Abstract
Drawing on framing theory, we theorize how social movements affect social movement–driven small businesses over a movement’s lifecycle. We propose three social movement–driven small business types—originals, casual converts, and zealot converts—and argue that social movements’ diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames will affect these businesses differently during different stages of the social movement’s life cycle. Specifically, we explore the degree to which they integrate the social movement’s values into their businesses during different movement stages, their financial outcomes, the extent to which they contribute to the social movement, and whether they maintain or abandon their value integration post-movement. Our theory highlights the ripple effects that social movements can have on firms that are not the movement’s direct targets and enhances our understanding of the relationship between social movements and small businesses in markets unrelated to the social movement.
Introduction
Social movement research has highlighted the direct and indirect effects of social activism targeting large public firms (Yue, Rao, & Ingram, 2013). Although social activists often focus their efforts on prominent organizations and institutions (Briscoe & Gupta, 2016), social movements’ indirect effects intentionally and unintentionally extend into other parts of the economy (Gish, Lanahan, & Beck, 2025)—in particular to small businesses that make up over 99.9 percent of businesses in the US and provide nearly half of all private sector employment (Ferguson Melhorn, Hoover, & Lucy, 2024). Tolbert, David, and Sine (2011: 1337) noted that “the specific mechanisms through which such [social movement inspired] changes are produced, and in particular how they affect entrepreneurial activity, have not always been made clear.” This is important because the extent to which social movements are successful largely depends on the actions of everyday people living their everyday lives. Moreover, small business owners and managers have greater agency and the potential capability to change their operations in response to social movement ebbs and flows compared to large corporations, further supporting the relevance of small businesses in the big picture of social movement effects.
Scholars have explored how social movements’ field-level spillover effects lead to new venture creation (e.g., Hiatt, Sine, & Tolbert, 2009; Sine & Lee, 2009), and how social movements influence new entrepreneurs to enter “moral markets” that have both economic and social missions, such as wind and solar power, organic food, or recycling (Georgallis & Lee, 2020; Pacheco & Khoury, 2023; Pacheco, York, & Hargrave, 2014). However, they have paid less attention to how social movement frames affect “everyday entrepreneurs” (Welter, Baker, Audretsch, & Gartner, 2017)—individual small business owners already operating in a wide variety of markets that have no moral aspect—whether and how these business owners incorporate a movement’s mission into their businesses (Tolbert et al., 2011), or how they affect businesses that are not the social movement’s direct target. We also lack theorization about how social movements affect everyday small business owners at various stages across the movement’s lifecycle. We argue that to understand these strategic decisions it is important to recognize the social movement–relevant frames that motivate them and when they do so.
We suggest that social movements’ framing efforts will influence small businesses differently depending on the frames’ salience and resonance across the social movement’s lifecycle stage (Blumer, 1969). In doing so, we identify three types of social movement–driven small businesses 1 —originals, casual converts, and zealot converts—defined as small businesses that take actions in response to, and that can help shape, a social movement’s frames. Thus, we do not focus solely on newly founded organizations motivated by the social movement (Georgallis & Lee, 2020; Pacheco & Khoury, 2023), but instead consider organizations that existed prior to the social movement and that had not incorporated the movement’s ideals prior to being converted by the movement. We argue these social movement–driven small businesses vary in how they integrate the social movement’s objectives and values into their businesses, and develop theory to explain when and why they are likely to engage in, and sometimes abandon, their social mission over a social movement’s lifecycle.
We make several contributions to research on social movements and entrepreneurship. We contribute to the social movement literature by theorizing about social movements’ ripple effects and how they can occur. While there is broad recognition of how social movements attempt to influence others’ sensemaking through the frames they project (Georgallis & Lee, 2020; Nikolayenko, 2019), rather than focusing on the frames’ developers as most social movement research has done, we focus on the frames’ recipients and develop theory explaining who will be receptive to these frames and at what point in the social movements’ lifecycles. We consider how movements targeting broad social norms and practices spanning institutions and organizations—compared to those targeting specific firms or industries—influence the extent to which existing small businesses who are not in moral markets choose to integrate a movement’s objectives into their business models. We develop a theoretical framework to explore which small businesses may be most receptive to a social movement’s framing efforts that extends beyond identifying with the movement (Georgallis & Lee, 2020), and how the frames’ influences are likely to change over the social movement’s life cycle. This is important, because whereas most social movement participants are converted to the cause, research on the relationship between social movements and entrepreneurship has focused almost exclusively on firms “born” to the cause, often in the context of new industries (Pacheco & Khoury, 2023; Sine, Haveman, & Tolbert, 2005; Sine & Lee, 2009). We enhance social movement research by elaborating how and why a movement’s framing recipients differ in their receptivity to their framing efforts, and how the movement shapes the logics that drive small businesses’ actions in different ways over time.
We also contribute to entrepreneurship research by putting businesses that are not pursuing high growth or establishing new industries front and center in our theorizing. Welter et al. (2017) argued that entrepreneurship scholarship has adopted overly narrow definitions of what constitutes entrepreneurship, effectively “othering” most small businesses. We contribute to research on everyday entrepreneurs by showing how social movements can influence these entrepreneurs’ motivations and actions in different ways and to different degrees.
Theoretical Background
Social Movements
Social movements are “networks of informal interactions between . . . individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities” (Diani, 1992: 1) that seek to elicit change in corporate or societal behavior (Gish et al., 2025; Wu & Liu, 2024) by shaping individual and organizational behavior. These self-organized systems (Fuchs, 2003) occur through the “emergence of social structures from practices and communications of human actors” (Fuchs, 2006: 115).
Movements affect large public firms, create opportunities for new venture creation, and generate moral markets. When large corporations are targeted by boycotts or protests, it can lead to negative stock returns and revenue loss (King & Soule, 2007), board exits (McDonnell & Cobb, 2020), political activity (McDonnell & Werner, 2016), technological innovation (Odziemkowska & Zhu, 2025), corporate social responsibility responses (McDonnell & King, 2013), and even collaboration with social movement stakeholders (Odziemkowska & McDonnell, 2024).
