Burçak Ertimur & Gokcen Coskuner-Balli

Navigating the Institutional Logics of

Markets: Implications for Strategic
Brand Management
Adopting an institutional theoretic framework, this article examines the evolution and competitive dynamics of
markets composed of multiple practices, beliefs, and rule systems. The 30-year historical analysis of the U.S. yoga
market illustrates the coexistence of spirituality, medical, fitness, and commercial logics. Using data gathered
through archival sources, netnography, in-depth interviews, and participant observations, the authors link shifting
emphases on institutional logics and their sustenance to institutional entrepreneurs’ accumulation and transmission
of cultural capital, strategies to legitimize plural logics, distinct branding practices, and contestations among the
pervading logics. The study offers a managerial framework for managing conflicting demands of logics, conveying
brand legitimacy, and creating a coherent brand identity in plural logic markets; in addition, it develops a theoretical
account of links between institutional logics, competitive dynamics, and market evolution.

I
Keywords: institutional logics, market evolution, strategic branding, competition, yoga

nstitutional theory posits that people and organizations
exist within larger institutional environments with taken-
for-granted social, cultural, and symbolic meaning sys-
tems that define their social reality. These environments are
subject to “logics,” symbolic and material organizing prin-
ciples that direct and circumscribe thoughts, decisions, and
behaviors of people and organizations through a “socially
constructed, historical pattern of material practices,
assumptions, values, beliefs and rules” (Thornton and Oca-
sio 1999, p. 804; see also Friedland and Alford 1991). Insti-
tutional logics are important for understanding market
dynamics because changes in logics are fundamental to
conceptualizations of market evolution (Dunn and Jones
2010; Reay and Hinings 2009; Thornton, Ocasio, and
Lounsbury 2012). Marketing researchers studying the evolu-
tion of markets have focused primarily on markets that are
organized by a dominant institutional logic, conceptualizing
evolution in terms of replacement of logics. Replacement of
logics occurs when a dominant logic that drives market
practices is abandoned and another logic takes its place; thus,
even if two or more logics exist in the market at the same
time, a dominant logic ultimately prevails. For example,
Vargo and Lusch (2004) examine how the field of market-
Burçak Ertimur is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Silberman College of
ing moved away from a firm-centric and goods-dominant
logic to a consumer-centric and service-dominant logic
focused on cocreation of value between firms and con-
sumers. More recently, Humphreys (2010a, b) has shown
how gambling became associated with legitimate frames
such as business and wealth and disassociated with illegiti-
mate frames such as crime.
Exceptions include Giesler’s works (2008, 2012) on the
dynamics of music downloading and self-enhancement
markets, which showcase the coexistence of competing log-
ics. Giesler examines how rivalry of logics results in con-
testations between market actors and ultimately leads to
changes in practices in both markets. Indeed, there are
many other examples of markets in which multiple and, at
times, conflicting logics prevail for a lengthy period of time
and prescribe appropriate behavior, decisions, and practices
for market actors. For example, the care and science logics
have coexisted in the health care market since the beginning
of the twentieth century. The science logic is embedded in
knowledge generated through scientific research, and it
manifests in practice in terms of innovative procedures and
treatments. The care logic is rooted in holistic, preventive
patient care by which compassionate physicians strive to
improve the quality of their patients’ lives (Dunn and Jones
2010). Notably, these logics provide multiple and, from
time to time, conflicting prescriptions to stakeholders in the
market. Alternatively, consider the profession of architec-

ture, with long-existing aesthetics and efficiency logics

Business, Fairleigh Dickinson University (e-mail: bertimur@fdu.edu). Gok-

(Thornton, Jones, and Kury 2005), and the academic mar-

cen Coskuner-Balli is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Argyros School of
Business and Economics, Chapman University (e-mail: balli@chapman.

ket, with the logics of research and teaching. Plural logic

edu). The authors thank Fevzi Balli, Steven Chen, Yonca Ertimur, Eileen

markets do not constitute a new phenomenon. Yet extant

Fischer, Mary C. Gilly, Ashlee Humphreys, Darcy F. Kamal, Lisa Peñaloza,

market research has not addressed the processes through

and participants at the Anthropology of Markets and Consumption confer-

which multiple logics are created and sustained in markets

ence for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article. They

and the implications for strategic brand management. Like-

are grateful for the guidance and helpful remarks of the JM review team.
Robert Kozinets served as area editor for this article.

