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Administrative Science Quarterly
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From Pabst to Pepsi: The Deinstitutionalization of Social Practices and the Creation of Entrepreneurial
Opportunities
Shon R. Hiatt, Wesley D. Sine and Pamela S. Tolbert
Administrative Science Quarterly 2009 54: 635
DOI: 10.2189/asqu.2009.54.4.635
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In this paper, we examine the dual role that social
movement organizations can play in altering organizational landscapes by undermining existing organizations
and creating opportunities for the growth of new types of
organizations. Empirically, we investigate the impact of a
variety of tactics employed by the Womans Christian
Temperance Union (WCTU), the leading organizational
representative of the American temperance movement,
on two sets of organizations: breweries and soft drink
producers. By delegitimating alcohol consumption,
altering attitudes and beliefs about drinking, and
promoting temperance legislation, the WCTU contributed
to brewery failures. These social changes, in turn, created
opportunities for entrepreneurs to found organizations
producing new kinds of beverages by creating demand
for alternative beverages, providing rationales for
entrepreneurial action, and increasing the availability of
necessary resources.

From Pabst
to Pepsi: The
Deinstitutionalization of
Social Practices
and the Creation of
Entrepreneurial
Opportunities

Shon R. Hiatt
Cornell University

Wesley D. Sine
Cornell University

Pamela S. Tolbert
Cornell University

One of the foundational tenets of institutional theory is that in
order to prosper, organizations must be congruent with their
institutional environment (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Meyer and
Scott, 1983), their structures and services aligned with the
cultural-cognitive belief systems and regulatory and normative
structures that prevail in a given organizational community
(Baum and Rao, 2004: 51). Such alignment promotes the
success and survival of organizations by increasing the
commitment of internal and external constituents to
organizations and their activities, allowing them to obtain
necessary resources (Stinchcombe, 1965; Meyer and Rowan,
1977). By extension, the viability of organizational populations
also depends on the extent to which the structures and
activities that dene the population are in line with the
demands and expectations of the institutional environment
(Hunt and Aldrich, 1998; Lee and Pennings, 2002).

© 2009 by Johnson Graduate School,
Cornell University.
0001-8392/09/5404-0635/$3.00.

We thank Peter Roberts, Brandon Lee,
David Strang, William Sonnenstuhl,
Elizabeth Hiatt, ASQ associate editor Jerry
Davis, Linda Johanson, and three
anonymous reviewers for their comments. We also thank seminar participants at Cornell, the University of Illinois
at UrbanaChampaign, the University of
California at Los Angeles, and Erasmus
University for their helpful criticism of
earlier versions of this paper. We acknowledge nancial support from the Johnson
Graduate School of Management, the J.
Thomas Clark Professorship in Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise, INCAE,
and the Cornell School of Industrial and
Labor Relations. Finally, appreciation goes
to the rst-authors great grandfather,
C. B. Rutherford, whose pioneering work
in the U.S. soft drink industry inspired
this stud y.

It is easy to focus on the conceptual machineries of
institutions (Kraatz and Zajac, 1996; Hinings and Tolbert, 2008)
and forget that denitions of reality, of how things should be
done, have their foundations in the actions of individuals and
groups (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Leblebici et al., 1991;
Kennedy and Fiss, 2009). Historically, social movement
organizations have played a critical role in reshaping such
denitions (Turner and Killian, 1987), producing some of the
most signicant cultural changes in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, including the abolition of slavery, the
extension of voting and other political rights to women, formal
elimination of racial segregation, and the creation of
protective legislation for the environment (McAdam and
Scott, 2005). Research suggests that most of the enduring
consequences of social movement organizations arise
through their effects on organizations, either by changing
policies and practices of extant organizations (Davis and
Thompson, 1994; Wade, Swaminathan, and Saxon, 1998;
Haveman, Rao, and Paruchuri, 2007) or by giving rise to new
forms of organization (Haveman and Rao, 1997; Lounsbury,
Ventresca, and Hirsch, 2003; Schneiberg, King, and Smith,
2008; Swaminathan and Wade, 2001; Rao, 2009). For
example, Tolbert and Zucker (1983) showed how Progressive
635/Administrative Science Quarterly, 54 (2009): 635667

