Journal Articles by Carys Egan-Wyer
Ulver, S., Bertilsson, J., Klasson, M., Egan-Wyer, C., & Johansson, U. (2013). Emerging Market (Sub)Systems and Consumption Field Refinement. in NA – Advances in Consumer Research Vol. 41, eds. Simona Botti & Aparna Labroo, Duluth, MN: Association for Consumer Research. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly we introduce a (tentative) theoretical framework t... more The purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly we introduce a (tentative) theoretical framework to conceptualise the development of market systems on a mid-range (or meso-) level; secondly, we spell out methodological suggestions for how to study such development. The paper is a conceptual paper, with no primary data used or presented. We introduce a conceptual framework, which we refer to as Consumption Field Refinement (CFR), to represent the development of a market system. Central to our framework is the idea that the market system consists of several interlinked subsystems or consumption fields, each focused on a particular consumption interest.
What is leisure? According to literature, leisure is the opposite of work; is uncoerced, autoteli... more What is leisure? According to literature, leisure is the opposite of work; is uncoerced, autotelic, and unproductive; and is characterised by a consumption rather than a production logic. However, this exploration of endurance running as a hobby reveals that our understanding of leisure is outdated. In consumer culture, humans and human activities are increasingly treated like commodities and, in the stories of endurance runners, we see evidence of the commodification and subsumption of leisure and hobbies. Leisure is no longer valued according to a use-value logic but according to an exchange value logic; a means to an end without intrinsic value. Leisure is commodified, it is human labour and, like labour in Marx’ analysis of capitalism, is subsumed under capital. In this case though, the capital produced is social capital rather than economic capital.
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2017
In the contemporary economic imaginary, the concept of entrepreneurship occupies a central if con... more In the contemporary economic imaginary, the concept of entrepreneurship occupies a central if conflicted position, simultaneously representing both conformity and resistance. On the one hand entrepreneurship has come to signify the upholding and cementing dynamic that makes modern market capitalism possible (du Gay, 1991), and to engage in entrepreneurship is thus in this sense to be part of a conservative discourse. On the other hand, entrepreneurship is commonly symbolized as representing a disruptive, even revolutionary force (Anderson and Warren, 2011), one where talk of “mavericks” (Hall, 1997; Silver, 2012), “rebels” (Ket de Vries, 1997) or disruption more generally (Bilton, 2013; Ries, 2011; Stross 2012) is common in the discourse of the same. Within contemporary capitalism, then, to present oneself as an entrepreneur is to occupy a complex space betwixt and between the corporation – a form which the entrepreneurial organization often strives to turn into – and the “outsider” who challenges the very same corporate world. Entrepreneurship can thus, although this is not acknowledged in the existent literature, come to signify resistance, but a very complex form of resistance – one that can quite easily, and often by necessity (e.g. by alignment with venture capital or the likes), become re-inscribed into the same corporate structure to which it tries to formulate resistance.
Our paper will inquire into this implicit but unacknowledged and unstudied contradiction by way of a case-study based on a highly successful start-up venture, SoundCloud, in which both the founders and the employees struggle to negotiate their positions between being a successful company within an obviously corporate framework, and exhibiting an organizational identity that emphasizes resistance to the very same frameworks. In both their discourse and their acts, people in the company attempt to highlight how working in an entrepreneurial organization represents resistance to (assumed) more restrictive and less ethical forms of corporate engagements. At the same time, they are embedded in notions of contemporary capitalism such as market share, growth, valuations, return on investments and the likes.