© 2015, American Marketing Association Journal of Marketing

ISSN: 0022-2429 (print), 1547-7185 (electronic) 40 Vol. 79 (March 2015), 40–61
wise, we lack a theoretical understanding of the competitive
dynamics in the evolution of markets, wherein multiple
market actors strategically respond to demands of plural
logics and rivalry among them.
Focusing on the evolution of markets with plural logics,
our goals in this article are to (1) track changes in logics
and identify factors that drive these shifts and (2) examine
how brands confront plural logics and shape the competi-
tive dynamics of markets. Understanding how and why log-
ics may shift and yet coexist can help managers navigate
institutionally complex environments. In dominant logic
markets, brand managers would be advised to gain and sus-
tain legitimacy through institutional isomorphism—that is,
by aligning brand strategy with the dominant set of mean-
ings and practices (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Holt 2002).
Plural logic markets, however, circumscribe brands within
multiple belief systems and normative as well as cultural
orders and may impose multiple identities and disparate
demands on them. While individual constituencies may
want brands to attend to their needs and focus on their
beliefs, brands may need to symbolize their commitment to
the norms, values, and beliefs of multiple social systems.
Brand managers may select and prioritize institutionally
conferred brand identities. Yet, because their actions may be
observed and coevaluated by stakeholders who subscribe to
diverse logics, they may not be able to completely compart-
mentalize and validate these identities. Thus, institutionally
complex environments can create tensions and potential for
incoherence, fragmentation, and goal ambiguity within
firms (Kraatz and Block 2008).
How do brands address multiple and, at times, conflict-
ing demands of plural logics? What kinds of strategies
should brand managers adopt to convey legitimacy for their
actions and create a coherent brand identity in plural logic
markets? To shed light on these questions, we use institu-
tional theory to investigate the evolution of the U.S. yoga
market with a close look at the strategies of prominent
brands. Yoga is associated with a multiplicity of definitions,
beliefs, and practices owing to its encounters with different
worldviews, goals, and predispositions of audiences as it
diffused to the Western world (De Michelis 2005, 2008;
Singleton and Byrne 2008). In addition to recognizing its
deep roots in Hindu spiritualism, Western appropriation
also inscribed yoga within the medical and fitness domains
(Askegaard and Eckhardt 2012; De Michelis 2008). Schol-
ars allude to this plurality in their examinations of the tra-
jectory of the U.S. yoga market (Albanese 2007; Goldberg
2010; Syman 2010). Today, 20.4 million Americans prac-
tice yoga, up from 4.3 million in 2001. They spend $10.3
billion a year on yoga classes and products, including
equipment, clothing, vacations, and media, constituting an
increase of 80% in just four years (Yoga Journal 2008,
2012). The U.S. yoga market density has been increasing,
with yoga enterprises rising from 14,058 to 26,506 and the
number of employers increasing from 58,525 to 112,890
during the 2004–2013 period. Although there is a trend
toward industry consolidation, market share concentration
remains low, with the top four companies controlling less
than 5% of the market (Newsom 2013). The fragmented
nature of the market enables us to examine strategies of
multiple brands rather than focusing on one dominant actor
and/or regulative regime (cf. Giesler 2008, 2012).
It is valuable to study the dynamics of plural logic mar-
kets given some of the key oversights of prior accounts of
market evolution. For example, one theoretical approach to
understand market evolution treats market creation as a
legitimization process. Humphreys’s (2010a) seminal study
on the casino gambling industry documents the framing
strategies managers adopt to legitimize gambling. Giesler
(2012, p. 56) shows that in new product markets, legitimi-
zation is a brand-mediated process whereby the market
evolves through a “progressive sequence of contestations
between the brand images promoted by the innovator and
the doppelgänger brand images promoted by other stake-
holders.” These theorizations are useful for understanding
market dynamics in contexts in which powerful institutional
actors (e.g., managers, pioneer brands) drive dominant
meanings and practices that shape market dynamics. How-
ever, they are less applicable in institutionally complex con-
texts in which multiple actors and brands advocate different,
sometimes competing logics that prevail in the marketplace.
Another seminal theorization of market evolution
comes from Giesler’s (2008) analysis of the music industry.
Giesler introduces the notion of the marketplace drama to
reveal the unfolding tensions between consumers and pro-
ducers who are embedded in opposing logics in the war on
music downloading. In this market, the logic of social utili-
tarianism encourages sharing, while the possessive individ-
ualism logic emphasizes owning of creative goods and
ideas. As consumers shared music through Napster, they
acted on the utilitarian perspective to legitimize download-
ing practices, whereas the record industry engaged the logic
of possessive individualism to delegitimize music sharing.
The marketplace drama between consumers and producers
ultimately reached a new, yet temporary, consensus under-
lying exchange structures such as Apple’s commercial
downloading platform iTunes. Giesler’s (2008) perspective
recognizes the opposing logics that circumscribe market
actors’ (producers vs. consumers) actions; however, it does
not address competitive market dynamics and, again, is
more readily applicable in contexts in which relatively few
actors define legitimacy.
A third approach conceptualizes market evolution as a
consumer-driven process (Martin and Schouten 2014;
Scaraboto and Fischer 2013). Examining the emergence of
the minimoto motorcycle market, Martin and Schouten
(2014) explore how consumers draw from the market logic
to develop new products and market infrastructures. Simi-
larly, Scaraboto and Fischer’s (2013) study of “frustrated
fatshionistas” documents how the stigmatized group of
plus-sized consumers appeals to, rather than undermines,
the coexisting logics of the market and art in the field of
fashion to seek greater choice from mainstream marketers.
These studies are relevant to our context because they high-
light institutional entrepreneurs’ ability to shape markets.
However, they are more pertinent for markets in which con-
sumers initiate or drive market evolution and in which there
are no apparent tensions between the logics in the field.
Navigating the Institutional Logics of Markets / 41
 A fourth theoretical perspective for understanding how
markets evolve entails examining their competitive dynam-
ics (Achrol 1991; Lambkin and Day 1989; Soberman and
Gatignon 2005; Uslay, Altintig, and Winsor 2010). Drawing
from ecological resource partitioning theory (Carroll 1985),
this stream of research examines the competitive dynamics
among generalist firms (i.e., firms that serve the general
market with a full line of offerings) and specialist firms
(i.e., firms that focus on a niche market with a differentiated
product or narrow line of offerings). Resource partitioning
theory predicts that as markets mature and become more
concentrated, the death rate (birth rate) of generalists
increases (decreases), and the death rate (birth rate) of spe-
cialists decreases (increases). Studies in this area have
empirically demonstrated how the composition of markets
evolves toward a symbiotic relationship between generalists
and specialists as generalists establish themselves at the
center of the market and leave peripheral resource spaces
for specialists (Carroll 1985; Carroll and Swaminathan
2000; Swaminathan 2001). Whereas the resource partition-
ing theory explains competitive structure of markets, it does
not attend to how generalist and specialist firms may legiti-
mize their actions in plural logic markets. Thus, although
we remain sensitized to the insights of this theory, we use
institutional theory to uncover market actors’ strategies in
dealing with plural logics.
Organizational Fields, Institutional
Logics, and Market Evolution
Adopting the institutional theory lens, we view markets as
organizational fields that comprise “the totality of actors
and organizations involved in an arena of social or cultural
production and the dynamic relationships among them”
(DiMaggio 1979, p. 1463). Organizational fields consist of
“organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recog-
nized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and
product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organi-
zations that produce similar services and products”
(DiMaggio and Powell 1983, p. 148). Building on Bour-
dieu’s (1984) conceptualization of fields as social arenas of
conflict, organizational fields give attention to social rela-
tions among actors who pursue their interests and defend
their turf (Scott 2001). Institutional logics set the rules of
the game that shape the cognition and behavior of social
actors in organizational fields (DiMaggio 1979). They pro-
vide organizing principles, vocabularies of motive, and
senses of self and identity to market actors, who can then
further elaborate, manipulate, and use institutional logics to
their own advantage (Friedland and Alford 1991). While
providing resources for agency and change, institutional
logics also constrain action because their taken-for-granted
nature prevents actors from thinking and acting outside the
logics’ boundaries (Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury
2012).
Organizations are embedded in high-order societal log-
ics as well as field-level logics (Friedland and Alford 1991;
Thornton and Ocasio 1999). The major institutions of soci-
ety (e.g., the market, state, family, professions, religion)
42 / Journal of Marketing, March 2015
each prescribe unique organizing principles, practices, and
