Incumbent entry modes and entry timing in sustainable niches: The plant-based protein transition in the United States, Netherlands, and United Kingdom

While literature on sustainability transitions has generally portrayed incumbent firms as reluctant to engage in sustainable niches and primarily employing strategies that aim to limit niche growth, practice offers many examples that contradict this. In this paper, we mobilize insights from organizational literature, and particularly the concept of entry modes and entry timing from the international business and strategy literature, to investigate incumbent firms’ engagement in sustainable niches through the introduction of new products, collaborative efforts with new entrants, the introduction of new brands, mergers & acquisitions, and investments. We focus on entry modes of incumbent firms, including food firms, meat processors, retailers, and food service firms, in meat substitute markets in the United States (US), the Netherlands (NL), and the United Kingdom (UK). We identify distinct entry mode patterns for the four firm types and that the entry modes of different types of incumbent firms vary in their timing and commitment towards the plant-based meat substitute niche. Contrary to the general consensus stemming from previous literature on incumbent engagement in transitions, our case shows that incumbents proactively engaged with niche products incentivized by economic opportunities stemming from changing consumption patterns, which preceded any regulatory action

Institutional work as a key ingredient of food innovation success: The case of plant-based proteins

In this paper, we use the theory of institutional work to understand how plant-based meat substitutes emerge and successfully diffuse in the context of a dominant meat regime in the United States (US). We observe that institutional factors such as norms, habits, values, and beliefs play a more vital role than previously identified. Therefore, we utilize institutional work theory combined with insights from technological innovation systems to create a holistic understanding of this transition. We study the American plant-based protein industry from 1978 to 2019. We conduct a qualitative event-history analysis based on 2345 events from the Nexis Uni database. We observe that by strategically deploying institutional work strategies aimed at creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions and innovation system-building strategies, innovation system actors created a favorable environment in which meat alternatives can flourish

Institutional work as a key ingredient of food innovation success: The case of plant-based proteins

In this paper, we use the theory of institutional work to understand how plant-based meat substitutes emerge and successfully diffuse in the context of a dominant meat regime in the United States (US). We observe that institutional factors such as norms, habits, values, and beliefs play a more vital role than previously identified. Therefore, we utilize institutional work theory combined with insights from technological innovation systems to create a holistic understanding of this transition. We study the American plant-based protein industry from 1978 to 2019. We conduct a qualitative event-history analysis based on 2345 events from the Nexis Uni database. We observe that by strategically deploying institutional work strategies aimed at creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions and innovation system-building strategies, innovation system actors created a favorable environment in which meat alternatives can flourish