What we aim to do, in other words, is to develop the theory of organizational resistance (e.g. Ashcraft, 2005; Fleming and Spicer, 2007; Mumby, 2005) by highlighting the way in which modern discourses of entrepreneurialism (Down and Reveley, 2004; Jones and Spicer, 2005; Malach-Pines wt al., 2005; Ogbor, 2000) contain a complex and fundamentally contradictory relationship between resistance and conformism, and how this plays out in the lived practices of a start-up venture. By paying attention to the contradictions that emerge when a company attempts to hold on to an image of being an outsider whilst being aggressively courted by surrounding industrial dynamics (including but not limited to raising several rounds of financing and winning industry awards and similar accolades), we extend the theory of resistance in organizational settings. Namely by demonstrating the manner in which discourses of resistance can be part of a greater corporate ideology, and also by highlighting the conflicts that identifying with a “pre-packaged” (i.e. discursively pre-determined) notion of resistance and otherness can bring to an entrepreneurial organization.
ephemera, 14(1): 1-11, Feb 2014
Ethical brands have risen to prominence in recent years as a market solution to a diverse range o... more Ethical brands have risen to prominence in recent years as a market solution to a diverse range of political, social and, in this case most interestingly, ethical problems. By signifying the ethical beliefs of the firm behind them, ethical brands offer an apparently simple solution to ethical consumers: buy into the brands that represent the value systems that they believe in and avoid buying into those with value-systems that they do not believe in. Lehner and Halliday (this issue), for example, argue that brands are a ‘practical and effective way’ (13) to address the market demand for ethicality because ‘they offer a means for firms to internalise positive externalities’ (23) associated with ethical behaviour. The assumption, then, is that if society desires ethical behaviour from firms, firms will not dare to behave otherwise for fear of inflicting costly damage on their carefully crafted brand images. According to economic rules of demand and supply, the market should then ensure that firms respond to the ethical requirements of the society in which they reside. As a consequence, brand management has incorporated as one of its main tasks the translation of the ethical positions on the market into communicable brand messages.
However, critical research has acknowledged the fundamental incompatibility of ethics and capitalism, as it is argued that ‘ethics’ tend to be used quite superficially as a legitimising signpost, effectively concealing the (possible) structural lack of ethics built into the capitalist order per se. Consequently, ethical branding may in fact legitimise the un-ethical aspects and elements of capitalist relations and practices. Moreover, when ethics are commodified, e.g. in the form of brand image, the human relations underlying the production processes are, in effect, concealed rather than exposed: ‘instead of seeing these human relations we see only an object’ (Jones, Parker and ten Bos, 2005: 104). Paradoxically, so it seems, ethical brands may indeed repress – or at least obfuscate – the most urgent ethical questions in capitalism rather than bringing them into the limelight.
As is the case with ethics itself, a term which is difficult to pin down in one, single definition (e.g. Jones, 2003; Jones, Parker and ten Bos, 2005; Muhr, 2008), the notion of ethical brands seems to be rife with paradoxes and dilemmas (see also Muhr and Rehn, forthcoming). An overriding tension in debates about ethical brands is that of the incompatibility of ethics and capitalist modes of production and consumption. This special issue is an attempt to address, discuss and reflect upon this.
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/ethics-brand
NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 41, eds. Simona Botti and Aparna Labroo, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research., 2014
The purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly we introduce a (tentative) theoretical framework t... more The purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly we introduce a (tentative) theoretical framework to conceptualise the development of market systems on a mid-range (or meso-) level; secondly, we spell out methodological suggestions for how to study such development. The paper is a conceptual paper, with no primary data used or presented. We introduce a conceptual framework, which we refer to as Consumption Field Refinement (CFR), to represent the development of a market system. Central to our framework is the idea that the market system consists of several interlinked subsystems or consumption fields, each focused on a particular consumption interest.
Book Reviews by Carys Egan-Wyer
Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2014
Blogs by Carys Egan-Wyer
Lund Business Review, Sep 2013
Lund Business Review, Jun 2013
Lund Business Review, Apr 2013
Lund Business Review, Mar 2013
Conference Papers by Carys Egan-Wyer
As well as being consumers of work (Schultz and Hatch 2008; Chertkovskaya 2013), workers see them... more As well as being consumers of work (Schultz and Hatch 2008; Chertkovskaya 2013), workers see themselves as self-branded consumables on the job market. Leisure is an important part of the branding process and only leisure with appropriate symbolic value—which enhances employability—is consumed. Thus, leisure is transformed from work—which provides intrinsic satisfaction—into labour (Auden 1993)—which is instrumental. Leisure is put to work in the service of employability. Consumption provides a model for how we act, think and imagine, in all areas of our lives (Gabriel 2003). Consumer society (Lury 1996; Slater 1997; Baudrillard 1998) doesn’t only influence what we buy, where and how we work but also what we do with ‘free’ time. No time is truly free in consumer society. Leisure must earn its keep!