symbols that set societal logics and influence behaviors of
people and organizations. Logics also operate at the field
level, creating rules, meanings, and “valuation orders that
structure the decision making and the practices of the play-
ers in a product market” (Thornton and Ocasio 1999, p.
805). Logics at the society and field levels are not always in
agreement with one another. For example, in the health care
field, the institutional order of the profession may focus on
quality of care to patients, whereas the market logic may
focus on cost-effective treatment (Moorman 2002). Even
within the same profession, conflicting institutional logics
may differentially shape actors’ choices and behavior. In the
medical profession, for example, the quality of health care
is defined in terms of innovative diagnostic and therapeutic
treatments according to the science logic and physicians’
clinical skills and preventative care according to the care
logic (Dunn and Jones 2010). Often, such incompatibilities
among logics result in tensions that serve as triggers for
field evolution (Friedland and Alford 1991; Thornton,
Jones, and Kury 2005).
In some fields, evolution takes the form of replacement
of logics; a dominant logic driving field-level practices is
abandoned for another to take its place (Dunn and Jones
2010). For example, in higher-education publishing, a mar-
ket logic replaced an editorial logic (Thornton and Ocasio
1999). In finance, a market logic replaced a regulatory logic
(Lounsbury 2002). In French gastronomy, a nouvelle cui-
sine logic usurped its classical counterpart (Rao, Monin,
and Durand 2003). In other fields, however, plural logics
coexist for extended periods of time, especially when (1)
there are no unified goals and regulatory or professional
frameworks to set standards, (2) associated practices diffuse
into multiple local contexts and create local variation in
logics, and (3) organizations garner support from multiple
fields (Purdy and Gray 2009; Reay and Hinings 2009). The
institutionalization of logics through different mechanisms
(e.g., journals, universities) as well as contestations among
market actors for status and valuation orders can also fuel
the coexistence of multiple logics. The health care field, for
example, remained heterogeneous over time despite shift-
ing emphases on the science and care logics as public health
schools, medical schools, academic physicians, and practic-
ing professionals attempted to advance their own
approaches to medicine (Dunn and Jones 2010; Thornton
and Ocasio 1999).
How can organizations manage multiple institutional
logics? Early institutional research emphasizes loose cou-
pling (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Weick 1976) and compro-
mising (Oliver 1991) as useful strategies to reconcile multi-
ple logics. In contrast to rational or tight clusters, loose
coupling entails assembling organizational elements (e.g.,
positions, offices, rewards, sanctions) in soft structures
through informal coordination, avoidance of detailed
inspection, and performance of activities “beyond the
purview of managers” (Meyer and Rowan 1977, pp. 57–
58). This strategy insulates practices that are guided by con-
tradictory logics from one another (Weick 1976). By pre-
serving the autonomous identity of organizational elements,
loosely coupled systems allow for localized adaptation, pre-
vent diffusion of defective elements across the organization,
and reduce the cost of coordination among actors (Weick
1976). However, they may allow for divergent goals to per-
sist within the larger organization and generate deep-rooted
contradictions in institutionally complex environments
(Kraatz and Block 2008). Alternatively, the strategy of com-
promising aims to create an acceptable balance between
conflicting logics (Oliver 1991). For example, microfinance
organizations compromise between the conflicting demands
of the banking logic, which focuses on profit maximization,
and the development logic, which focuses on the welfare of
poor consumers by setting interest rates at an intermediate
level. Yet compromising may not allow organizations to
gain the support of diverse institutional referents and may
not be actionable when logics endorse competing goals
(Pache and Santos 2013).
Recent institutional theory research has proposed an
alternative to loose coupling and compromising. Organiza-
tions that incorporate elements from different institutional
logics may succeed at managing diverse demands of plural
logic fields (Battilana and Dorado 2010; Greenwood et al.
2011; Pache and Santos 2013). By enacting a combination
of activities drawn from each logic, organizations can
secure endorsement from a wide range of field-level actors.
Nonetheless, the institutional logics that firms combine
might not be compatible with one another; they may create
challenges in maintaining organizational legitimacy regard-
ing important institutional referents (Greenwood et al.
2011). Organizations face an early challenge of creating a
common organizational identity that strikes a balance
between the logics they combine. For example, in the case
of microfinance organizations in Bolivia, Battilana and
Dorado (2010) show that the formulation of hiring and
socialization policies was crucial in creating a balance
between the development and banking logics. The organiza-
tion that hired people who were not steeped in either of the
logics was able to evade logic tensions and identity
schisms. In contrast, the competing organization that hired
employees who were carriers of either the development or
the banking logic suffered from polarization of its members
into subgroups.
Pache and Santos (2013, p. 994) illustrate that organiza-
tions adopt a selective coupling strategy to incorporate ele-
ments from different institutional logics and to internally
manage potential mismatches among the logics they com-
bine. Selective coupling entails “the purposeful selection of
practices among a pad of competing alternatives” (Pache
and Santos 2013, p. 994). For example, the work integration
social enterprises (i.e., private organizations in France that
provide long-unemployed people with job opportunities by
training) are embedded in competing social welfare and
commercial logics, relying on market-based values to
achieve a social mission. These logics pose distinct
demands on organizational goals and forms, governance
mechanisms, and sources of professional legitimacy. The
authors show that organizations in the field followed spe-
cific patterns of selective coupling depending on their back-
ground and origin. For example, organizations that came
from a commercial sector background enacted the social
welfare logic in their practices more so than organizations
that were founded by actors from the social welfare sector.
Given that a predominant social mission guided the field,
this pattern of strategic coupling allowed organizations with
a commercial origin to offset their initial lack of legitimacy
and gain acceptance. Those with a social origin drew more
freely from both commercial and social welfare logics
because they had garnered a priori legitimacy by virtue of
their backgrounds.
In summary, prior work on organizational fields and
institutional logics has presented valuable insights for
examining market dynamics. Markets are subject to both
society- and field-level institutional logics, and multiple
field-level logics can pervade markets for lengthy periods
of time. Plural institutional logics capture complexity of
markets, and their shifts help us understand institutional
change and, thus, market evolution. Institutional logics pro-
vide a link between institutional structure and individual/
organizational action as well as ideology and practice. Ide-
ology constitutes the symbolic component of logics, and
institutional logics make this unobservable part of institutional
orders visible through their material manifestations in orga-
nizational structures and practices (Friedland 2009). Brands,
like organizations, are exposed to plural and, at times, com-
peting logics; they need to develop strategies to navigate
the demands of plural logics as well as create and sustain
their legitimacy and identity. Institutional logics shape man-
agers’ strategic choices by moderating “the attention of
organizations in making strategic decisions” (Thornton,
Ocasio, and Lounsbury 2012). Thus, we direct our attention
to how market actors mobilize institutional logics to pursue
their interests and thereby contribute to the competitive
dynamics and evolution of the U.S. yoga market.
Methodology
Data Collection
We used several types of sources to collect data for this
study. For a list of source types and examples of each type,
see Table 1.
Archival data. We collected data from a variety of
archival sources to construct an analytical narrative of the
logics guiding the yoga market. To study the evolution of
logics constituting the market over time, we examined
newspaper articles about yoga. We selected two of the lead-
ing daily newspapers in the United States that hold
extended historical archives and are among the top ten
newspapers in terms of circulation and reach (Edmonds et
al. 2012; MondoTimes.com 2013). We collected articles
with the word “yoga” in the headline and the lead paragraph
from The New York Times (n = 868) and The Washington
Post (n = 604) published between 1980 and 2012. We begin
our data collection in 1980 because the 1980s coincide with
the increasing diffusion, legitimization, institutionalization,
and branding of yoga. These data served as a starting point
in forming a historical trajectory of the market and identify-
ing influential market actors. We supplemented these data
Navigating the Institutional Logics of Markets / 43
 TABLE 1
Data Sources
A: Archival Data
Number of Articles,
Types of Sources Exemplary Sources Books, or Reports
Newspapers The New York Times, The Washington Post 1,472
Classical texts and books The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America 14
Magazines articles Yoga Journal, Origin Magazine 166
Secondary interviews The Today Show (NBC), National Public Radio 38
Industry reports Yoga Journal’s “Yoga in America” market study 28

