective civic action. Consequently, the community is more likely to later establish new nonprofit organizations in a different domain. Empirically, we show that Norwegia…
Laws of Attraction: Regulatory Arbitrage in the Face of Activism in Right-to-Work States
Past research recognizes that firms exploit regulatory variations to their advantage but depicts such regulatory arbitrage as a dyadic process between firms and regulators. We extend this account by including a firm's non-market rivals and suggest that firms view regulatory differences as part of a corporate political opportunity structure and exploit regulatory variations to disadvantage their rivals. Empirically, we focus on variations in right…
Vox Veritatis: Reply to Hart‐Brinson
Stained Red: A Study of Stigma by Association to Blacklisted Artists during the “Red Scare” in Hollywood, 1945 to 1960
We suggest that moral panics exert spillover effects through stigma by mere association. Individuals are harmed even if their ties to stigmatized affiliates are heterophilous, and high-status individuals can also suffer. This creates a broadcast effect that increases the scale of the moral panic. Analyzing the U.S. film industry from 1945 to 1960, we examine how artists' employment in feature films was influenced by their associations with co-wor…
Trouble in Store: Probes, Protests, and Store Openings by Wal-Mart, 1998-2007
Wal-Mart has increasingly become the target of protests over its scale, manifested as contention over specific expansions. Often, the protests are local and led by local organizations, and as a result, chains face uncertainty whether local activists will organize a protest. We suggest that chain stores respond to this uncertainty through a test for protest approach. They use low-cost probes that take the form of proposals to open a store. They th…
Trust and Satisfaction, Two Stepping Stones for Successful E-Commerce Relationships: A Longitudinal Exploration
Trust and satisfaction are essential ingredients for successful business relationships in business-to-consumer electronic commerce. Yet there is little research on trust and satisfaction in e-commerce that takes a longitudinal approach. Drawing on three primary bodies of literature, the theory of reasoned action, the extended valence framework, and expectation-confirmation theory, this study synthesizes a model of consumer trust and satisfaction …
From Streets to Suites: How the Anti- Biotech Movement Affected German Pharmaceutical Firms
How do social movements affect decisions within corporations, such as the commercialization of new technologies? We suggest that the effect of movement activism is conditioned by the internal polity and therefore varies across organizations. This article examines how the anti-genetic movement in Germany during the 1980s affected six domestic pharmaceutical firms' commercialization of biotechnology. We develop a process model of how movements pene…
The Winds of Change: The Progressive Movement and the Bureaucratization of Thrift
This article examines how the values espoused by social movements become entrenched in political culture and spawn many new kinds of institutions, which in turn shape organizations far from movements' original targets. We demonstrate the diffuse and indirect effects of social movements, and also show that the diffusion of social-movement values is often selective-some are retained, while others are discarded. Our empirical site is the Progressive…
Hybrid Forms and the Evolution of Thrifts
This article assesses the role of hybrid organizational forms in the coevolution of institutions and organizations. The hybrids the authors study combined elements of one basic plan with another; they developed because blending mechanisms between organizational forms were stronger than segregating mechanisms. The existence of hybrids allowed elements of one theory of thrift, embodied in one organizational form, to be slowly dismantled and element…
Vox Populi: Resource Partitioning, Organizational Proliferation, and the Cultural Impact of the Insurgent Microradio Movement
Research on social movements has emphasized the origins of cultural movements, but has said little about how they impact popular culture through the creation of new organizations. The production of culture perspective asserts that market concentration in cultural industries inhibits diversity, but is silent about how social movements challenging corporate capitalism spur organizational birth. Organizational ecology describes how market concentrat…
Border Crossing: Bricolage and the Erosion of Categorical Boundaries in French Gastronomy
Sociological researchers have studied the consequences of strong categorical boundaries, but have devoted little attention to the causes and consequences of boundary erosion. This study analyzes the erosion of categorical boundaries in the case of opposing category pairs. The authors propose that categorical boundaries weaken when the borrowing of elements from a rival category by high-status actors triggers emulation such that the mean number of…
Sources of Durability and Change in Market Classifications: A Study of the Reconstitution of Product Categories in the American Mutual Fund Industry, 1944-1985