As consumers in Western consumer culture have increasingly turned from high cultural to low cultu... more As consumers in Western consumer culture have increasingly turned from high cultural to low cultural consumption categories to cultivate themselves, the meanings of the traditional and socio-cultural concepts used to represent different forms of consumer expertise have been blurred or altered. Drawing upon sociocultural literature on taste and distinction we attempt to provide theoretical clarity to the concepts of connoisseurship, snobbery, and nerdery; concepts that are often used interchangeably and without rigor in both (contemporary) popular and academic discourse. The outcome of our conceptual analysis is concretised using a semiotic square to illustrate how the concepts differ from each other. Our analysis suggests that the democratisation of consumption through the imprinting of status meanings upon traditionally illegitimate cultural objects may lead to the “bastardisation” of taste regarding those same illegitimate cultural categories – a performance formerly restricted to high culture.
The purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly we introduce a (tentative) theoretical framework t... more The purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly we introduce a (tentative) theoretical framework to conceptualise the development of market systems on a mid-range (or meso-) level; secondly, we spell out methodological suggestions for how to study such development. The paper is a conceptual paper, with no primary data used or presented. We introduce a conceptual framework, which we refer to as Consumption Field Refinement (CFR), to represent the development of a market system. Central to our framework is the idea that the market system consists of several interlinked subsystems or consumption fields, each focused on a particular consumption interest.
Papers by Carys Egan-Wyer
Springer eBooks, Oct 4, 2023
Marketing Theory, Sep 14, 2023
Calls for research contribution and demands for original theories have become visibly and audibly... more Calls for research contribution and demands for original theories have become visibly and audibly louder in review processes over the last two decades. In interpretivist marketing and consumer research, such calls have been accompanied by an emphasis on the importance of theory and on drawing on context when crafting impactful research contributions. By investigating the rhetorical claims made by authors in 45 highly cited articles, published between 2005 and 2019 in three representative marketing journals, this paper provides a kaleidoscopic, three-dimensional framework that maps out and explores the rhetorical devices employed in interpretivist scholarship. Based on the framework, the paper suggests different pathways that researchers can follow to navigate through the complex process of shaping and developing relevant and impactful research contributions.
Springer eBooks, Oct 4, 2023
It is often said that we live in a consumer society. This does not just mean that we buy things r... more It is often said that we live in a consumer society. This does not just mean that we buy things regularly but also that consumption is an integral part of our daily lives. We have learned to think of ourselves as consumers, rather than citizens, in a variety of situations. We are not only consumers of clothes and food but also of healthcare, wellness, and education. And
In this thesis, I critically explore the ways in which people consume extraordinary experiences a... more In this thesis, I critically explore the ways in which people consume extraordinary experiences and what this can tell us about contemporary society. My findings question the idea that extraordinary experiences are an escape from the demands of everyday life. I show instead that social (especially neoliberal) discourses discipline endurance runners and shape the ways in which they understand and account for their extraordinary experiences. As a research context for this qualitative study, I chose endurance running, which includes triathlon, obstacle adventure racing and ultra-distance running. Endurance running is an extreme but popular experience in contemporary consumer culture. If we don't consume branded endurance running events, such as Ironman or Tough Mudder, ourselves, we might have sponsored a colleague or friend to run up Mont Blanc or across the Sahara desert. Few of us can have escaped the sight of people pounding the pavements or running laps in the local park, building up their stamina to compete in the increasing number of endurance running events that now take place worldwide. In this thesis, I use vocabularies of motive and Foucault's theory of governmentality to critically examine the ways in which endurance runners talk about running. A critical perspsective allows us to see beyond their glossy surface of extraordinary experiences. It allows us to see beyond the romantic idea that people consume extraordinary experiences in order to escape the demands of everyday life; that extraordinary experiences are spaces of freedom. A critical perspective reveals extraordinary experiences to be spaces of discipline and productivity as well as freedom and escape and it allows us to see that neoliberal discourses influence extraordinary experiences, just as they influence other area of social life. They influence how and why we take part in extraordinary experiences, how we talk about them and how we use those experiences to sell ourselves. We might understand extraordinary experiences as freedom, but we also feel compelled to take part in them. We might describe them as spaces where we are free from expectations, but we also quantify, objectify, and brand them so that they become productive and useful. We might think that extraordinary experiences are untouched by the competitive nature of contemporary consumer culture but somehow the urge to compete infiltrates, even there.