Social movements also generate new venture opportunities by creating or transforming entire markets. Consider, for example, how the movement to normalize grass-fed meat led to a new product category (Weber, Heinze, & DeSoucey, 2008), the temperance movement’s stigmatization of alcohol led to the rise of soft drinks (Hiatt et al., 2009), and environmental activists shaped the US wind sector (Sine & Lee, 2009). Recently, researchers have explored how social movements influence new firms’ entries into “moral markets” that have both economic and social missions (Carlos, Sine, Lee, & Haveman, 2018; Georgallis & Lee, 2020; Pacheco & Khoury, 2023; Pacheco et al., 2014), and are often created and sustained by the social movement itself. This research area focuses on emerging industries birthed from social movements and entrepreneurs’ roles in this process (Pacheco & Khoury, 2023; Sine & Lee, 2009; Sine et al., 2005).
However, while we know many ways social movements affect large corporations, generate opportunities for new business entrants, and create moral markets, we have yet to deeply understand the ways in which existing small business owners are affected by social movements. Social movements rely on the involvement of people and organizations with grassroots experience; organize through small informal and formal local groups; and create diverse “co-optable” communication networks (McCarthy & Zald, 1977; Simon, Steel, & Lovrich, 2024). Connecting with, fostering support from, and creating networks within local communities are important activities for social movements. Commercial organizations, such as small businesses, often act as “bridges that foster relations between challengers and the rest of the community” (Negro, Perretti, & Carroll, 2013: 792). It is important, then, to understand how social movements enlist and guide their efforts. Social movement scholars have particularly focused on how social movements employ frames to shape actors’ sensemaking and mobilize action (Benford & Snow, 2000).
Social Movement Frames
Framing processes have deep histories in multiple research fields, including psychology (Bateson, 1972), communications (Pan & Kosicki, 1993), and political science (Rein & Schön, 1996). Goffman (1974: 21) described a frame as an interpretation blueprint that allows people to “locate, perceive, identify, and label . . . concrete occurrences defined in its terms.” Thus, framing is an active process in which people use agency and contention to affect how they construct reality (Benford & Snow, 2000; Caiani, 2023). Frame theory provides insights into “how movement activists construct their self-presentations so as to draw support from others” (Oliver & Johnston, 2000: 38), allowing them to define problems by highlighting selective aspects of reality, diagnose causes, and suggest remedies. Thus, frames simplify the world by highlighting and simplifying situations, events, experiences, and problems (Caiani, 2023). Political and social movement organizers use framing to appeal to their targets and even normalize their causes (Caiani & Della Porta, 2011).
Social movements further use framing processes to emphasize how meaning, beliefs, and values connect to events (Goffman, 1974), and “movement actors are viewed as signifying agents actively engaged in the production and maintenance of meaning for constituents, antagonists, and bystanders or observers” (Benford & Snow, 2000: 613). Indeed, this is the dominant narrative that researchers use to apply framing theory within social movement studies.
Because framing is a strategic action taken by social movement organizers, most research has focused on frames’ creation and articulation (Snow & Vliegenthart, 2023). However, how stakeholders interpret these frames is less studied but equally important (Benford & Snow, 2000; Caiani, 2023). In some recent exceptions, Caiani and Della Porta’s (2011) study of extreme-right discourse in Europe shows how extreme-right rhetoric uses framing to blame elites and create an “us vs. them” mentality. Becktel and Sweetser (2025) show how people with psychological vulnerabilities interpret right-wing movements differently than those without these vulnerabilities. But social movement research is only beginning to understand how different stakeholders interpret and respond to social movements.
Framing Tasks
Social movements use collective action frames to diagnose problems, propose solutions, and mobilize others to action (Tarrow, 1992). Scholars often describe these tasks as occurring in three broad stages (Caiani, 2023) that Snow and Benford (1988) defined as diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing, respectively. Diagnostic frames occur early in a movement to describe what is happening and who is to blame. Because social movements seek to remedy social problems, attributing blame to a specific source is important (Benford & Snow, 2000). For example, the US Civil Rights Movement framed racial segregation and discrimination as the key problem and unjust laws and institutional racism as responsible. Social movements mobilize these frames in their early stages among communities from which a social movement arises (Snow & McAdam, 2000).
Whereas diagnostic framing tasks focus on attributing blame, prognostic frames articulate solutions and strategies for implementing them (Benford & Snow, 2000). Thus, these frames articulate how things should change. The Civil Rights Movement, for example, sought to end racial segregation and Black voting disenfranchisement. Whereas prognostic frames reflect social movements’ aspirations and goals, they can also alienate potential supporters if they do not agree with a social movement organization’s strategy. Social movements use prognostic frames as the movement begins to coalesce, develops its organizational structure, and reaches maturity.
Finally, when movement organizers rally around a strategy, motivational frames create a call for collective action supporting this strategy (Benford & Snow, 2000). This framing task provides meaning about why to take a specific action, targeting a wider audience and encouraging their participation in the movement as it grows and matures by appealing to values, principles, and emotions. When people feel a connection to the social movement they are motivated to participate in the collective actions the prognostic frame advocates. The March on Washington, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, is a prime example of motivational framing incentivizing people to act.
Taken together, these three framing tasks make a social problem salient, assign responsibility for the problem, identify changes that the movement argues will address the problem, and motivate movement participants to actively pursue these solutions. Social movement scholars use framing theory to understand social movements’ histories, organizations, and structures (Moor, De Vydt, Uba, & Wahlström, 2021; Nikolayenko, 2019; Smith, 2021). However, they tend to focus on framing from the movements’ perspective and give limited consideration to how the frames’ recipients interpret and potentially take action based on these frames. Some scholars have considered susceptibility differences to frames, but have focused on a single frame (e.g., diagnostic or prognostic; Georgallis & Lee, 2020). We argue that certain frames become more important at specific social movement stages and connect with specific audiences throughout a movement’s life cycle—resulting in implications for both the movement and the audiences.
Frame Resonance and Social Movement Stages
In this section we explore how frame resonance and social movements’ temporal shifts through different lifecycle stages encourage small businesses to adopt (or abandon) social movement values and incorporate them into their business activities. We propose three types of social movement–driven businesses—originals, casual converts, and zealot converts—and link them to the framing tactics that social movements employ across their four stages, theorize how their relationships with the social movement change over the movement’s life cycle, and explore when small businesses are likely to engage and disengage with the movement.