Categories are key elements of classification systems that segregate things into groups and impose coherence. Sociologists have studied how categories shape action in a wide variety of contexts hut have spent much less time investigating the sources of category durability and change. We address this gap by investigating how existing product categories are reconstituted by field-level industry media. While standard accounts of industry media sugge…
Store Wars: The Enactment and Repeal of Anti-Chain-Store Legislation in America
Competition between organizational forms manifests itself in political contention over the law. The authors analyze the political strength and organization of the groups that supported and opposed state anti‐chain‐store laws. The enactment of these laws depended on intrastate political activity and the interstate diffusion of anti‐chain‐store legislation. The repeal process relied on suprastate activity, as nationally organized pro‐chain‐store fo…
Covert Political Conflict in Organizations: Challenges from Below
This review considers a class of political activity that has largely been ignored by researchers extending social movement theory into organizations: covert political conflict. Although much of the literature we discuss focuses on contemporary corporations where the bulk of research on covert conflict has occurred, we also explore studies of covert conflict in a range of historical and organizational contexts that fall outside the contemporary wo…
Power Plays: How Social Movements and Collective Action Create New Organizational Forms
Institutional Sources of Boundary-Spanning Structures: The Establishment of Investor Relations Departments in the Fortune 500 Industrials
The authors analyze the coercive and mimetic conditions leading to the establishment of investor relations departments among Fortune 500 industrial firms during the 1984–1994 period. The results show that antimanagement resolutions brought to a vote by social movement activists significantly contributed to the establishment of investor relations departments. Intense scrutiny by financial analysts also impelled firms to create such departments. Wh…
Caveat Emptor: The Construction of Nonprofit Consumer Watchdog Organizations
This article investigates how new organizational forms are constituted as cultural objects. Since new organizational forms jeopardize existing interests, institutional entrepreneurs recombine prevalent cultural materials to frame the form as necessary, valid, and appropriate. When rival entrepreneurs promote incompatible frames, the frame that enjoys greater political support from the state, professions, and other organizations becomes ascendant.…
Structuring a Theory of Moral Sentiments: Institutional and Organizational Coevolution in the Early Thrift Industry
The authors investigate the coevolution of organizations and institu‐tions—they study how institutional definitions, rules, and expectations unfold in tandem with the organizational structures and processes that embody those institutions. The research site is the early thrift industry. Changes in thrifts' technical environment (the rise of a transient and heterogeneous population) and institutional environment (the rise of Progressivism) propelle…
Art museum membership and cultural distinction: Relating members' perceptions of prestige to benefit usage
Understanding the Bond of Identification: An Investigation of its Correlates among Art Museum Members
Identification is defined as the “perceived oneness with or belongingness to an organization” of which the person is a member. The authors propose that customers, in their role as members, identify with organizations. They use social identity theory to propose and test a model that relates members’ identification with the focal organization to (1) organizational and product characteristics, (2) members’ affiliation characteristics, and (3) member…
Border Crossing: Bricolage and the Erosion of Categorical Boundaries in French Gastronomy
Sociological researchers have studied the consequences of strong categorical boundaries, but have devoted little attention to the causes and consequences of boundary erosion. This study analyzes the erosion of categorical boundaries in the case of opposing category pairs. The authors propose that categorical boundaries weaken when the borrowing of elements from a rival category by high-status actors triggers emulation such that the mean number of…
Structuring a Theory of Moral Sentiments: Institutional and Organizational Coevolution in the Early Thrift Industry
The authors investigate the coevolution of organizations and institu‐tions—they study how institutional definitions, rules, and expectations unfold in tandem with the organizational structures and processes that embody those institutions. The research site is the early thrift industry. Changes in thrifts' technical environment (the rise of a transient and heterogeneous population) and institutional environment (the rise of Progressivism) propelle…
From Streets to Suites: How the Anti- Biotech Movement Affected German Pharmaceutical Firms
