Inaugural lecture

Inaugural lecture by Adjunct Professor Mary Ann Glynn

Constructing a New Market Category: Identity, Legitimation and Entrepreneurship in Satellite Radio, 1990-2005

Professor Mary Ann Glynn holds the Joseph F. Cotter professorship and is currently the Research Director of the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. By courtesy, she also serves as professor of sociology at Boston College and has served on the faculties of Yale University, Emory University, and the University of Michigan. Her research interests are at the intersection of micro-level cognitive processes (such as learning, creativity, and intelligence) and cultural influences (social norms, institutional arrangements, and status affiliations) on identity, symbolism, and organizational leadership.

Professor Glynn’s research has been published in many of the leading journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Marketing, and Poetics: International Journal of Empirical Research on Art, Media, and Literature, and numerous edited books.

In 2008, Professor Glynn was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Management. She is nationally elected Program Officer for the Academy of Management, Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division, and serves on the editorial board of Organization Science.

In the inaugural lecture Professor Glynn describes how the meaning of a new market category is constructed through the claims and perceptions of entrepreneurial organizations and interested audiences. Using the emergence of satellite radio as a case, the lecture focuses on the identities, linguistic framing and affiliations of the entrepreneurial organizations and the attention and valuations of interested audiences. The case suggests that market category legitimation is a pivotal point that shifts organizational and audience referents from the category as a whole to the distinctive organizational members.

Arranged by:

Department of Organization