Frame Resonance
Goffman called frames “schemata of interpretation” that enable actors to “locate, perceive, identify, and label” their social world (1974: 21). Frames resonate with audiences because of two factors—credibility and salience (Benford & Snow, 2000)—and can vary in how well they connect. Whereas credibility relates to the characteristics of the social movement and its participants, salience depends on the target audience’s characteristics and the frames’ relevance to audience members. The three dimensions of salience are centrality—how essential the movement’s values, beliefs, and ideas are to the target audience’s lives; experiential commensurability—the extent to which the frames are congruent with targets’ everyday lives and experiences; and narrative fidelity—how well the frames match targets’ cultural narratives and inherent ideology (Benford & Snow, 2000). However, we argue that the different types of frames vary in the extent to which they reflect each salience dimension.
Diagnostic frames are made salient through connecting with all three frame salience dimensions to resonate with their audience. These frames enhance centrality by defining a problem that connects with the target’s core identity, values, and beliefs; experiential commensurability by calling upon the target’s lived experience to define the problem; and narrative fidelity by situating the problem within familiar cultural themes and norms. Because defining the problem becomes the foundation for the movement’s framing (Benford & Snow, 2000; Caiani, 2023), diagnostic frames are the most comprehensive in terms of salience. Audiences who connect with the diagnostic frame are most likely to be those whose identity, lived experience, and cultural understanding are more deeply connected to the social movement problem. Those closest to the problem will be most equipped to understand its underlying causes and integrate the movement’s values into their activities.
Prognostic frames, however, are made most salient through connecting with experiential commensurability and narrative fidelity. Because prognostic frames focus on presenting solutions, the most important salience components are those that would relate to a solution’s application. Prognostic frames enhance experiential commensurability through offering solutions that feel relatable and applicable to the target’s everyday life and experiences. These frames enhance narrative fidelity by proposing solutions that can be accepted within the targets’ cultural narrations (Benford & Snow, 2000). Thus, while a prognostic frame may not be as central to the audience, knowing how the solution will affect their life increases the frame’s resonance and the likelihood they will integrate the movement’s values into their activities.
Motivational frames are primarily responsible for encouraging targets to take action. These frames are implemented once a movement understands what is happening, who is to blame, and how the problem might be rectified. Motivational frames thus encourage the public to create change. Motivational frames enhance narrative fidelity by invoking moral and cultural themes that inspire target audiences to act in specific ways consistent with the movement’s values. While other salience dimensions may still exist, narrative fidelity becomes the most important salience dimension for motivational frames.
When a social movement frame successfully connects with an audience’s values, lives, and cultural perspectives it is more likely to encourage action (Polletta & Jasper, 2001). Because we are focusing on existing small businesses as the receivers of social movements’ messaging, our theorizing primarily considers what makes a social movement’s frames salient enough to some small businesses that they integrate the movement’s objectives and values into their organization. We use the term “value integration” to describe the degree to which a venture embeds social movement principles into its operations. By understanding which frame salience dimensions will resonate most with audiences across different frames, we provide a framework allowing those crafting frames to be more strategic in the messaging and techniques they use to reach their audience and inspire action.
Social Movement Stages
Social movements evolve and diffuse over time, and different social movement frame combinations are employed at different social movement stages. We argue that because audiences differ in their values, experiences, and culture (Benford & Snow, 2000), social movement frames will influence them at different stages across the movement.
While social movements differ in many ways, scholars agree they generally follow a wave-like life cycle characterized by four key stages (see Figure 1): emergence, coalescence, maturity, and decline (Blumer, 1969; Della Porta & Diani, 2006). Although each stage has unique characteristics, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment a social movement transitions to the next stage; rather each stage’s characteristics will bleed into the next as a movement progresses. Further, not every social movement will successfully pass through each stage (Christiansen, 2011). Many movements end during the emergence and coalescence stage, for example, while others reach maturity, ultimately succeeding or failing during the decline stage.
Social Movement Stages
We discuss how movements will pursue different framing tasks (i.e., diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational) across the lifecycle stages, and how the associated frames affect different types of social movement–driven businesses’ engagement in different ways. Below we present the various stages and the social movement frames deployed. We then propose how the frames deployed in these social movement stages affect different types of social movement–driven businesses.
Emergence Stage
A social movement is in its infancy during the emergence stage (Blumer, 1969). This phase is characterized by broad discontent (Macionis, 2001), and collective action is just beginning at this stage—although most action is individual (Christiansen, 2011). Participants at this stage are most likely to come from preexisting networks whose ideologies align with a movement (Snow & McAdam, 2000). The primary framing employed at this stage is diagnostic, as individuals begin defining and organizing around a social problem. Black Lives Matter (BLM), for example, was initiated in the wake of George Zimmerman’s (Treyvon Martin’s killer) acquittal in 2013 (Black Lives Matter, 2021). At that time, BLM’s founders began to organize around the hashtag #blacklivesmatter on Twitter to create a rallying cry for unity against police brutality and systemic anti-Black racism. However, the movement was less known by those unattuned to the police brutality suffered by Black people in the United States. At this movement stage general social problem awareness remains relatively low, but begins growing (Christiansen, 2011).
Coalescence Stage
As a movement builds momentum it enters the coalescence stage (Christiansen, 2011)—accumulating resources, increasing its participants, and gaining media prominence (Blumer, 1969). It is during this stage where a social movement either fizzles out or becomes more broadly recognized. Here, “discontent is no longer uncoordinated and individual; it tends to become focalized and collective” (Hopper, 1950: 273). In addition to understanding the social movement problem through diagnostic framing, the movement begins identifying possible solutions using prognostic frames—that is, it is no longer just raising the alarm about a problem; it is also starting to say what can be done about it—and it enhances participant recruitment by developing motivational frames. It is during the early part of this stage that the risk of movement failure is higher if the message and solutions fail to gain traction. Successful motivational framing connects with audiences’ values and beliefs, positions the movement to fit within their lives, and resonates with their cultural narrative (Benford & Snow, 2000). If a social movement gains traction and coalesces, several things happen during the latter half of this stage. The broader public becomes more aware of the social movement problem (Christiansen, 2011), largely due to increased reach and public demonstrations; some people who originally did not identify with the movement begin to do so; and those who were on the periphery may become more involved with the social movement.
For example, the BLM movement surged after Michael Brown’s murder in 2014 and the national media coverage it received. Organizers in 18 different cities quickly mobilized and created chapters (Black Lives Matter, 2021). As BLM chapters grew during this coalescence stage, it focused on connecting their message with the broader public, gaining support as evidenced through its increasing donations. The organization’s financial sponsor, Thousand Currents, increased its revenues from $1.7 million in 2015 to $6.6 million one year later (Campbell, 2022). Due to its increased visibility, social problem awareness also increased during this stage, as did the number of BLM supporters.