B: Interview Data
Pseudonym Gender Training
Gloria Female Jivamukti Yoga
Melissa Female CorePower Yoga
Dana Female YTTP Power Yoga
Stan Male Dharma Yoga
John Male Jivamukti Yoga

C: Observational Data
Type of Class Description Engagement
Jivamukti Yoga A fitness-oriented brand of yoga that heavily integrates spiritual Three years of
elements such as chanting participant observation
Dharma Yoga A spiritually oriented brand of yoga that focuses on physical/emotional Three years of
well-being through breathing exercises, devotional music, and meditation participant observation
Power Yoga A fitness-oriented style of yoga adapted from the traditional Ashtanga Three years of
Yoga participant observation
Hot Yoga A fitness-oriented style of yoga that is performed in heated rooms for One year of
additional health benefits participant observation

D: Netnographic Data
Types of Sources Exemplary Sources Number of Comments
Newspaper articles The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times 283
Blogs CNN’s Belief Blog, Elephant Journal, The Washington Post’s On Faith Blog 1,290
Websites Hindu American Foundation, Yogatruth.org, Bikramyoga.com 67
Magazines The Economist, Open Magazine, Yoga Journal 176

with the number of books in English that were published
within the same time frame that contained the word “yoga”
as a keyword in the WorldCat network of library content.
We used this bibliographic database, which categorizes
each book under descriptive topics, to assess shifting
emphases on the logics in the market.
Second, to further identify and catalog historical events
that highlight different logics; to discover yoga brands and
their unique missions, goals, and practices; to understand
framings of yoga that exist in popular discourse; and to
observe competitive dynamics and trends in the market, we
immersed ourselves in additional sources of archival data.
We read classical books such as The Yoga Sutras of Patan-
jali, Bhagavad Gita, Autobiography of a Yogi, and Light on
Yoga, which were written by influential gurus, widely
adopted in yoga teacher trainings, and considered central by
historians to the discourses of modern yoga practitioners.
For example, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is an ancient
text, estimated to be composed sometime between 5000 B.C.
and 300 A.D., that forms the basis of classical yoga against
which contemporary forms are legitimized (Singleton
2008). Similarly, Bhagavad Gita was written around 200
B.C. and is universally considered relevant in articulating
the cornerstones of contemporary forms of yoga (De
Michelis 2008). Autobiography of a Yogi has sold more
than four million copies and was written by Paramahansa
Yogananda, who is regarded as one of the most influential
gurus of the twentieth century to settle in the United States
(Goldberg 2010). Finally, Light on Yoga, by B.K.S. Iyengar,
is viewed as the global standard reference on physical yoga
(De Michelis 2005). We also read books on the history of
modern/postmodern yoga, including The Subtle Body: The
Story of Yoga in America, A History of Modern Yoga, and
Yoga in the Modern World: Contemporary Perspectives;
books that represent prevalent brands, such as Jivamukti
Yoga: Practices for Liberating Body and Soul and Bikram
Yoga: The Guru Behind Hot Yoga Shows the Way to Radiant
Health and Personal Fulfillment; and recent popular publi-
cations that tap into some of the key conflicts among the
logics of the market, such as The Science of Yoga: The Risks

44 / Journal of Marketing, March 2015

and the Rewards and Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the
Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive
Yoga.
Other archival sources consisted of industry reports on
the trends and statistics pertaining to the yoga market, web-
sites of yoga brands, and secondary interviews with influen-
tial market actors that were frequently mentioned in our data
set of archival newspaper articles. Regarding the interviews,
we primarily focused on founders of yoga brands and col-
lected interviews that were published in print media or aired
on radio/television. Specialty magazines such as Yoga Jour-
nal were especially resourceful for this process and enabled
us to locate articles by using search terms such as
“Bikram,” “Jivamukti,” “entrepreneurs,” and “innovators.”
Participant observation. Between 2009 and 2012, we
participated in various types of yoga classes, taking field
notes on the activities in these classes and observing multi-
ple logics in practice. We selected classes that represented
different styles and brands of yoga and that were offered in
diverse venues such as local yoga studios, branded yoga
chains, and fitness centers. For example, we attended Jiva-
mukti Yoga, a brand that is heavily embedded in the spiritu-
ality logic and integrates traditional spiritual elements such
as Sanskrit chanting and devotional music into its classes.
We participated in Power Yoga classes, an athletic style of
yoga adapted from the traditional Ashtanga Yoga that repre-
sents the fitness logic of the field. We attended Power Yoga
classes that were offered in fitness centers as well as in
branded yoga chains such as CorePower Yoga. We con-
ducted participant observations in Hot Yoga classes, rooted
in the medical logic of the field, including those that are
branded as Bikram Yoga and CorePower Yoga. Hot Yoga
consists of a series of breathing exercises and physical
poses, performed in heated rooms to induce detoxifying
sweat. We also attended a series of classes offered in yoga
studios and fitness centers. In these classes, we asked the
instructors about their training and how they would catego-
rize the style of yoga that they were teaching. These partici-
pant observations exposed us to the distinct practices, goals,
beliefs, and rules that permeated the market.
In-depth interviews. We established contacts with certi-
fied yoga instructors from diverse training backgrounds and
conducted five in-depth interviews (McCracken 1988) that
lasted 60 to 90 minutes. The interviews were taped and
transcribed verbatim, resulting in 80 single-spaced pages of
text. The interviews began with questions about partici-
pants’ backgrounds, how they started practicing yoga, and
what yoga means to them. Then, the conversation focused
TABLE 2
Dictionary Words and Agreements
Logic Examples
Spirituality Chanting, devotion, god, guru
Medical Disease, injury, treatment, doctor
Fitness Exercise, gym, workout, athlete
Commercial Fashion, pants, copyright, commercial
aAlpha is the percentage agreement of three coders on dictionary words in the category.
on their training, teaching methods, and perceptions of mar-
ket practices of yoga in the United States. We probed for
underlying goals of the yoga practices they teach and their
means of achieving them (e.g., verbal instructions, hands-
on adjustments, sequencing of poses, classroom scripts,
rules).
Netnography. To understand the tensions that resulted
from the shifts in logics in the market and to tap into the
efforts and views of market actors in sourcing and making
sense of these contradictions, we conducted an observa-
tional netnography (Kozinets 2006). We identified the key
tensions throughout our archival newspaper data set and
tracked relevant online sources (forums, blogs, newspapers,
and trade journals) that featured related discussions. This
data set amounted to approximately 1,800 comments and
703 pages of text.
Data Analysis
Stage 1. We began our analysis by qualitatively analyz-
ing New York Times newspaper articles and a select set of
Washington Post articles, coding for logics and their charac-
teristics. We paid attention to the beliefs, values, and rules
that constituted the practice of yoga along with its symbolic
representations. We supplemented this analysis with an
open coding of the classical texts, books on the history of
yoga, and the recent popular publications (Strauss and
Corbin 1990). The three field-level logics of spirituality,
medicine, and fitness and a society-level commercial logic
and their characteristics emerged as a result of this analysis.
Then, following the procedures set forth by Pennebaker,
Francis, and Booth (2007) and Humphreys (2011), we con-
structed a custom dictionary by generating a list of words
representing each of the four logics (see Table 2). We vali-
dated the dictionary with three judges, asking them to indi-
cate whether each word should be included or excluded
from the dictionary category and to suggest words that they
believed should be included in the category. We finalized
the words in the dictionary using the following criteria: (1)
if two of the three judges agreed to include (exclude) the
word, we added (removed) the word, and (2) if two of the
three judges offered to include a word, we added that word
to the dictionary.
Using this custom dictionary, we conducted an auto-
mated quantitative content analysis of the population of
articles from 1980 to 2009 using the computer program
LIWC (Pennebaker, Francis, and Booth 2007). Although
our qualitative analysis included articles between 1980 and
2012, for the quantitative analysis we focused on the 1980–
2009 period and divided it into three equal time periods.
Words in Category Alphaa
47 92%
64 95%
46 90%
45 96%
Navigating the Institutional Logics of Markets / 45
The computer program generated word counts per each
category per article, giving us an indication of the attention
given to the corresponding logic in public opinion
(Humphreys 2011). We then conducted t-tests to compare
the frequency of words across the three decades and to
assess the significance of shifts in logics.
Stage 2. In the second stage, we qualitatively analyzed
the archival newspaper data following an iterative,
hermeneutic approach (Thompson 1997). We cataloged the
emergence of styles and brands of yoga, central market
actors, institutions, and key events. Through iterations
between this data set and other archival sources such as
books on the history of yoga, websites of yoga brands, and
secondary interviews with market actors, we traced the
styles and brands of yoga to their traditional sources and
founders and the founders’ relations to previous generations
of entrepreneurs, generating an overall picture of prominent
market actors and their lineages.
Stage 3. In the last stage of our analysis, we delved
deeper into the yoga brands, focusing on their practices and
strategies. Combining the archival, interview, and observa-
tional data, we analyzed the missions, goals, and practices
of brands built by first-generation Indian entrepreneurs and
second-generation U.S. entrepreneurs. We analyzed the
netnographic and archival data in light of the positioning of
brands in relation to the logics of the market. In coding the
netnographic data, we immersed ourselves in discussions
generated by different actors within blogs, forums, and arti-
cles to uncover contestations of logics. This analysis
enabled us to identify the main challenges brands faced and
the strategies they adopted in response.
Findings
Plural Logics of the U.S. Yoga Market and
Sources of Their Shifts
Most sources trace the introduction of yoga in the United
States to Swami Vivekananda’s speech representing Hin-
duism at the first World Parliament of Religions in Chicago
in 1893 (De Michelis 2008). During the first half of the
twentieth century, yoga was construed mainly as a spiritual
practice linked to mysticism, magic, and asceticism with
religiophilosophical underpinnings and an emphasis on
Raja yoga (i.e., the mental science) rather than Hatha yoga
(i.e., physical yoga). In the 1960s, a greater understanding
of its health benefits and the diffusion of its physical com-
ponent to the U.S. mainstream led to the demystification of
TABLE 3
U.S. Yoga Market: Logics and Their Characteristics
Spirituality
Goal Enlightenment, self-awareness
Provider identity Guru
Authority Charismatic
Source of authority Philosophy (of religion)
Consumer identity Devotee/worshipper
Type of practice Meditational, denominational
46 / Journal of Marketing, March 2015
yoga (Hyams 1961). In the 1970s, a more scientific under-
standing of yoga emerged, and it became a visible player in
the field of mind–body medicine, particularly as a treatment
method for youth gripped by the drug culture (Claiborne
1972; Roberts 1970). Thus, leading up to the 1980s, the
seeds of different logics were already planted in the market.
Our archival data demonstrate the continued coexis-
tence of the spirituality, fitness, and medical logics in the
U.S. yoga market over the three-decade period of analysis
beginning in 1980 and reveal the different organizing prin-
ciples such as distinct sets of goals, values, and types of
practices that are associated with each of these field-level
logics. The spirituality logic is structured around the goal of
enlightenment, with gurus (i.e., charismatic leaders that
devotees/worshippers look up to in their practice) leading
practitioners in this path. The early gurus that were influen-
tial in the diffusion of the spirituality logic were mostly of
Indian descent. These gurus were later followed by their
U.S. disciples. The spirituality logic is translated into prac-
tice through chanting, meditation, and reading of religious
texts, which, in combination, is aimed to enhance self-
awareness. The medical logic is organized around the health
benefits of yoga. The instructors are perceived as healers
who help patients recover from injuries, manage pain, and
prevent health problems such as high cholesterol and heart
disease. The source of authority for this logic is scientific
studies documenting the effects of yoga on well-being. The
fitness logic emphasizes physical benefits as the goal of
yoga. Led by instructors, students perform yoga to condi-
tion their bodies and occasionally to improve their perfor-
mance in other sports. The proponents of this logic borrow
from kinesiology to legitimize physical benefits and empha-
size postural movements in the practice (see Table 3).
Our quantitative analysis shows that, over the three-
decade time frame of the study, the yoga market was
decreasingly associated with the logic of spirituality and
increasingly associated with the medical and fitness logics.
A societal-level logic—namely, commercial logic—also
emerged from this analysis. This logic emphasizes how the
market became increasingly commoditized, as evidenced by
the rising coverage of yoga brands, gear, clothing, retreats,
and vacations as well as copyrighting and patent and turf
battles among brands (La Ferla 2002; Moran 2006; see
Table 4). The qualitative analysis reveals four factors that,
on the one hand, drive these shifts in logics and, on the
other hand, help sustain their coexistence: (1) cultural capi-
tal of market actors, (2) legitimization of plural logics, (3)
Fitness Medical
Exercise, conditioning Health care, well-being
Instructor; teacher Healer
Business, professional Professional
Sports science Alternative medicine
Student Patient
Postural Psychosomatic
 TABLE 4
Changes in Logics over Time by Period
t-Statistic for Tests of Differences