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reform organizations contributed to the diffusion of civil
service procedures that signicantly changed municipal
governments, while Sine and Lee (2009) documented the
impact of environmental movement organizations on the
founding of new forms of power-producing organizations.
Other recent studies have also considered how broad,
large-scale social movements can facilitate the emergence of
new sectors and organizational forms. Schneiberg (2002)
linked social movement activity to the formation of new forms
of insurance companies; Haveman, Rao, and Paruchuri (2007)
demonstrated the effects of Progressive-era movement
organizations on the emergence of new types of thrift
organizations; and Lee (2009) examined the effects of the
organic food movement on the rise of alternative forms of
food production. But quantitative research in this area has
often relied on proxies of general social movement effects
(Haveman and Rao, 1997; Schneiberg, King, and Smith, 2008)
and has not fully considered how the different tactics social
movements use can destabilize extant sets of organizations,
unintentionally support the founding of new types of
organizations, and thus shape inter-population dynamics. Little
research has directly linked particular social movement
activities to changes in the institutional environment and to
organizational outcomes, including the decline of existing
organizational forms, the spread of new forms, and relations
between new and old forms.
To understand the effects of social movement organizations
activities, it is useful to examine them in relation to the three
conceptually distinct dimensions of the institutional
environmentnormative, cognitive, and regulative (Scott,
2001). The normative dimension refers to explicit espousals
of particular organizational practices, structures, and forms by
individual or collective actors who have recognized expertise
or credibility (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Scott and Davis, 2007;
Sine, David, and Mitsuhashi, 2007). Most studies examining
this dimension have focused on established actors, such as
professional or industry associations, that provide credentials
or endorsements of specic organizational arrangements (e.g.,
Baum and Oliver, 1991; Scott et al., 2000; Sine, Haveman,
and Tolbert, 2005; see also Marquis and Lounsbury, 2007).
But social movements can also be normatively powerful
advocates. For example, movements for corporate social
responsibility have encouraged investors to boycott
companies (King, 2008), lowered investors condence in
public corporations (King and Soule, 2007), and persuaded
consumers to purchase wood from companies that use
environmentally sound foresting methods (Bartley, 2007).
The cognitive dimension of the institutional environment
involves taken-for-granted assumptions of the utility and thus
the appropriateness of organizational practices or forms
(Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Meyer and Rowan, 1977;
Aldrich and Fiol, 1994; Tolbert and Zucker, 1996). As Suchman
(1995: 581) noted, this dimension is the most subtle and
powerful inuence on organizations. Social movements may
try to inuence this dimension through teach-ins or other
similar activities; these are particularly common among
student movements (Soule, 1997; Rojas, 2006). But because
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From Pabst to Pepsi

changing this dimension involves inuencing deep-rooted and
often non-conscious beliefsbringing about such change is
usually a slow and intensive processsocial movement
organizations typically focus their efforts on changing the
normative and regulative dimensions.
The regulative dimension entails rule setting, monitoring,
and sanctioning activities by powerful actors, such as the
state, that have the ability to dene certain organizational
practices and forms as acceptable and to enforce those
denitions, often by constraining organizational resources
(Scott, 1995: 35). This dimension is often the immediate
target of social movement organizations (McCarthy and Zald,
1977; Clemens, 1993; McAdam and Scott, 2005; Lee, 2009),
perhaps in part because it can provide a foundation for
changes in the other dimensions (Edelman, 1990; Schneiberg,
2002; Haveman, Rao, and Paruchuri, 2007), but the
organizational consequences of regulatory changes are not
always anticipated. For example, Perrata (2007) showed that
anti-discrimination legislation, by promoting the value of
gender equality, led to a sharp decline in both womens and
mens colleges, though the womens movement often
supported the former.
Thus social movement organizations can change the cognitive,
normative and regulative environments of organizations in
several ways: by constructing and propagating shared beliefs
that make some structures and behaviors acceptable and
others unthinkable (Snow et al., 1986; Klandermans, 1997); by
persuading public gures to endorse and promote these
structures and behaviors (Turner and Killian, 1987); and by
advocating for the passage of laws and regulations that
promote new values and penalize activities in conict with
them (Zald, Morrill, and Rao, 2005). Any of these activities can
have intended and unintended effects.