Maturity Stage
As a social movement—and its infrastructure and influence—grows, it enters the maturity stage. 2 The movement has garnered enough support to formalize its workforce and focus on fundraising strategies to maintain the growing organization (Macionis, 2001). During the maturity stage the movement gains political power to seek concessions from large institutions and organizations (Christiansen, 2011). For example, Freedom to Marry, an organization formed in 2003 to legalize gay marriage in the United States, built a network of advocates, lawyers, donors, and a 94-member staff that played a fundamental role during the marriage equality movement through its lobbying, public education, and voter turnout efforts (Freedom to Marry, 2023).
At a movement’s peak, associated social movement organizations are sufficiently embedded in the zeitgeist and difficult to ignore, and the social problem highlighted by the movement is well known. It is here where “movements spread far beyond their initial supporters and basically lose control of the recruitment process and, in essence, enter the public domain” (Snow & McAdam, 2000: 60). For example, although the Black Lives Matter movement emerged in 2013 and grew over the years, after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 there were worldwide Black Lives Matter protests that received extensive media coverage and high levels of participation. In the United States alone, estimates were that between 15 to 26 million people participated in demonstrations in the weeks following Floyd’s death (Buchanan, Bui, & Patel, 2020). The #blacklivesmatter hashtag was prolific on social media, and individuals and organizations coordinated their social media to share “the black square” on the same day, signaling solidarity with the movement against police brutality (Coscarelli, 2020). At its peak in 2021, the Black Lives Matter Foundation raised $79.6 million (McGrady, 2025). Because the problem is well-established, diagnostic and prognostic frames are less frequently employed, and motivational frames become more dominant in their messaging. However, during this phase counter-movements can also coalesce and challenge the social movement’s narrative (Carlos et al., 2018; Mottl, 1980). For example, “Back the Blue” rallies started occurring as BLM’s movement grew and calls were made to defund the police (Keyes & Keyes, 2022).
Decline Stage
The maturity stage cannot last forever. A social movement’s resolution occurs in the decline stage. Because social movements have specific goals, eventually they succeed or fail in their purpose (Briscoe, Gupta, & Anner, 2015; McDonnell & King, 2013)—both resulting in the social movement’s decline. If a social movement successfully reaches its goals, then the movement’s values and the associated practices have been institutionalized by the public and/or regulatory bodies, and perhaps the courts, depending on the movement’s focus. Thus, the movement is no longer needed. At this point, it may choose to either disband, as Freedom to Marry did following the legalization of same-sex marriage, or shift its mission, addressing a new social problem and employing a different diagnostic framing (Zald & Ash, 1966). If a movement fails, however, the problems it set out to solve fundamentally remain unresolved. There is little change in the regulatory environment, they may have received adverse court decisions, and the public has lost interest in, or has actively rejected the values and practices it promoted. In this case, the social movement can either reengage with diagnostic and prognostic framing, or it can dissolve without making any noticeable change, such as the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Social Movement–Driven Businesses
Social movement–driven businesses integrate a social movement’s values and goals into their business practices with the intention of supporting the movement. These businesses may have been founded prior to the movement with values that align with the movement’s values and later affiliate with the movement, or they may integrate the movement’s values into their existing business in response to the movement’s growth and salience. While most academic research has focused on how social movement frames affect the broader public (McCammon, Muse, Newman, & Terrell, 2007), potential recruits (Snow & Benford, 1988), opponents (Meyer & Staggenborg, 1996), and even corporations (Soule, 2009), we focus on an economically important audience that has received less attention: existing small businesses. Because small business owners wear multiple hats (Mathias & Williams, 2014) and often serve the communities they are embedded in, small businesses are important bridges filling structural holes (Besser & Miller, 2013).
Grassroot activism is an important feature for social movements hoping to change society (Van Til, Hegyesi, & Eschweiler, 2007), and small businesses play a crucial role in grassroot communities. Not only are customers interacting with one another and the small businesses, but small businesses also work with suppliers, partners, and non-profit organizations in the community. In this section, we discuss different types of social movement–driven businesses—originals, casual converts, and zealot converts—who are affected by social movement frames in different ways and to different degrees. Specifically, we discuss which frame types (i.e., diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational) will facilitate value integration and at what social movement stage, how the social movement affects their business, how they contribute to the social movement, and whether they will continue to integrate the movement’s values or abandon them as the movement declines.
Originals
The first type of social movement–driven small business we call “originals.” These businesses have incorporated goals to alleviate the social movement problem into their organization at their founding prior to, or early in a social movement’s emergence stage. Thus, the social problem is integrated with their organization’s fabric before the movement takes off. For example, consider A Woman’s Place bookstore. Founded in the early 1970s in Oakland, California, it was one of the first feminist bookstores in the United States. It carried feminist literature, emphasized books by women authors, and served as a community organizing space at the beginning of the second feminist wave. Originals play an important part in social movements, representing a stable group of businesses grounded in solving the social movement problem who can help shape frames and provide the movement with early infrastructure.
Originals’ Value Integration
Originals play a special role when it comes to social movement frames. Originals will resonate with diagnostic frames early in the social movement due to their high centrality, experiential commensurability, and narrative fidelity with the movement frames, resulting in early value integration. Originals have values, beliefs, and ideas that are in line with those of the social movement; likely have experiences that connect the movement with their everyday lives; and deeply understand the cultural narratives and inherent ideology underlying the social problem. These businesses are not only more easily attracted to the movement at its inception because they understand the problem the social movement highlights; they have also already created a business to help alleviate the problem (Bacq & Kickul, 2022) prior to the social movement’s rise. This offers the movement various benefits during the emergence and coalescence stages.
Because of their early involvement with the movement’s social problem, these businesses are not just being affected by diagnostic framing during the emergence stage; they can also contribute to creating the frame, as well as the prognostic frame employed during the coalescence stage. They have already created a business focusing on the social problem and better understand the problem’s roots, increasing their ability to propose solutions that help alleviate it. Thus, originals can help social movement activists create and sharpen their diagnostic frames outlining the social problem the movement seeks to address, and provide a template for the types of actions the movement can promote in its prognostic frames. Finally, because they have always incorporated the movement’s values into their businesses, their customer base is already likely more sympathetic to the social movement’s goals, and originals can help spread the movement’s motivational frames to them. By participating in developing the movement’s diagnostic and prognostic frames and spreading their motivational frames, originals connect to a social movement early in the movement life cycle and can influence it.
