Contested Industry Dynamics: New Directions in Legitimacy Research

This article comments on the article "Contested Industry Dynamics," by Tiffany L. Galvin, Marc J. Ventresca, and Bryant A. Hudson, published in the present issue of the journal "International Studies of Management & Organization." Given the lack of contextuality characteristic of ecological research, and that institutional theory only recently has focused on issues of institutional change, the article by Galvin, Ventresca, and Hudson offers a fresh and needed complement to evolutionary and institutional research in organization theory. Moreover, the focus on the cognitive elements and market stories as enablers and obstacles of industry-wide evolutionary processes links this manuscript to research of belief systems. The two industries studied, tobacco and gambling, are industries with a prime interest to attract consumer desire for physical and mental stimulation. Gambling is a cultural phenomenon that is driven by individuals' lust for risk taking and playing, whereas tobacco use is driven by both physical and psychological phenomena. The evolution of tobacco and gambling industries vividly illustrates the importance of the institutional environment on firm survival.