% of Words/Books per Category 1990–1999 2000–2009 2000–2009

vs. vs. vs.
1980–1989 1990–1999 2000–2009 1980–1989 1990–1999 1980–1989
Spirituality
The New York Times .72 .45 .42 –1.38 –1.49 –.37
The Washington Post .55 .52 .31 –.65 –1.91* –1.46
WorldCat Books 40 39 28 –.25 –5.82** –7.32**
Medical
The New York Times .78 .85 .47 .284 –2.47** –1.01
The Washington Post .74 .98 .95 .58 –1.99* 2.87**
WorldCat Books 11 16 23 3.13** 3.67** 9.12**
Fitness
The New York Times .32 .70 .65 2.05** .63** 3.21**
The Washington Post .63 1.69 .99 2.90** 1.81* .71
WorldCat Books 3.5 7.5 17 6.25** 7.12** 10.54**
Commercial
The New York Times .35 .32 .45 –1.62 2.49** 1.12
The Washington Post .19 .23 .28 .33 1.57 .03
*p < .10.
**p < .05.

emergence of generalist and specialist brands, and (4) ten-
sions among institutional logics.
Cultural capital of market actors. Organizational mem-
bers, occupational groups, and professions are powerful
carriers of institutions, institutional meanings, and logics
(Pache and Santos 2013; Smets and Jarzabkowski 2013).
The analysis of the archival data helped us identify popular
styles of yoga and the key actors that introduced these
styles to the United States. We traced the lineages of these
actors and their socialization into the field in terms of
acquiring and transmitting cultural capital, illustrating their
exposure to multiple logics (see Figure 1). Cultural capital
refers to tastes, skills, knowledge, and practices that are
socially rare and distinctive and that may exist in embodied,
objectified, and institutionalized states (Bourdieu 1986). In
the yoga field, cultural capital includes but is not limited to
achieving a liberated state of being, knowledge in philoso-
phies, teachings and practices of Hinduism, and expertise in
metaphysical health. Such cultural capital is embodied in
wisdom teachings, yogic postures and breathing, and medi-
tation; objectified in books, pamphlets, and DVDs; and
institutionalized in yoga teacher training certificates and
apprenticeships (De Michelis 2008; Singleton and Byrne
2008).
Traditionally, the Indian guru–disciple relationship was
exclusive. Students had to train for an extended period of
time under the guidance of a guru and receive his or her
grace to be initiated into the practice of yoga. In Indic tradi-
tions, this mode of accumulating yogic knowledge through
direct and practical experiences and through which students
became holder of lineages is called parampara. The idea of
parampara marks the importance of the in-person and one-
on-one (vs. dogmatic or textual) form of transmitting cul-
tural capital, lineages as status symbols, and fidelity to a
single guru (Byrne 2014; De Michelis 2008). Although
yoga was disseminated in the United States through the
guru system, our analysis reveals that it was common for
most U.S. students to train with more than one guru and to
receive their guidance without necessarily undergoing tradi-
tional initiation or by proxy. This discipleship became more
democratic and accessible as standardized teaching curric-
ula institutionalized one-to-many knowledge transfer. This
mode of knowledge transmission also reduced the time
period of embodiment necessary to acquire cultural capital
in the field (Goldberg and Singleton 2014).
The analysis of our archival data shows that several of
today’s leading teachers trained in the 1970s and 1980s
with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the founder of Ashtanga Yoga, and
B.K.S. Iyengar, the founder of Iyengar Yoga. Ashtanga
Yoga is unique system of hatha yoga that involves six series
of postures, specific gaze points, ujjayi breathing (i.e., tak-
ing deep inhalations with the mouth closed and exhaling
through the nose while gently constricting the throat), and
contraction of specific muscles; Ashtanga Yoga has an aero-
bic nature because of the practice of vinyasa. In vinyasa
practice, postures are linked to one another through a
repeated series of movements that are performed in a
smooth, dynamic manner and in synchrony with the breath.
This breathing and moving together produces a detoxifying
sweat that cleanses the internal organs and the nervous sys-
tem and purifies the body (Byrne 2014). Also a form of
hatha yoga, Iyengar Yoga emphasizes posture (asana) and
breath (pranayama) performed in perfect musculoskeletal
alignment. Even the flow and diffusion of breath must be
symmetrically distributed to produce the desired physical,
physiological, and psychological effects. De Michelis
(2005, p. 233) sums up Iyengar Yoga with the statement
that “‘perfect’ physical alignment allows ‘perfect’ diffusion