How do social movements affect decisions within corporations, such as the commercialization of new technologies? We suggest that the effect of movement activism is conditioned by the internal polity and therefore varies across organizations. This article examines how the anti-genetic movement in Germany during the 1980s affected six domestic pharmaceutical firms' commercialization of biotechnology. We develop a process model of how movements pene…
Caveat Emptor: The Construction of Nonprofit Consumer Watchdog Organizations
This article investigates how new organizational forms are constituted as cultural objects. Since new organizational forms jeopardize existing interests, institutional entrepreneurs recombine prevalent cultural materials to frame the form as necessary, valid, and appropriate. When rival entrepreneurs promote incompatible frames, the frame that enjoys greater political support from the state, professions, and other organizations becomes ascendant.…
Stained Red: A Study of Stigma by Association to Blacklisted Artists during the “Red Scare” in Hollywood, 1945 to 1960
We suggest that moral panics exert spillover effects through stigma by mere association. Individuals are harmed even if their ties to stigmatized affiliates are heterophilous, and high-status individuals can also suffer. This creates a broadcast effect that increases the scale of the moral panic. Analyzing the U.S. film industry from 1945 to 1960, we examine how artists' employment in feature films was influenced by their associations with co-wor…
The Winds of Change: The Progressive Movement and the Bureaucratization of Thrift
This article examines how the values espoused by social movements become entrenched in political culture and spawn many new kinds of institutions, which in turn shape organizations far from movements' original targets. We demonstrate the diffuse and indirect effects of social movements, and also show that the diffusion of social-movement values is often selective-some are retained, while others are discarded. Our empirical site is the Progressive…
Covert Political Conflict in Organizations: Challenges from Below
This review considers a class of political activity that has largely been ignored by researchers extending social movement theory into organizations: covert political conflict. Although much of the literature we discuss focuses on contemporary corporations where the bulk of research on covert conflict has occurred, we also explore studies of covert conflict in a range of historical and organizational contexts that fall outside the contemporary wo…
Store Wars: The Enactment and Repeal of Anti-Chain-Store Legislation in America
Competition between organizational forms manifests itself in political contention over the law. The authors analyze the political strength and organization of the groups that supported and opposed state anti‐chain‐store laws. The enactment of these laws depended on intrastate political activity and the interstate diffusion of anti‐chain‐store legislation. The repeal process relied on suprastate activity, as nationally organized pro‐chain‐store fo…
Sources of Durability and Change in Market Classifications: A Study of the Reconstitution of Product Categories in the American Mutual Fund Industry, 1944-1985
Categories are key elements of classification systems that segregate things into groups and impose coherence. Sociologists have studied how categories shape action in a wide variety of contexts hut have spent much less time investigating the sources of category durability and change. We address this gap by investigating how existing product categories are reconstituted by field-level industry media. While standard accounts of industry media sugge…
Trouble in Store: Probes, Protests, and Store Openings by Wal-Mart, 1998-2007
Wal-Mart has increasingly become the target of protests over its scale, manifested as contention over specific expansions. Often, the protests are local and led by local organizations, and as a result, chains face uncertainty whether local activists will organize a protest. We suggest that chain stores respond to this uncertainty through a test for protest approach. They use low-cost probes that take the form of proposals to open a store. They th…
Laws of Attraction: Regulatory Arbitrage in the Face of Activism in Right-to-Work States
Past research recognizes that firms exploit regulatory variations to their advantage but depicts such regulatory arbitrage as a dyadic process between firms and regulators. We extend this account by including a firm's non-market rivals and suggest that firms view regulatory differences as part of a corporate political opportunity structure and exploit regulatory variations to disadvantage their rivals. Empirically, we focus on variations in right…
Echoes of the Past: Organizational Foundings as Sources of an Institutional Legacy of Mutualism
Conventional wisdom in organization theory holds that the environment imprints organizations at the time of their birth. We reverse the imagery and propose that early founding of a nonprofit organization in one domain imprints a community with a general institutional legacy of collective civic action. Consequently, the community is more likely to later establish new nonprofit organizations in a different domain. Empirically, we show that Norwegia…