In addition to participating in diagnostic and prognostic framing, originals provide the movement with physical and social infrastructure, serving as important community spaces wherein social movement organizers can plan and recruit/educate potential participants. For example, early in the Civil Rights Movement, Black beauty parlors served as “independent, [B]lack controlled spaces free from the surveillance of white supremacists; the parlors provided shelter for civil rights organizing in an otherwise hostile environment” (Driskell, 2016) that helped the movement establish itself and develop the frames used to recruit others to the cause. These “third spaces,” (e.g., Black salons/barber shops, LGBTQ+ bookstores, religious bookstores) serve as vital community spaces for social movement organizers and participants. We thus propose:
Proposition 1: Originals will have integrated the social movement values early in the emergence stage, leading them to (a) participate in the movement’s diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing, (b) act as templates for possible solutions, and (c) provide locations for organizing during the emergence and coalescence stages.
Effect on Originals’ Businesses
Because originals have integrated the social movement’s goals and values into their businesses from their inceptions, there are no significant changes to their business models due to the movement, and their stakeholders are not materially affected because they have accepted these values are part of originals’ businesses. However, the social movement still has business consequences for originals as it moves through its life cycle.
As a social movement grows during the coalescence stage and through the early maturity stage, it begins deploying motivational frames that incentivize the broader public to participate in the movement. Among other things, this can include encouraging them to support businesses associated with the movement. As the social movement problem’s awareness grows, originals receive greater attention and their financial performance can improve as the broader public seeks ways to support organizations linked to the movement. For example, following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Black-owned businesses in many industries experienced a surge in orders and purchases from individuals who had never patronized them prior to 2020 (Srikanth, 2020).
However, originals’ attention and increased financial performance may not last. A movement’s momentum gain is often paired with a countermovement, or “a conscious, collective, organized attempt to resist or to reverse social change” (Mottl, 1980: 620). Countermovements “rebut and challenge” the focal movement’s claims and “mobilize sympathetic elites, such as religious, community, or business leaders, who have related grievances” (Carlos et al., 2018: 346). This can result in increased threats and boycotts by countermovement participants, such as the “Back the Blue” rallies mentioned above, which could erode financial performance. Further, some of the customers that originals picked up may lose interest in the movement or go back to purchasing from their regular sources, making the sales increases resulting from movement support temporary.
Illustrating the transitory nature of support, in contrast to the nearly $80 million the Black Lives Matter Foundation raised in 2021, for example, by 2023 it reported raising only $4.7 million, against annual expenses of $10.8 million (McGrady, 2025). Originals whose attention and financial performance increased during the coalescence and early maturity stages may thus suffer more as the movement and its prominent associates are targeted by countermovement protests and the novelty and excitement associated with the movement begin to wear off. Finally, as social movements enter and pass through the maturity stage, they typically develop organizational infrastructures—such as full-time paid officers and employees to coordinate activities, marketing and fundraising arms, and other related bureaucracy—along with offices and meeting spaces. These changes decrease the need for originals to provide third spaces, reducing originals’ influence within the movement (Staggenborg, 2013). We thus propose that:
Proposition 2: During the coalescence stage and early maturity stages originals will receive increased attention and financial benefits due to their value integration—but these benefits will wane as the maturity stage progresses.
Originals’ Post-Movement Value Integration
If a movement successfully reaches the maturity stage it will eventually enter the decline stage, and either succeed or fail to meet its goals. The movement’s trajectory in the decline stage will influence the trajectory for originals’ value integration. Being so closely aligned with a social movement can be emotionally exhausting (Chen & Gorski, 2015), and as originals ride the social movement wave they experience the emotional and financial rollercoaster it can create for them. If the movement is successful, originals are more likely to be buoyed and continue pursuing their social mission, as the benefits of doing so will likely continue to outweigh the costs. For example, consider the successful marriage equality movement. Even before marriage was legalized, the wedding industry recognized the need for more LGBTQ+ focused services, and many originals supported LGBTQ+ couples who were forming civil unions or holding joining ceremonies. After the US Supreme Court ended federal marriage discrimination, many of these businesses continued profiting from promoting marriage equality.
However, if the movement fails to achieve its goals, and/or a countermovement creates sufficient traction, the negative emotional and financial toll some experience (Gorski, 2019) may lead to more diverse outcomes. Because the values were already core to their ideology and business before the movement, some originals are likely to continue doing what they have always done, although they may reduce or sever their relationships with the movement. Others, however, may decide it is no longer worth it, especially if their efforts appear to be making no difference. They may no longer pursue solving the social problem they originally sought to pursue, shifting their business to a more purely economic focus (Shepherd, Williams, & Zhao., 2019). Finally, others who identify as “social activists” more generally may stop pursuing the movement’s cause but adopt another social cause and problem that they attempt to address through their business. For example, in Ireland, activists pivoted from “Occupy” protests in 2011 to anti-water charge protests (Lima, 2021). We therefore propose that:
Proposition 3: If the movement achieves its goals in the decline stage, originals are more likely to maintain social movement value integration. If the movement fails to achieve its goals, some originals maintain value integration, while others will stop integrating social movement values into their businesses or will adopt a new social problem to address.
Converts
Unlike originals, converts only associate with a social movement once it enters the coalescence stage and starts gaining traction. Thus, these businesses are founded with a strong economic focus (Shepherd et al., 2019) but respond to the movement’s framings by also integrating the social movement values into their business as the social movement grows. As such, converts can help social movements expand and transition from the coalescence to maturity stage. However, similar to religious conversion (Pew Research Center, 2009), converts will fall on a spectrum regarding the depth of their conversion. We thus classify converts into two categories: casual converts (i.e., casuals) and zealot converts (i.e., zealots). The extent to which a convert is a casual or zealot will depend on the degree of frame resonance—that is, the combination of the frame’s centrality, experiential commensurability, and narrative fidelity. The more the values are essential to and congruent with the actor’s life and align with their culture and ideology, the more zealous they are likely to be, and the more likely they are to integrate with and take significant actions suggested by the movement.