Navigating the Institutional Logics of Markets / 47


K. Pattabhi Jois (U.S., 1975)
%
Developed the style of Ashtanga Yoga,
1948.
David Williams
%
One of the first non-
Indians to be certified in
Ashtanga Yoga.
48 / Journal of Marketing, March 2015
Bryan Kest
%
Founder of Bryan Kest’s
Power Yoga.
David Life and Sharon
Gannon
%
Founders of Jivamukti
Yoga, 1984.
Swami Satchidananda (U.S., 1966)
%
Founder of Integral Yoga, a gentle
physical yoga practice including
breathing, chanting, cleansing
practices, and meditation.
%
Spoke at the National Institutes of
Health, Johns Hopkins Medical
Center, and Baylor College of
Medicine about the Integral Yoga
approach to well-being.
Dr. Dean Ornish
%
World-renowned cardiologist
with groundbreaking studies
on reversing heart disease
with yoga.
%
Founder of Preventative
Medicine Research, 1984.
Indian gurus
FIGURE 1
Some of the Key Actors in the U.S. Yoga Market and Their Lineages
T. Krishnamacharya (1988
1989) Paramahansa Yogananda (U.S., 1920)
%
Developed Krishnamacharya Yoga %
Developed Yogoda system for reducing stress
system composed of rigorous yoga poses and improving health and spiritual power.
joined in repetitive sequences. %
Established the spiritual organization, the Self
Realization Fellowship Center in Los Angeles,
1924.
%
Author of Autobiography of a Yogi, 1946.
Berly Bender Birch Maty Ezraty and Chuck B.K.S. Iyengar (U.S., 1973) T.K.V. Desikachar (U.S., 1976)
%
Coins the term “Power Miller %
Founder of Iyengar Yoga. %
Founded the healing center
Yoga,” 1989. %
Founders of Yoga Works, %
Author of Light on Yoga, Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram
1987. 1966. in India, 1976.
Mary Palmer and Mary Dunn Walt and Magana Baptiste Bishnu Ghosh (U.S., 1938)
Swami Sivananda
%
Palmer brings Iyengar to %
Opened the first yoga school in San %
Internationally renowned body
%
Founder of Sivananda Yoga, which
synthesizes four paths of yoga based Michigan to teach yoga at the Francisco, 1955. builder and yogi.
on the principles of exercise, YMCA. %
Founded the Baptiste Health & Fitness %
Combined his physical culture
breathing, vegetarian diet, positive %
Dunn (daughter of Mary Center with a yoga room, gymnasium, dance training with the Yogoda
thinking, and meditation. Palmer) is the founder of the studio, natural food store, and restaurant, system.
%
Founder of Divine Life Society in first Iyengar Yoga Centers in 1971. %
Founder of Ghosh College of
India with the mission of worldwide San Francisco, San Diego, and Yoga and Physical Culture in
revival of spirituality, 1936. New York. India, 1923.
%
Founder of the Sivananda Ayurvedic
Pharmacy, 1945.
Judith H. Lasater Sherri Baptiste Baron Baptiste Bikram Choudhury (U.S., 1970)
%
Cofounder and President of %
Founder of %
Founder of %
Founder of Bikram Yoga.
California Teachers Baptiste Power of Baptiste Yoga.
Association, 1974. Yoga.
Swami Vishnudevananda Swami Chidananda %
Cofounder of Yoga Journal,
(U.S., 1957) (U.S., 1959) 1974.
%
Founded the International %
Tours the U.S. to spread the
Sivananda Yoga Vedanta message of Divine Life Gregory Gumucio
Centers. Society. %
Founder of Yoga to the People,
Rodney Yee YogaWorks 2006.
%
Founded an online yoga %
Sold to entrepreneurs George
studio, Gaiam Yoga Studio. Lichter and Rob Wrubel, 2004.
%
Created more than 30 video
titles, including Rodney Lee’s
Power Yoga Collection and Ted Grant and Jessica
Power Yoga Total Body Robertson
CorePower Yoga %
Founder of Moksha Yoga, 2004.
Workout DVD with Rodney %
Founded by entrepreneur Trevor
Lee. Tice, 2002.
Sumit Banarjee
Mark Becker Lilias Folan Rama Vernon %
Founder of Sumits Yoga, 2004.
%
Founder of Serenity Natural %
Cofounder of California
Healing Center, New York’s %
Created Lilias, Yoga and You, Teachers Association, 1974 YogaSix
first nonreligious yoga center, a PBS yoga television show, %
Cofounder of Yoga Journal, %
Founded by Bill Koman, former
1975. 1972. 1974. NFL line backer, the President of Corey Kelly and Shiva K.
%
Established New Life %
Founder of Unity in Yoga (now St. Louis commercial developer Madayya
Magazine, 1981. Yoga Alliance), 1982. The Koman Group, 2012. %
Founder of TriBalance Yoga,
%
Founder of Yogaerobics, 2007.
1984.
American gurus Business entrepreneurs
of prana, which automatically results in the perfected condi-
tion of ‘Self-realization.’” In 1987, Maty Ezraty (who
trained with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and B.K.S. Iyengar’s
daughter, Geeta Iyengar) and Chuck Miller (who trained
with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and self-trained in Iyengar Yoga)
opened Yoga Works studio, which offered a variety of yoga
classes as well as workshops featuring celebrated yogis
from around the world. In these classes as well as in the
Yoga Works teacher training program, the poses and
sequences primarily drew from Ashtanga Yoga performed
with vinyasa practice, and the verbal instructions came
from the Iyengar system (Despres 2007), reflecting and
institutionalizing the founders’ cultural capital and embody-
ing plural field logics.
Similarly, when U.S. yogis Sharon Gannon and David
Life established the Jivamukti Yoga brand in 1984, they
integrated their trainings with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and
Swami Sivananda. In our participant observations in Jiva-
mukti classes, instructors open the practice with the chant,
“guru brahma, guru vishnu, guru devo maheshwara, guru
sakshat, param brahma, tasmai sri gurave namaha” (“Our
creation is that Guru, The duration of our lives is that Guru,
Our trials and hardships are that Guru. There is a Guru that
is nearby and a Guru that is beyond the beyond. I offer all
my efforts to the Guru”) (field notes). This chant comes
from the Sivananda tradition and celebrates the myriad of
gurus in one’s life. Embedded heavily in the spirituality
logic, Sivananda Yoga is based on the principles of asana
(poses), pranayama (breathing), savasana (relaxation),
vegetarianism (diet), Vedanta (positive thinking), and
dhyana (meditation) (Schneider 2003; www.jivamuktiyoga.
com). After chanting, the classes proceed with three repeti-
tions of the mantra “om,” which is believed to echo the
vibrations that existed at the birth of the universe. Then, the
intention for the practice is set and students move on to
physical postures performed in a vinyasa style under the
guidance of the instructor. Our interviewee John’s account
of Jivamukti Yoga attests to the pastiche of styles we
observed and illustrates how the brand embodies both the
spirituality and fitness logics:
Well, it’s like an amalgamation of, like, Ashtanga and
Sivananda. You know, it’s like standing poses … just the
basic poses.... We’re required to put in certain poses
within every class. There’s got to be a certain number of
backbends, a certain number of forward bends.... It [Jiva-
mukti] means liberated while living. “Jiva” is the individ-
ual soul, the individual person.... And “mukti” or “mok-
sha” in yoga means liberation,... it has that spiritual aspect
to it. So it’s not just physical exercise. In other words, it’s
like the postures are geared toward the goal of becoming
liberated. Whereas some yoga is just physical. Like you’re
just doing the poses to feel better and there’s no real goal,
you know, other than to feel better.... Jivamukti is more of
a spiritual.... Like, we have to chant om. We chant in the
beginning of class. We close with om. (John, Jivamukti
Yoga Instructor)
Aside from the tendency of U.S. teachers to train with
different gurus, the medium of yogic knowledge transfer
moved away from one-on-one to one-to-many interactions
through the institution of yoga schools and teacher training