Vox Populi: Resource Partitioning, Organizational Proliferation, and the Cultural Impact of the Insurgent Microradio Movement
Research on social movements has emphasized the origins of cultural movements, but has said little about how they impact popular culture through the creation of new organizations. The production of culture perspective asserts that market concentration in cultural industries inhibits diversity, but is silent about how social movements challenging corporate capitalism spur organizational birth. Organizational ecology describes how market concentrat…
Online Conspiracy Groups: Micro-Bloggers, Bots, and Coronavirus Conspiracy Talk on Twitter
Conspiracies are consequential and social, yet online conspiracy groups that consist of individuals (and bots) seeking to explain events or a system have been neglected in sociology. We extract conspiracy talk about the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitter and use the biterm topic model (BTM) to provide a descriptive baseline for the discursive and social structure of online conspiracy groups. We find that individuals enter these communities through a ga…
Crossing Categorical Boundaries: A Study of Diversification by Social Movement Organizations
When do protest organizations borrow issues or claims that are outside their traditional domains? Sociologists have examined the consequences of borrowing claims across movement boundaries, but not the antecedents of doing so. We argue that movement boundaries are strong when there is consensus about the core claims of a social movement, which we measure by cohesion and focus. Cohesion and focus enhance the legitimacy of a movement and impede mem…
Hybrid Forms and the Evolution of Thrifts
This article assesses the role of hybrid organizational forms in the coevolution of institutions and organizations. The hybrids the authors study combined elements of one basic plan with another; they developed because blending mechanisms between organizational forms were stronger than segregating mechanisms. The existence of hybrids allowed elements of one theory of thrift, embodied in one organizational form, to be slowly dismantled and element…
Disgusted and Afraid: Consumer Choices under the Threat of Contagious Disease
Consumers regularly encounter cues of contagious disease in daily life-a commuter sneezes on the train, a colleague blows their nose in a meeting, or they read recent headlines about the dangerous spread of a disease. Research has overwhelmingly argued that the dominant response to these cues is disgust-an emotion that leads to a desire to reject and avoid potential contamination. We argue, however, that contagious disease cues can also elicit fe…
Art museum membership and cultural distinction: Relating members' perceptions of prestige to benefit usage
Out of tune: The rise and fall of modernistic music in Brussels, 1919-1939
How Tilly's Wunc Works: Bystander Evaluations of Social Movement Signals Lead to Mobilization
Social movements must mobilize participation from bystanders to survive, yet there is little research on how bystanders’ evaluations of social movements predict their likelihood to join. Charles Tilly offered a four-part theoretical “scorecard” by which people evaluate movements: worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment. The authors created a novel and psychometrically valid measure (WUNC-12) and then used three online experiments to test its p…
The Social Construction of Reputation: Certification Contests, Legitimation, and the Survival of Organizations in the American Automobile Industry: 1895–1912
Despite widespread agreement among organizational researchers that intangible resources underlie performance differences among organizations, little empirical evidence exists in the literature. Building on the idea that reputation is socially constructed, this paper depicts reputation as the outcome of the process of legitimation. It observes that organizational researchers have overlooked how certification contests legitimate organizations, gene…
Understanding the Bond of Identification: An Investigation of its Correlates among Art Museum Members
Identification is defined as the “perceived oneness with or belongingness to an organization” of which the person is a member. The authors propose that customers, in their role as members, identify with organizations. They use social identity theory to propose and test a model that relates members’ identification with the focal organization to (1) organizational and product characteristics, (2) members’ affiliation characteristics, and (3) member…
Art museum membership and cultural distinction: Relating members' perceptions of prestige to benefit usage
Structuring a Theory of Moral Sentiments: Institutional and Organizational Coevolution in the Early Thrift Industry
The authors investigate the coevolution of organizations and institu‐tions—they study how institutional definitions, rules, and expectations unfold in tandem with the organizational structures and processes that embody those institutions. The research site is the early thrift industry. Changes in thrifts' technical environment (the rise of a transient and heterogeneous population) and institutional environment (the rise of Progressivism) propelle…