1
The historical description below draws
on the Minutes of the Convention of the
National Womans Christian Temperance
Union, 18741920 (Chicago: Womans
Temperance Publication Association), the
Transactions of the American Medical
Association, 18691882 (Philadelphia:
Times Printing House), and the Journal of
the American Medical Associations
Proceedings of the House of Delegates,
18831920.

In this paper, we investigate the intended and unintended
effects of one social movement organization, the Womans
Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), on two organizational
populations in the United States, breweries and soft drink
manufacturers, between 1870 and 1920. During this time the
WCTU grew from a small local organization to a major force in
both state and federal politics, becoming arguably the most
powerful social movement organization in the late 1800s,
creating a turbulent environment for alcoholic-beverage
producers (Guseld, 1986). As the WCTU worked to spread
its anti-alcohol agenda, it had a dramatic effect on breweries,
an intended target, but also, inadvertently, on soft drink
manufacturers. Our paper documents the varied means
through which the temperance movement of the late
nineteenth century, and the WCTU in particular produced
changes in social norms and beliefs about drinking, as well as
in laws regulating the production and sale of alcohol, thereby
deinstitutionalizing breweries and creating opportunities for
entrepreneurs to found organizations producing new kinds of
beverages as a substitute for beer and other alcoholic drinks.
We describe the dramatic growth of the WCTU in the mid1800s and how it challenged one of Americas most accepted
and cherished social activities, the consumption of alcoholic
beverages.1
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DEINSTITUTIONALIZATION OF BREWERIES AND THE
CREATION OF ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES
European settlers brought customs and habits from the Old
World, including regular consumption of alcohol, its
customary use in social circumstances, and acceptance of the
organizations that produce it (Jellinek, 1977; Guseld, 1987).
When the ship Arabella, carrying the settlers of what would
become the Massachusetts Bay Colony, dropped anchor in
1630, its cargo included 10,000 gallons of beer, 120
hogsheads of malt for brewing more, and 12 gallons of
distilled spirits (Blocker, 1989). In addition to being a regular
part of social occasions, alcoholic beverages were also a
useful source of calories. Because fermenting enabled
American colonists to store fruits and grains in beverage form
throughout the year without spoilage, alcoholic beverages
were also a form of liquid nourishment. Thus both beer and
hard cider were commonly drunk at meals, social gatherings,
and community events.
American societys acceptance of alcoholic beverages was
reected in the social role played by the breweries retail arm,
the tavern (or saloon, in the West). These establishments
became highly valued in politics, government, and business
in the nineteenth century. When new towns became
incorporated, the tavern was usually the only public structure
and was therefore used as the city hall and courtroom as well
as a place for business transactions (Asbury, 1950). Taverns
served as very important settings for campaigning and lobbying
as well. Political candidates and politicians frequented them,
and elections were often won or lost with the free distribution
of alcohol (Tyrrell, 1979). Political machines relied so heavily on
taverns to keep constituents loyal to the party that in many
cities it was said that the most direct route to the city council
or the state legislature [often] ran through the barroom
(Funderburg, 2002: 90). The growth of establishments selling
beer and other forms of alcohol ballooned in the latter half of
the nineteenth century, and in 1909, their number exceeded
the total number of libraries, schools, hospitals, parks, theaters,
and churches (Cashman, 1981).
The brewery industry ourished throughout the nineteenth
century, peaking at the turn of the century as the fth largest
U.S. industry, with almost a billion dollars in sales (Chidsey,
1969). Part of the industrys success during this period can be
attributed to increases in immigration, especially from Ireland
and Germany, which led to a shift in consumers preferences
from fermented fruit beverages to those made from cereals
(Sechrist, 1986). In 1865, yearly per capita consumption of
beer totaled a little over three gallons, but by 1900, per capita
beer consumption had increased to sixteen gallons (Blocker,
1989).
Although breweries and beer were accepted by most
Americans from the time of the rst European colonies, there
was always a minority who objected to the use of alcohol.
One of the rst advocates in the U.S. of temperance was
Increase Mather, who in 1673 penned the strong sermon,
Woe to Drunkards (Mezvinsky, 1959). Widespread,
systematic opposition to drinking, though, had its origins in
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From Pabst to Pepsi