programs (Jain 2014; Newcombe 2014). A group of yoga
teachers who wanted to connect and support one another
through education and friendship founded the California
Yoga Teachers Association in 1973. They created a training
program that evolved into the first nationally recognized
two-year yoga teacher training program. This initiative was
followed by several others with varying content and dura-
tions, including the training programs of Yoga Works in
1990 and Bikram Yoga in 1994. The Yoga Alliance, estab-
lished in 1999, set the national standards for yoga teachers
by instituting certification upon completion of 200 hours of
training. The curriculum included workshops on the physi-
cal, philosophical, and medical aspects of yoga, thereby
supporting the institutionalization of multiple logics in the
market. In 2002, the North American Studio Alliance was
created to provide information to yoga professionals on
how to attract and retain customers as well as how to attain
affordable health benefits and liability insurance to help
them navigate the rising commercial logic (www.namasta.
com). Overall, the changes in accumulation of cultural capi-
tal exposed actors to different logics and resulted in an
amalgam of yoga styles, and the changes in transmission of
cultural capital supported the continued presence of plural
logics.
Legitimization of plural logics. Actors’ efforts to make
yoga socially, culturally, and politically acceptable in the
United States shaped the evolution of the market toward an
increasing emphasis on fitness and medical logics. In par-
ticular, we identify two strategic processes—amplification
and extension (Benford and Snow 2000; Humphreys
2010a)—through which market actors highlight assump-
tions, values, beliefs, and rules that support particular logics
and align the symbolic and material organizing principles of
the field with those of other legitimate fields.
Market actors’ reframing of the practice of Ashtanga
Yoga exemplifies the amplification process that provided
cultural cognitive legitimacy for yoga and accentuated the
fitness logic of the field. The literal meaning of Ashtanga is
“eight-limbed yoga,” outlined in The Yoga Sutras of Patan-
jali as yama (ethical precepts), niyama (guidelines for self-
discipline), asana (bodily postures), pranayama (breath
control), phatyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana
(practice of concentration), dhyana (meditation), and
samadhi (self-actualization). In 1989, Berly Bender Birch, a
yoga teacher since the 1970s and a student of Sri K. Pat-
tabhi Jois, coined the term “Power Yoga” to refer to the
Ashtanga style of yoga in her classes. Her book, Power
Yoga, became the best-selling book of 1999 (Hammond
2000). Birch’s intention was to communicate the intensely
physical character of Ashtanga Yoga and make it more
appealing to U.S. consumers by demarcating it from the
more spiritually based practices of the 1970s (Pizer 2012).
How do you teach this system to people at various stages
of development and get them turned on?... If I called it
Ashtanga Yoga, nobody would pay attention, so I called it
Power Yoga. It was a way to let the Westerners know this
practice was a workout for body and mind.... There is
power in yoga; it isn’t just soft chanting and singing and
burning incense and all the preconceptions Americans had
Navigating the Institutional Logics of Markets / 49
 at the time. (Berly Bender Birch, quoted in Schneider
2003, pp. 40–41).
Similarly, Lilias Folas, whose television show Lilias, Yoga
and You drew more than ten million consumers to the prac-
tice in the 1970s, argues,
You don’t have to say everything you know.... Is anything
lost in the translation when we call our classes Power
Yoga or Restore and Renew? If I went to a nursing home
and billed my presentation as Hatha Yoga there’d be no
one there; but if I call it Rest, Relax, and Sleep everybody
comes. So, the answer to the question is nothing gets lost
at all—as long as you know your roots. (Schneider 2003,
pp. 15, 18; see also Hall 1980)
Despite the spiritual elements of Ashtanga Yoga (from
which Power Yoga sprang) and Birch’s original intention to
emphasize both the mind and the body when she adopted
the nomenclature, Power Yoga increasingly became equated
with physical strength and accentuated the fitness logic of
the field. Around the time Birch had coined the term, Bryan
Kest, a student of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and David Williams,
had also begun calling his style of yoga “Power Yoga” and,
shortly afterward, released his Power Yoga videos. Even
though Birch had used the term in her advertising before
Kest, the U.S. patent and trademark office denied her
claims for exclusive use (Marcum 2012). Subsequently,
teachers including Baron Baptiste, Sherri Baptiste, and
Rodney Yee developed their unique interpretations of
Power Yoga and were able to trademark different versions
of the term in establishing their own brands of this style
(Hammond 2000). All of these brands amplified the fitness
logic of the field. For example, Baptiste Power Vinyasa
Yoga was trademarked under “Baptiste Yoga,” incorporating
a unique methodology that provides “individuals and groups
with a means to access the powerful benefits of yoga practice
for themselves, but without the mysticism and new-agey
overtones” (www.baronbaptiste.com). Baron Baptiste’s sis-
ter, Sherri Baptiste, founded “Baptiste Power of Yoga,”
which prioritizes “transformation of the physical body” and
emphasizes benefits such as relief of stress, sculpted mus-
cles, and a sense of calmness (www.powerofyoga.com).
Today, the term “power” refers more to a physical workout
than to spiritual empowerment. This is also clear in one of
our interviewees’ account of her teacher training experience
with the Yoga to the People’s (YTTP) Power Yoga:
That place [YTTP] had nothing to do with spirituality.... I
like their overarching message of yoga should be avail-
able to everyone. And they were talking more about the
physical practice, not so much anything else. ’Cause [this]
was the first place I’ve never “om”-ed. I was there sitting
there waiting to om and they were like, all right, get started.
I’m like, what? Huh? (Dana, Power Yoga Instructor)
Market actors also formed alliances with other fields
and extended material aspects of yoga practices to these
fields in ways that largely reinforced fitness and medical
logics at the expense of spirituality. For example, Mark
Becker, a holistic practitioner, founded the first nonreli-
gious yoga center (Serenity Natural Healing Center) in New
York City in the 1970s. He established the NewLife maga-
50 / Journal of Marketing, March 2015
zine in 1981 as an outlet to guide U.S. consumers to a
healthy mind and body. In 1990, Becker took over as the
organizer of the NewLife Expo, which featured seminars on
health and holistic medicine, including yoga workshops. He
also invented Yogaerobics in 1984, an exercise system that
combined yoga and aerobics. While he promoted Yogaero-
bics as preventing “injury by synthesizing yoga tranquility
with nonimpact aerobics” (Yogaerobics ad in Yoga Journal,
July/August 1988), he maintained that it compensates for
the lack of cardiovascular activity in yoga (McKibben
1984). Similarly, the YogaFit brand was created in 1994 to
address the challenges of teaching yoga in health clubs that
appeal to wider bases of practitioners. By dispensing with
the Sanskrit names of postures and eliminating om-ing and
chanting, YogaFit made yoga user-friendly for those inter-
ested in a secular practice (Colino 2002; Oldenburg 2004).
Yoga classes increasingly became available in fitness facili-