Caveat Emptor: The Construction of Nonprofit Consumer Watchdog Organizations
This article investigates how new organizational forms are constituted as cultural objects. Since new organizational forms jeopardize existing interests, institutional entrepreneurs recombine prevalent cultural materials to frame the form as necessary, valid, and appropriate. When rival entrepreneurs promote incompatible frames, the frame that enjoys greater political support from the state, professions, and other organizations becomes ascendant.…
Institutional Sources of Boundary-Spanning Structures: The Establishment of Investor Relations Departments in the Fortune 500 Industrials
The authors analyze the coercive and mimetic conditions leading to the establishment of investor relations departments among Fortune 500 industrial firms during the 1984–1994 period. The results show that antimanagement resolutions brought to a vote by social movement activists significantly contributed to the establishment of investor relations departments. Intense scrutiny by financial analysts also impelled firms to create such departments. Wh…
Power Plays: How Social Movements and Collective Action Create New Organizational Forms
Covert Political Conflict in Organizations: Challenges from Below
This review considers a class of political activity that has largely been ignored by researchers extending social movement theory into organizations: covert political conflict. Although much of the literature we discuss focuses on contemporary corporations where the bulk of research on covert conflict has occurred, we also explore studies of covert conflict in a range of historical and organizational contexts that fall outside the contemporary wo…
Sources of Durability and Change in Market Classifications: A Study of the Reconstitution of Product Categories in the American Mutual Fund Industry, 1944-1985
Categories are key elements of classification systems that segregate things into groups and impose coherence. Sociologists have studied how categories shape action in a wide variety of contexts hut have spent much less time investigating the sources of category durability and change. We address this gap by investigating how existing product categories are reconstituted by field-level industry media. While standard accounts of industry media sugge…
Store Wars: The Enactment and Repeal of Anti-Chain-Store Legislation in America
Competition between organizational forms manifests itself in political contention over the law. The authors analyze the political strength and organization of the groups that supported and opposed state anti‐chain‐store laws. The enactment of these laws depended on intrastate political activity and the interstate diffusion of anti‐chain‐store legislation. The repeal process relied on suprastate activity, as nationally organized pro‐chain‐store fo…
Border Crossing: Bricolage and the Erosion of Categorical Boundaries in French Gastronomy
Sociological researchers have studied the consequences of strong categorical boundaries, but have devoted little attention to the causes and consequences of boundary erosion. This study analyzes the erosion of categorical boundaries in the case of opposing category pairs. The authors propose that categorical boundaries weaken when the borrowing of elements from a rival category by high-status actors triggers emulation such that the mean number of…
Hybrid Forms and the Evolution of Thrifts
This article assesses the role of hybrid organizational forms in the coevolution of institutions and organizations. The hybrids the authors study combined elements of one basic plan with another; they developed because blending mechanisms between organizational forms were stronger than segregating mechanisms. The existence of hybrids allowed elements of one theory of thrift, embodied in one organizational form, to be slowly dismantled and element…
Vox Populi: Resource Partitioning, Organizational Proliferation, and the Cultural Impact of the Insurgent Microradio Movement
Research on social movements has emphasized the origins of cultural movements, but has said little about how they impact popular culture through the creation of new organizations. The production of culture perspective asserts that market concentration in cultural industries inhibits diversity, but is silent about how social movements challenging corporate capitalism spur organizational birth. Organizational ecology describes how market concentrat…
The Winds of Change: The Progressive Movement and the Bureaucratization of Thrift
This article examines how the values espoused by social movements become entrenched in political culture and spawn many new kinds of institutions, which in turn shape organizations far from movements' original targets. We demonstrate the diffuse and indirect effects of social movements, and also show that the diffusion of social-movement values is often selective-some are retained, while others are discarded. Our empirical site is the Progressive…
Trust and Satisfaction, Two Stepping Stones for Successful E-Commerce Relationships: A Longitudinal Exploration