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Journal Articles by Carys Egan-Wyer
Our paper will inquire into this implicit but unacknowledged and unstudied contradiction by way of a case-study based on a highly successful start-up venture, SoundCloud, in which both the founders and the employees struggle to negotiate their positions between being a successful company within an obviously corporate framework, and exhibiting an organizational identity that emphasizes resistance to the very same frameworks. In both their discourse and their acts, people in the company attempt to highlight how working in an entrepreneurial organization represents resistance to (assumed) more restrictive and less ethical forms of corporate engagements. At the same time, they are embedded in notions of contemporary capitalism such as market share, growth, valuations, return on investments and the likes.
What we aim to do, in other words, is to develop the theory of organizational resistance (e.g. Ashcraft, 2005; Fleming and Spicer, 2007; Mumby, 2005) by highlighting the way in which modern discourses of entrepreneurialism (Down and Reveley, 2004; Jones and Spicer, 2005; Malach-Pines wt al., 2005; Ogbor, 2000) contain a complex and fundamentally contradictory relationship between resistance and conformism, and how this plays out in the lived practices of a start-up venture. By paying attention to the contradictions that emerge when a company attempts to hold on to an image of being an outsider whilst being aggressively courted by surrounding industrial dynamics (including but not limited to raising several rounds of financing and winning industry awards and similar accolades), we extend the theory of resistance in organizational settings. Namely by demonstrating the manner in which discourses of resistance can be part of a greater corporate ideology, and also by highlighting the conflicts that identifying with a “pre-packaged” (i.e. discursively pre-determined) notion of resistance and otherness can bring to an entrepreneurial organization.
However, critical research has acknowledged the fundamental incompatibility of ethics and capitalism, as it is argued that ‘ethics’ tend to be used quite superficially as a legitimising signpost, effectively concealing the (possible) structural lack of ethics built into the capitalist order per se. Consequently, ethical branding may in fact legitimise the un-ethical aspects and elements of capitalist relations and practices. Moreover, when ethics are commodified, e.g. in the form of brand image, the human relations underlying the production processes are, in effect, concealed rather than exposed: ‘instead of seeing these human relations we see only an object’ (Jones, Parker and ten Bos, 2005: 104). Paradoxically, so it seems, ethical brands may indeed repress – or at least obfuscate – the most urgent ethical questions in capitalism rather than bringing them into the limelight.
As is the case with ethics itself, a term which is difficult to pin down in one, single definition (e.g. Jones, 2003; Jones, Parker and ten Bos, 2005; Muhr, 2008), the notion of ethical brands seems to be rife with paradoxes and dilemmas (see also Muhr and Rehn, forthcoming). An overriding tension in debates about ethical brands is that of the incompatibility of ethics and capitalist modes of production and consumption. This special issue is an attempt to address, discuss and reflect upon this.
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/ethics-brand
Book Reviews by Carys Egan-Wyer
Blogs by Carys Egan-Wyer
http://review.ehl.lu.se/why-use-video-in-academic-work/
http://review.ehl.lu.se/the-new-snob/
This subject is explored further in the following conference paper:
Bertilsson, J., Egan-Wyer, C., Johansson, U., Klasson, M. & Ulver, S. (2014) Nerdery, Snobbery and Connoisseurship: developing conceptual clarity within the area of refined consumption
http://review.ehl.lu.se/whatever-happened-to-hobbies/
This subject is explored further in the following forthcoming paper:
Egan-Wyer, C. (Forthcoming) Whatever happened to hobbies? The commodification and subsumption of leisure under capital.