the religious revivalism of the Second Great Awakening in the
early 1800s. One of the common threads that tied together
various expressions of Protestant religious fervor of this
period was a belief in the moral perfectability of humans, and
excessive drinking, as a manifestation of moral imperfection,
became a target of religious reformers (Szymanski, 2003).
Concern with drinking as a social problem was also fueled by
the connection between drinking and immigrant identity.
Growing numbers of Irish and eastern European immigrants
streamed into the U.S. throughout the nineteenth century,
feeding nativists hostility. The regular use of alcohol became
emblematic of these new immigrant groups; thus antidrinking sentiment was also driven in part by the broader
tensions and conicts associated with the social assimilation
of different ethnic groups (Guseld, 1955, 1986). An additional
force that fed temperance sentiments during this period was
the growing industrialization of the country, which increased
demand for a dependable and tractable workforce. Many
employers supported limits on alcohol use because they were
concerned that the consumption of alcohol undermined
employees thrift and hard work (Rumbarger, 1989).
All of these factors combined by the mid-nineteenth century
to produce organized efforts to reduce the consumption of
alcohol in the U.S. and several anti-drinking social movement
organizations were founded in the U.S. before the Civil War.
Most of these were relatively short-lived, however, as their
cause was eclipsed by the more passionate debate over
abolition. But because many of the same social conditions
that fueled antebellum anti-drinking sentiments persisted
after the wartensions surrounding increasing rates of
immigration, industrialization, concerns with the continuing
improvement of society (as the religiosity of the early 1800s
morphed into a more secular form, Progressivism)the
temperance movement began to grow once again in the late
nineteenth century. Several social movement organizations
developed to promote the aims of temperance, many of
which actively collaborated and had overlapping
memberships, but primary among these was the Womans
Christian Temperance Movement.
Founding of the WCTU
What was to become one of the largest and most powerful of
the anti-drinking social movement organizations was formed in
1874 (Mezvinsky, 1959): the Womans Christian Temperance
Union, or the WCTU. In the spring of that year, three
womenJane Fowler Willing, Emily Huntington Miller, and
Martha McClellan Brownjointly issued a call to women at
the National Sunday School Assembly in Chautauqua, New
York, to attend the rst planned convention of the Womans
Christian Temperance Union, aimed at mobilizing activist
women to campaign for political candidates and legislation that
favored temperance and womens rights. In November of the
same year, 135 women representing 16 states assembled in
Cleveland, Ohio, to form the WCTU. Under the seventeen-year
leadership of Frances Willard, who ascended to the presidency
of the WCTU in 1879, the WCTU took aim at a variety of social
problems, including campaigning for eight-hour work days,
universal suffrage, industrial relations education, preschool
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education, prison reform, world peace, equal rights for
women, and greater penalties for crimes against women. The
primary focus of the organization, however, was the
promotion of temperance, which was viewed as an underlying
solution (at least in part) to many of the other problems of
concern to members (Guseld, 1986).
The WCTU grew rapidly under Willards guidance. In 1879,
the organization consisted of 1,118 local unions and 26,843
members in 24 states; by Willards death at the turn of the
century, it had grown to roughly 7,067 local unions with
168,324 members in 52 states and territoriesa 627 percent
increase, during a period in which the U.S. population grew by
198 percent. By 1921, the WCTU had 12,000 local unions with
345,949 members in 53 states and territories. Membership
required pledging both total abstention and commitment to
the organizations goals. Its success in membership growth
was accompanied by nancial success as well. Its enormous
size and wealth enabled the WCTU to employ a variety of
tactics to try to achieve its primary objective, eliminating
alcohol use in American society.
WCTU Tactics
Changing the normative environment. One of the WCTUs
key tactics involved proselytizing temperance values and
recruiting new members with an explicit commitment to
abstain from alcohol use and to advocate a similar
commitment among friends and family. To this end, the
WCTU promoted countrywide tours by lecturers who sought
to educate the public on the dangers of drinking and the
benets of abstention and who encouraged individuals to join
the organization. Each member of the WCTU was required to
pay annual dues to the organization and to take The Pledge.
As written on the signed membership cards, individuals
swore, I hereby solemnly promise, God helping me, to
abstain from all distilled, fermented and malt liquors, including
wine, beer and cider; and to employ all proper means to
discourage the use of and trafc in the same [italics added].
Many members took this oath very seriously and led active
personal campaigns against drinking as morally unacceptable.
Apart from the individual members evangelizing efforts to
change the values and behaviors of their friends and family
members, local WCTU chapters used a variety of tactics to
create a normative environment supporting alcohol
abstention. These included holding parades and soap box
oratories denouncing the consumption of alcohol, gathering in
front of saloons to sing hymns and to reprimand both patrons
and owners, and giving away free ice water and lemonade at
booths at county and state fairswhile simultaneously
holding protests in front of brewery booths. Their tactics were
loudly decried by opponents who claimed that the WCTU
used devices of a Methodist revival: by terrifying and rather
coarsely emotional oratory from pulpit and platform; by
parades of women and children drilled for the purpose; by a
sort of persecution not stopping short of an actual boycott of
prominent citizens inclined to vote wet (United States
Brewers Association, 1909: 40). But their tactics were
effective. According to WCTU reports, such campaigns led to
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From Pabst to Pepsi