Trust and satisfaction are essential ingredients for successful business relationships in business-to-consumer electronic commerce. Yet there is little research on trust and satisfaction in e-commerce that takes a longitudinal approach. Drawing on three primary bodies of literature, the theory of reasoned action, the extended valence framework, and expectation-confirmation theory, this study synthesizes a model of consumer trust and satisfaction …
From Streets to Suites: How the Anti- Biotech Movement Affected German Pharmaceutical Firms
How do social movements affect decisions within corporations, such as the commercialization of new technologies? We suggest that the effect of movement activism is conditioned by the internal polity and therefore varies across organizations. This article examines how the anti-genetic movement in Germany during the 1980s affected six domestic pharmaceutical firms' commercialization of biotechnology. We develop a process model of how movements pene…
Vox Veritatis: Reply to Hart‐Brinson
Stained Red: A Study of Stigma by Association to Blacklisted Artists during the “Red Scare” in Hollywood, 1945 to 1960
We suggest that moral panics exert spillover effects through stigma by mere association. Individuals are harmed even if their ties to stigmatized affiliates are heterophilous, and high-status individuals can also suffer. This creates a broadcast effect that increases the scale of the moral panic. Analyzing the U.S. film industry from 1945 to 1960, we examine how artists' employment in feature films was influenced by their associations with co-wor…
Trouble in Store: Probes, Protests, and Store Openings by Wal-Mart, 1998-2007
Wal-Mart has increasingly become the target of protests over its scale, manifested as contention over specific expansions. Often, the protests are local and led by local organizations, and as a result, chains face uncertainty whether local activists will organize a protest. We suggest that chain stores respond to this uncertainty through a test for protest approach. They use low-cost probes that take the form of proposals to open a store. They th…
Laws of Attraction: Regulatory Arbitrage in the Face of Activism in Right-to-Work States
Past research recognizes that firms exploit regulatory variations to their advantage but depicts such regulatory arbitrage as a dyadic process between firms and regulators. We extend this account by including a firm's non-market rivals and suggest that firms view regulatory differences as part of a corporate political opportunity structure and exploit regulatory variations to disadvantage their rivals. Empirically, we focus on variations in right…
Out of tune: The rise and fall of modernistic music in Brussels, 1919-1939
Echoes of the Past: Organizational Foundings as Sources of an Institutional Legacy of Mutualism
Conventional wisdom in organization theory holds that the environment imprints organizations at the time of their birth. We reverse the imagery and propose that early founding of a nonprofit organization in one domain imprints a community with a general institutional legacy of collective civic action. Consequently, the community is more likely to later establish new nonprofit organizations in a different domain. Empirically, we show that Norwegia…
Crossing Categorical Boundaries: A Study of Diversification by Social Movement Organizations
When do protest organizations borrow issues or claims that are outside their traditional domains? Sociologists have examined the consequences of borrowing claims across movement boundaries, but not the antecedents of doing so. We argue that movement boundaries are strong when there is consensus about the core claims of a social movement, which we measure by cohesion and focus. Cohesion and focus enhance the legitimacy of a movement and impede mem…
Disgusted and Afraid: Consumer Choices under the Threat of Contagious Disease
Consumers regularly encounter cues of contagious disease in daily life-a commuter sneezes on the train, a colleague blows their nose in a meeting, or they read recent headlines about the dangerous spread of a disease. Research has overwhelmingly argued that the dominant response to these cues is disgust-an emotion that leads to a desire to reject and avoid potential contamination. We argue, however, that contagious disease cues can also elicit fe…
Online Conspiracy Groups: Micro-Bloggers, Bots, and Coronavirus Conspiracy Talk on Twitter
Conspiracies are consequential and social, yet online conspiracy groups that consist of individuals (and bots) seeking to explain events or a system have been neglected in sociology. We extract conspiracy talk about the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitter and use the biterm topic model (BTM) to provide a descriptive baseline for the discursive and social structure of online conspiracy groups. We find that individuals enter these communities through a ga…
Political science (19 works) · Economics (16 works) · Law (16 works) · Business (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Management and Organizational Studies (9 works) · Public relations (8 works) · Social and Cultural Dynamics (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Politics (7 works)