http://review.ehl.lu.se/qna-7-what-is-the-role-of-shame-in-consumption/
http://review.ehl.lu.se/qna-is-envy-a-good-thing/
http://review.ehl.lu.se/do-people-really-care-about-consumption/
Conference Papers by Carys Egan-Wyer
Papers by Carys Egan-Wyer
Our paper will inquire into this implicit but unacknowledged and unstudied contradiction by way of a case-study based on a highly successful start-up venture, SoundCloud, in which both the founders and the employees struggle to negotiate their positions between being a successful company within an obviously corporate framework, and exhibiting an organizational identity that emphasizes resistance to the very same frameworks. In both their discourse and their acts, people in the company attempt to highlight how working in an entrepreneurial organization represents resistance to (assumed) more restrictive and less ethical forms of corporate engagements. At the same time, they are embedded in notions of contemporary capitalism such as market share, growth, valuations, return on investments and the likes.
What we aim to do, in other words, is to develop the theory of organizational resistance (e.g. Ashcraft, 2005; Fleming and Spicer, 2007; Mumby, 2005) by highlighting the way in which modern discourses of entrepreneurialism (Down and Reveley, 2004; Jones and Spicer, 2005; Malach-Pines wt al., 2005; Ogbor, 2000) contain a complex and fundamentally contradictory relationship between resistance and conformism, and how this plays out in the lived practices of a start-up venture. By paying attention to the contradictions that emerge when a company attempts to hold on to an image of being an outsider whilst being aggressively courted by surrounding industrial dynamics (including but not limited to raising several rounds of financing and winning industry awards and similar accolades), we extend the theory of resistance in organizational settings. Namely by demonstrating the manner in which discourses of resistance can be part of a greater corporate ideology, and also by highlighting the conflicts that identifying with a “pre-packaged” (i.e. discursively pre-determined) notion of resistance and otherness can bring to an entrepreneurial organization.
However, critical research has acknowledged the fundamental incompatibility of ethics and capitalism, as it is argued that ‘ethics’ tend to be used quite superficially as a legitimising signpost, effectively concealing the (possible) structural lack of ethics built into the capitalist order per se. Consequently, ethical branding may in fact legitimise the un-ethical aspects and elements of capitalist relations and practices. Moreover, when ethics are commodified, e.g. in the form of brand image, the human relations underlying the production processes are, in effect, concealed rather than exposed: ‘instead of seeing these human relations we see only an object’ (Jones, Parker and ten Bos, 2005: 104). Paradoxically, so it seems, ethical brands may indeed repress – or at least obfuscate – the most urgent ethical questions in capitalism rather than bringing them into the limelight.
As is the case with ethics itself, a term which is difficult to pin down in one, single definition (e.g. Jones, 2003; Jones, Parker and ten Bos, 2005; Muhr, 2008), the notion of ethical brands seems to be rife with paradoxes and dilemmas (see also Muhr and Rehn, forthcoming). An overriding tension in debates about ethical brands is that of the incompatibility of ethics and capitalist modes of production and consumption. This special issue is an attempt to address, discuss and reflect upon this.
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/ethics-brand
http://review.ehl.lu.se/why-use-video-in-academic-work/
http://review.ehl.lu.se/the-new-snob/
This subject is explored further in the following conference paper:
Bertilsson, J., Egan-Wyer, C., Johansson, U., Klasson, M. & Ulver, S. (2014) Nerdery, Snobbery and Connoisseurship: developing conceptual clarity within the area of refined consumption
http://review.ehl.lu.se/whatever-happened-to-hobbies/
This subject is explored further in the following forthcoming paper:
Egan-Wyer, C. (Forthcoming) Whatever happened to hobbies? The commodification and subsumption of leisure under capital.
http://review.ehl.lu.se/qna-7-what-is-the-role-of-shame-in-consumption/
http://review.ehl.lu.se/qna-is-envy-a-good-thing/
http://review.ehl.lu.se/do-people-really-care-about-consumption/