Charismatic Capitalism

Direct Selling Organizations in America

Bibliographic Data

ID19977083
AuthorsNicole Woolsey Biggart (corresponding author)
Year1990
Publication date1990-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
Reviewed byCharismatic Capitalism: Direct Selling Organizations in America, P Dimaggio, 1990
VenueCharismatic Capitalism (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.7208/chicago/9780226227269.001.0001
OpenAlexW4238345751
ISBN9780226227269
LanguageEN
Citations received143

Tupperware Home Parties, Shaklee Corporation, Amway, Mary Kay Cosmetics—theirs is an approach to business that violates many of the basic tenets of modern American commerce. Yet these direct selling organizations, fashioned by charismatic leaders and built upon devoted armies of door-to-door representatives, have grown to constitute an $8.5 billion a year industry and provide a livelihood for more than 5 million workers, the vast majority of them women. The first full-scale study of this industry, Charismatic Capitalism, revises the standard contention that the rationalization of social institutions is an inevitable consequence of advanced capitalism. Nicole Woolsey Biggart argues instead that less rational organizations built on social networks may actually be more economically viable

Capitalism · Charisma · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Islamic Finance and Banking Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions

Tools

Open DOI