Converts’ Value Integration
During the emergence stage, diagnostic and prognostic frames do not resonate with converts because the social movement may not yet have gained their attention or connected with their values, beliefs, or everyday experiences (Benford & Snow, 2000). However, as a movement gains credibility during the coalescence stage these diagnostic and prognostic frames may begin to register. Social movement organizers also begin implementing motivational frames to increase frame resonance with the broader public, incentivizing them to join the movement and encouraging them to act (Snow & Benford, 1988). 3 Because this framing task is made salient through narrative fidelity, it increases the movement’s legitimacy and encourages broader audiences to take action. If successful, for converts this frame resonance will transform into value integration, as they start to incorporate the social movement’s values into what had been a purely economic business. 4 Because they are converted to the cause, they bring new lifeblood that can be instrumental in sustaining and pushing the movement forward (Pew Research Center, 2009). However, casual and zealot converts will integrate the movement’s values to different degrees.
Because they resonate somewhat less deeply with the values, casual converts integrate a movement’s values more superficially; thus, they do not completely reorient themselves to these values. As such, they will respond to a social movement’s motivational frames more selectively, taking the easier actions prognostic frames suggest, since they require less work and smaller changes to their businesses, but avoiding the more difficult changes to implement. For example, they might donate proceeds from a specific product line to a social movement organization, share social movement information on their social media platform, or display social movement messaging in their physical business, but they are unlikely to jettison suppliers who do not share the movement’s values. Because their commitment is lower, they are also less likely than originals to become actively involved in shaping the movements’ frames or providing third spaces for the movement to meet. Thus, we propose:
Proposition 4a: Casual converts will respond to motivational frames during the coalescence stage by integrating the social movement’s values into their businesses in the easiest ways.
In contrast, zealot converts, like originals, play a role in advancing the social movement by getting involved in frame development and implementing the more difficult actions that motivational frames advocate. However, while originals’ biggest influence is during the emergence stage, zealots’ main contributions are during the coalescence stage and leading into the movement’s maturity. Zealots will be more deeply affected by the movement’s motivational framing than casual converts, substantially integrating the movement’s values into their business and personal activities. Like religious converts compared to those born within a religion (Pew Research Center, 2009), zealots can become even more emphatic about integrating the social movement’s values than originals, dramatically shifting their business model to help the social movement achieve its goals. This could include offering new products or services to meet the social movements’ goals; altering their stakeholder networks to better align with a movement (e.g., only sourcing products or materials from movement-aligned businesses or recruiting employees from within the movement); receiving costly certifications (e.g., B Corp certification) that signal their commitment; featuring their integration of the movement’s values in customer interactions; or providing additional third spaces to movement organizers.
Further, because zealots actively change their businesses to incorporate social movement values or goals, their stakeholders—who were less likely than originals’ stakeholders to have been exposed to the social movement problem, values, and goals—can learn about the movement from zealots. Because their stakeholders already trust them through their previous business dealings, they may be more likely to consider participating in the movement, similar to converts proselytizing to others following religious conversion (Lofland, 1966). Zealots’ integration of the social movement’s values and goals into their businesses further normalizes the movement and increases additional grassroot support from within their community. We thus propose that:
Proposition 4b: Zealot converts will respond to motivational frames during the coalescence stage by (a) substantively integrating the social movement’s values into their businesses, (b) contributing to prognostic and motivational framing efforts, and (c) providing locations for organizing during the coalescence stage.
Effects on Converts’ Businesses
Research in social entrepreneurship highlights the risks and benefits of an organization’s inconsistent actions over time that lead audiences to perceive a discontinuity between the organization’s actions and image (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Grimes, Williams, & Zhao, 2019; Kraatz, Flores, & Chandler, 2020). For both casuals and zealots, their social movement value integration creates a discontinuity for their stakeholders. As they respond to motivational frames and take actions through their businesses, although they may convert some customers to the movement’s cause and attract new customers who support the movement, converts also put their financial performance at risk by creating identity dissonance within the organization and strategic misalignment, as their current systems and customer base do not support a hybrid strategy (Grimes, Williams, & Zhao, 2020).
From a temporal perspective, it is riskier to convert earlier than later in the coalescence stage. Early in a movement, the social movement’s values are less accepted by the general public and the movement is still at a higher risk of failing (Hopper, 1950). Thus, stakeholders may be less amenable to businesses integrating social movement values. However, as the movement nears the maturity stage and gains broader public awareness and social approval the movement will be on a more stable footing, and the convert’s stakeholders will be more familiar with the movement; thus, their conversion will be less jarring. Further, there is a higher probability some of their customers support the changes, reducing the potential financial risks to the firm.
The outcomes converts face by integrating social movement values depend on the extent to which the movement’s frames resonate with the general public during the coalescence and maturity stages. Advancing to the maturity stage signifies that a movement is succeeding and growing, enhancing the legitimacy of businesses that have integrated the social movement’s values more completely. For example, a business in Savannah, Georgia, Nine Line, began as “a promotional products company between a military veteran and his wife” in 2012 (Nine Line Apparel, 2025). However, with Donald Trump’s election and the rise of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, the company converted to a highly patriotic conservative apparel company. Because the business’s conversion coincided with MAGA’s rapid growth, it has been successful. Co-founder Tyler Merrit has appeared on “Fox & Friends,” and in November 2024 even had Donald Trump as a guest on the company’s podcast, Six Feet Under. In an article about Nine Line’s Trump-era patriotism, a Washington Post article stated, “[The business owner’s] success is an example of the way politics, patriotism, and commerce have converged in the Trump era. Most of Merritt’s bestselling designs reflect a sort of love-it-or-leave-it patriotism that Trump touts at his rallies. ‘Stomp my flag and I’ll stomp your ass,’ says one popular T-shirt. Others capitalize on the news and frequently echo GOP talking points or Trump’s Twitter feed” (Jaffe, 2018). Using the growing MAGA movement in the United States, Nine Line was able to garner attention from a wide group of stakeholders and financially benefit.
In addition to their conversion’s timing, the magnitude of their conversion will also affect the financial risks they face. Customers who patronized the small business prior to their conversion may be uncomfortable with its conversion, and their discomfort may grow with the conversion’s extremity. Zealots’ value integration and associated changes are more substantive and dramatic than casuals’ changes and they may integrate more extreme values into their businesses, which could repel customers and hurt overall revenues, especially if the new business they picked up proves temporary. Indeed, this outcome could be even more severe than for originals, since the originals’ predominant customer base already knew about their values and practices before the social movement’s rise. For example, a Black online yarn dyer and seller who has never incorporated their racial identity into their business may have a substantial customer base that is white and more conservative, and that would react negatively if the yarn seller started prominently featuring Black Lives Matter on their site, promoting colors associated with their African heritage, or announcing they will only be partnering with those who support the movement. We therefore propose:
Proposition 5a: Converts who integrate social movement values early in the coalescence stage will experience increased financial risk compared to those who adopt social movement values in the late coalescence or early maturity stage.