a drop in malt liquor consumption between 1873 and 1875 of
5,599,406 gallons and contributed to the failure of 750
breweries (WCTU Minutes, 1885).
The promotion of temperance norms by individuals and the
collective challenges to organizations that distributed alcoholic
beverages created a hostile normative environment for
breweries. Breweries would have faced particularly hostile
normative environments in states in which there were larger
proportions of WCTU members because in general,
movements with a larger presence in the local
communityas indicated by a larger number of adherents
with mobilizable resources and by organized presenceare
likely to make more demands on organizations for change
than they are when they have little support in the local
community (Zald, Morrill, and Rao, 2005: 259). Thus,
Hypothesis 1a: Increases in the proportion of WCTU members in a
state will increase brewery failures.

Other normative forces may have amplied the effects of the
WCTU on brewery failures (Skocpol et al., 1993). The WCTU
often drew authoritative backing for its campaign from an
organization culturally authorized to speak to matters of health,
the American Medical Association (AMA). Not only was the
AMA highly sympathetic to the temperance causeand
banned alcohol at its annual conventions beginning in 1877
but physicians at the time were in direct competition with
pharmacists, who often produced folk medicines containing
homemade liquor as an alternative to doctors allopathic
treatments (Sinclair, 1962). Contention over prots from
medicines became so erce that in 1917, in response to a
letter from the WCTU, the American Medical Association sent
a resolution to the U.S. Senate stating that alcohols use in
therapeutics, as a tonic or a stimulant or as a food has no
scientic basis; therefore be it resolved that the American
Medical Association opposes the use of alcohol as a beverage;
and be it further resolved that the use of alcohol as a
therapeutic agent should be discouraged (AMA Transactions,
1917: 11; quoted in Sinclair, 1962: 61). The AMA also issued
many other resolutions that allowed the WCTU to weave
arguments from AMA physicians about the deleterious effect
of alcohol in with their own, often much more speculative
assertions of the physical and moral consequences of alcohol
use. Given the AMAs status as a health authority and its
support of the WCTUs rhetoric and tactics, we predict that
the WCTUs normative effects on brewery failures will be
amplied in states with more AMA physicians:
Hypothesis 1b: Increases in the number of AMA members in a
state will enhance the effects of WCTU membership on brewery
failur…