Proposition 5b: Zealot converts face greater financial risk than casual converts or originals.
Converts’ Post-Movement Value Integration
All movements eventually come to an end, either succeeding or failing. Zealots and casuals will respond to the social movement’s decline stage differently, and their behaviors will depend on whether the social movement achieves its goals or not. If the movement achieves its goals, both zealots and casuals may be more likely to retain the social movement’s values and continue engaging in the behaviors reflecting these values as they become more broadly institutionalized—although we argue that casual converts will be somewhat less likely than zealots to do so (Elsayed, 2018; Georgallis, 2017; Tuğal, 2012) because of their weaker resonance with the movement’s frames.
To the extent that the social movement’s values and the associated behaviors have become institutionalized (Elsayed, 2018; Georgallis, 2017; Tuğal, 2012), casuals and zealots are likely to continue incorporating them in their businesses. However, casual converts incorporate the social movement into their businesses more superficially than zealots and are less likely to have become deeply embedded in the social movement’s community. Thus, regardless of whether or not they personally continue to share the movement’s values, as the movement becomes less salient casuals may be somewhat more likely to quietly abandon the behaviors associated with the social movement’s values and return to their original business model (e.g., Bamburg, 2006; Y. A. Sarason, 2018; Y. Sarason, DeTienne, & Bentley, 2014). This is because they are not as committed to the values as zealots, as we noted above there may still be some costs to doing so, and they may see the mission as accomplished so it is no longer necessary. We therefore propose:
Proposition 6: If a social movement achieves its goals, in the decline stage casuals and zealots are more likely to continue reflecting the social movement’s values in their businesses. However, casuals are more likely to stop reflecting the social movement’s values in their businesses compared to zealots.
Social movements can also fail to achieve their goals during the decline stage and dissolve without ever accomplishing their goals or making any real societal change (Briscoe et al., 2015; McDonnell & King, 2013). This failure presents an increased risk to businesses that continue pursuing the movement’s values, which could be stigmatized by the failure (Pollock, Lashley, Rindova, & Han, 2019), particularly if an effective countermovement emerged to challenge the movement (Carlos et al., 2018). Casuals, because they did not integrate the social movement values into their businesses as thoroughly as zealots, are likely to abandon the social movement values and no longer incorporate them into their business practices (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Grimes et al., 2019). Although, like originals, zealots may be more likely to maintain their social movement values regardless, they may also experience the emotional and financial costs of pursuing a failed social movement more acutely and thus become more likely to eliminate the social movement value-related practices from their business. We therefore propose:
Proposition 7: When a social movement fails to achieve its goals in the decline stage, there is an increased likelihood that both casuals and zealots will stop integrating the social movement’s values in their business practices, but zealots are less likely to do so than casuals.
Table 1 illustrates the relationships we have proposed. Specifically, we highlight how social movements’ framing tasks affect the social movement–driven businesses at the various social movement stages, along with the various relationships between the social movement–driven businesses and the outcomes we discuss (i.e., value integration, financial effects, post-movement value integration) at the various social movement stages.
Framing Tasks and Outcomes Across the Social Movement Life Cycle
Discussion
Today more than ever, small business owners—these “everyday entrepreneurs” (Welter et al., 2017)—are identifying and pursuing opportunities for incorporating social values into their businesses (Bacq, 2024; World Economic Forum, 2024). We develop theory explaining how social movements’ frames affect small businesses at various stages across the movement’s lifecycle. We argue that to understand their strategic decisions to integrate the social movement’s values into their businesses, it is important to recognize the social movement-relevant frames that motivate them and when they do so. We identified three types of social movement–driven businesses—originals, casual converts, and zealot converts—and explored how each was likely to be influenced by social movements’ diagnostic, prognostic and motivational frames (Snow & Benford, 1988) at different stages of a social movement’s lifecycle, and how they in turn influenced the movement in multiple ways. Below we discuss the implications of our theory for future social movement and small business research.
Implications for Social Movement Research
Our theory has several implications for social movement research. First, by developing theory to predict who is more likely to be affected by social movements’ framing efforts and why, we extend research (e.g., Georgallis & Lee, 2020) that has begun to shift theorizing from the movements’ perspective to the movement recipients’ perspective. We focus on an under-recognized stakeholder who we propose has an important role in community organizing and social movement advocacy—existing small businesses. In doing so, we elaborate how small businesses will resonate with different social movement framing tasks at different social movement stages. We propose that frame salience dimensions (i.e., centrality, experiential commensurability, and narrative fidelity) are uniquely associated with each frame type in different configurations. Specifically, diagnostic frames are associated with all three salience dimensions; prognostic frames are most associated with experiential commensurability and narrative fidelity; and motivational frames are most closely associated with narrative fidelity.
By understanding these connections, social movements can increase frame resonance with small businesses and better encourage value integration within their business. Movements are fundamentally sustained through the cumulative actions of decentralized actors embedded in everyday community life (Fuchs, 2006). Because small businesses occupy important social and economic positions within local communities, the extent to which they integrate and share movement values can affect whether a movement ultimately gains or loses momentum. Value integration can also substantially increase movement frames’ visibility and legitimacy with the small businesses’ stakeholders, increasing frame resonance with a broader audience, and providing feedback to the movement on what frames are the most persuasive. This provides social movement organizers with a framework for considering how their messaging can be most effective at various social movement stages, and creates opportunities for social movement scholars to give more attention to the characteristics of social movement stakeholders who are the most susceptible to the social movement’s framing efforts.
Second, by proposing ways that small businesses participate in this process we open several promising research streams. First, we propose that originals are important actors in a social movement’s emergence, providing frame development templates, facilitating social connections, and expanding movements’ relational and resource networks. As we noted previously, small businesses may provide organizing spaces, distribute movement information, financially support movement organizations, recruit participants, and more. These activities strengthen grassroots infrastructures and increase movements’ mobilization capacity during the emergence and coalescence stages, in particular. Scholars could study the networks they foster by providing third spaces and other ways originals shape the social movement structure early in the movement. Researching how originals’ existing solutions to social problems may influence diagnostic and prognostic framing could also add insight into this phenomenon.
We also proposed that zealots would play similar roles during the coalescence stage. However, since our theory is focused on framing, we purposely avoided talking about resource provision and mobilization, which is another major stream of social movement research (Jenkins, 1983). Scholars could thus also consider to what extent converts play a role in providing additional resources and support to a growing social movement, contributing to theories centered on resource dependence and mobilization (Edwards & McCarthy, 2004). For example, during the summer of 2020, social movement activists were sharing the message to “Support Black Businesses.” This resulted in many casual converts increasing intentions to partner with Black stakeholders and donating to the social movement—providing valuable resources necessary for movement growth.
Third, we also believe our typology presents opportunities for further theoretical exploration in other domains. Future research can ask additional questions such as: how do social movement–driven businesses’ stakeholders respond to their value integration? Do originals receive the most support, or do stakeholders keep an arm’s length distance to avoid uncertainty early in the movement? How might each type of social movement–driven business’s legitimacy change over a social movement’s lifecycle? How do converts engage in sensegiving when pursuing value integration? How do casuals and zealots employ different value integration approaches? How do converts’ stakeholders perceive and respond to their shifting identity? Does a movement’s liberal or conservative orientation make a difference? How do countermovements affect originals’, casuals’, and zealots’ businesses and decisions?
Fourth, there is another type of small business that was not part of our theorizing, but that may appear around social movements—opportunists. These firms do not respond directly to a social movement’s frames, nor do they contribute to their frames. Thus, they do not incorporate the social movement’s objectives into their businesses. Rather, they exploit the movement for their own economic gain—or to minimize potential loss—when a movement has attained mainstream popularity (Snow & McAdam, 2000) but otherwise have no interest in the movement itself. Think for example, of T-shirt makers who might sell both Black Lives Matter and Make America Great Again T-shirts. Snow and McAdam (2000: 61) refer to this as “bandwagoning,” while Bauckloh, Schaltegger, Utz, Zeile, and Zwergel (2023) call these businesses “free-riders.” Although opportunists fall outside of our theoretical scope, future research could explore to what extent these “parasitic” relationships are benign or malignant, and how they affect social movements.
Fifth, consistent with most social movement research, we treat the social movement as a single wave passing through different lifecycle stages (Blumer, 1969; Della Porta & Diani, 2006). We recognize that social movements can have multiple waves over their lifetime, with slower periods that may even experience some retreat before the next wave crashes in. Future research can explore how the different frames work across social movements’ multiple waves. This concept will be particularly important in understanding social movement–driven businesses’ responses to the ebbs and flows across multiple social movement waves. Studying this phenomenon from a longitudinal perspective should prove particularly beneficial for future theorizing about social movements and framing theory.
Finally, we recognize that almost all our examples focus on social movements that occur in the US. While we expect most of our arguments would generalize to non-US contexts, there may be differences, particularly since countries vary substantially in their levels of entrepreneurial activity (Marcotte, 2013). Future theorizing could explore the extent to which the US context creates unacknowledged assumptions, and how the mechanisms and outcomes we theorize might differ in other cultures.
Theoretical Extension Into Hybrid Entrepreneurship
While our theory focuses on small businesses broadly, we believe it can be particularly relevant to hybrid entrepreneurship, where companies pursue both social and economic goals (Bacq & Janssen, 2011; Mair & Marti, 2006). Responding to a social movement’s frame can take various forms for small businesses, from donating proceeds to social movement organizations or causes (e.g., selling social movement–oriented products and donating proceeds to nonprofits within the social movement), to creating entirely new business models focused on the social problem (e.g., creating lab-grown meat to fight climate change). Scholars could explore the specific ways entrepreneurs incorporate social movement missions into their firms and the subsequent firm consequences. For example, researchers might ask: how does social movement success affect social movement–driven entrepreneurs’ crowdfunding participation and success, or how does social movement success affect investors’ desires to fund groups or issues tied to the social movement?
More recently, scholars are studying the degree to which social entrepreneurs embed hybrid logics in their ventures (Battilana, Besharov, & Mitzinneck, 2017; Shepherd et al., 2019). We believe a natural progression would be to explore hybrid relativity (i.e., the relative balance of social and economic logics) and hybrid intensity (i.e., the vigor with which economic and social logics are pursued) (Shepherd et al., 2019) resulting from social movements’ efforts. Future research could explore the extent to which originals, casual converts, and zealot converts engage in hybridity and the implications to their ventures.
Studying Social Movement–Driven Businesses Empirically
By extending theory at the intersection of social movements and entrepreneurship, we open many empirical research possibilities. First, we identified specific types of social movement–driven businesses based on their frame resonance. Following framing theory’s prominence in communications and discourse (Caiani, 2023), scholars could empirically validate these business types, and perhaps identify additional types, by developing dictionaries and using computer-aided text analysis to analyze social media accounts or other text reports issued by small businesses. Considering the social movement stage in the analysis could prove a fruitful way to test and extend theory. Our social movement–driven business types could also have firm performance implications. We have discussed how, for example, originals and converts can experience financial changes as a social movement passes through its different stages, and the costs converts may face. Researchers could empirically test these assumptions using longitudinal surveys to collect firm-specific financial and other data, and pair it with archival social movement data. Scholars could also extend theory by identifying moderators that enhance or diminish social movement–driven businesses’ performance throughout a social movement. Moderators could include constructs at the individual (e.g., passion or resourcefulness), organizational (e.g., venture age or size), or institutional (e.g., political party in power or public sentiment towards a social movement) levels. Finally, they could attempt to gain greater insight into businesses’ motivations and how they are influenced by social movements through quasi-experiments or policy capturing studies.
Conclusion
Social movements can play a powerful role in shaping small businesses’ behaviors. We suggest that businesses will engage in social movements at different lifecycle stages based on their resonance within specific social movement frames. We have presented a framework that shows how diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational social movement frames affect social movement–driven businesses across social movement stages, and their performance implications. We recognize that this is only one step towards unpacking the complicated relationship between social movements and small businesses. Understanding how social movements mobilize small businesses to affect social change, harnessing the engine powering our economy to help address social problems, shows how small businesses can contribute as a powerful drive for social change when movements come to main street.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our Associate Editor Mike Pfarrer and two anonymous reviewers for their useful guidance and insights. We also want to thank Anne Smith, Kisha Lashley, Andréa Hodge, and participants in seminars or presentations at the University of Tennessee, the 2021 Seminar in Social Entrepreneurship, and the 2024 Southern Management Association Annual Conference for their developmental comments on earlier manuscript drafts.