ties as a result of the amplification and extension processes
that heavily supported the fitness logic of the field. Merely
31% of fitness facilities in the United States offered yoga
classes in 1996; this number increased to 85% in 2002. The
number of yoga practitioners at health clubs climbed from
400,000 in 1998 to 2.2 million in 2003, and the average age
of yoga practitioners declined from 41.5 years old in 1998
to 37.1 years old in 2002. By 2002, yoga had become the
third-most-popular class at fitness centers, following per-
sonal and group strength training (Lamb 2006).
Market actors’ collaborations with the medical field
supported the increasing emphasis on medical logic in the
yoga market. The transformation of health care in the
United States with the integration of alternative medicine in
the 1980s played a crucial role in this shift. For example,
Dr. Dean Ornish founded the Preventative Medicine
Research Institute in 1984 and began conducting studies on
meditation and yoga. He was a student of Swami Satchi-
dananda, a prominent promoter of health benefits of yoga.
By 1990, Ornish had already published research document-
ing the role yoga plays, along with dietary and lifestyle
changes, in reversing coronary heart disease (Anjali and
Chaitanya 2003; Goleman 1989). During this decade, the
medical benefits of yoga gained normative as well as regu-
lative legitimacy. Activist organizations such as the Alliance
for Natural Health USA lobbied to push the medical para-
digm to an integrative approach. They helped pass laws that
provided funds to the National Institutes of Health to evalu-
ate alternative medical treatment modalities. With the
founding of the U.S. government’s lead agency for scien-
tific research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine
in 1998, health practitioners, insurance companies, and
employers began to recognize yoga as a treatment form,
which extended its health benefits to a broader range of
consumers (Whitaker 1996). In total, 24% of North Ameri-
can businesses offered alternative medicine coverage in
1997 compared with 8% in 1996 (Sunoo 1999). Oxford
Health Plans became the country’s first managed-care com-
pany to set up its own alternative-medicine group with
plans that covered yoga along with acupuncture and chiro-
practic (Herring 1996). Corporations such as Nike, Apple,
and HBO began offering on-site yoga classes as a regular
employee benefit (Wolfsen 1999). Fannie Mae incorporated
yoga into its Partnership for Healthy Living wellness pro-
gram in 1994 to “detect and prevent disease, enhance pro-
ductivity, and reduce the use of sick leave,” sending a mes-
sage to its employees that it values their happiness and
health (Baker 2001). This territorial expansion of yoga from
leisure domains to the workplace supported the normative
legitimacy of the practice and influenced consumer interest
(Humphreys 2010b). Yoga Journal’s “Yoga in America”
market studies, for example, show that practitioners
increasingly indicated that they were motivated to practice
yoga to improve their overall health (Yoga Journal 2003,
2008).
The shifting emphasis toward the fitness and medical
logics went hand in hand with replacing traditional spiritual
practices with New-Age spirituality. For example, a yoga
studio director explained how the studio’s classes incorpo-
rated spirituality without any religious component: “We
don’t do any chanting because people are not comfortable
with it.... We never use the word ‘God.’ We talk about
energy, we talk about peace, we talk about mindfulness. We
use those New-Agey kinds of words” (Foderaro 2001, p. 1).
Other actors chose to modify spiritual practices by discon-
necting them from their Hindu origins and relinking them
with the religion of their choice. Some churches began
offering yoga classes that incorporated Biblical passages
and Christian reflections along with traditional physical
poses. In these settings, the names of poses were changed,
breathing was referred to as “god’s spirit,” and some even
renamed yoga as “prayer of embodiment” to make it more
appealing to devout Christians (Ly 2006, p. C01).
Emergence of generalist and specialist brands. Supply-
side theories of market evolution acknowledge market
actors’ skills, resources, and order of market entry in deter-
mining competition strategies, and they distinguish general-
ist and specialist firms on the basis of their strategic degree
of focus (Achrol 1991; Lambkin and Day 1989). Generalist
firms often possess scale advantages and differ from spe-
cialist firms in their breadth of focus, targeting heteroge-
neous segments. Specialist firms tend to be smaller in scale
and cater to narrow segments of the market (Carroll 1985).
Our data show that a series of specialist brands emerged in
the market in the 1980s, followed by generalist brands in
the 2000s.
The founders of specialist brands mobilized their yogic
trainings to create hybrid forms of practice that combined
different logics of the field. For example, Gannon and Life,
who had trained with influential gurus such as Sri K. Pat-
tabhi Jois and Swami Sivananda, set out to respiritualize
what had become primarily a physical exercise. They com-
bined elements from the spirituality and fitness logics to
create Jivamukti Yoga as a lifestyle brand that promotes a
conscious way of living (Clyne 2006). In our interviewee
Gloria’s words, Jivamukti Yoga is “an Ashtanga-based prac-
tice.... There’s vinyasa ... you’re moving on the breath,”
which is differentiated from other styles and brands with
regard to “the spiritual elevation part of the practice. The
vegetarianism,... emphasizing the importance of nonvio-
lence” (Gloria, Jivamukti Yoga Instructor). The key tenets of
Jivamukti Yoga serve the overarching goal of “enlightenment
through compassion for all beings” (www.jivamuktiyoga.
com). These tenets are translated into practice by striving to
live a nonviolent, compassionate life; adopting a vegan diet;
protecting animal rights; chanting; setting high intentions
for practice; meditating; deep listening; and studying
ancient yogic teachings.
Bikram Yoga is another exemplary specialist brand
established in the 1980s. Created by Bikram Choudhury,
Bikram Yoga is so physically demanding that it became the
epitome of the fitness logic while also drawing heavily
from elements of the medical logic. Choudhury was
inspired to create his brand after using yoga to recover from
a weightlifting accident and to subsequently treat patients at
hospitals in India. Bikram Yoga consists of 26 yoga pos-
tures selected from the foundational text of The Yoga Sutras
of Patanjali as well as two breathing exercises performed in
sequence over 90 minutes in a room heated to 105 degrees
Fahrenheit (www.bikramyoga.com). Observing the perva-
siveness of physical and medical problems in the United
States such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, Bikram
targeted his brand toward consumers with long-standing
injuries and chronic physical conditions or illnesses
(Choudhury 2007; Houton 2010). He began teaching in the
United States in the 1970s, but it was not until several
decades later that he launched his teacher training program,
trademarked his brand name, and copyrighted his sequence
of poses, making Bikram Yoga the pioneering brand of Hot
Yoga (Syman 2010).
In Bikram Yoga, a regiment of studio design, instructor
conduct, and consumer practice are orchestrated as a strict
prescription for well-being. Carpet is the only approved
flooring in classrooms because it reduces the impact on
joints when moving from posture to posture. The instruc-
tions for the practice are scripted and tightly regulated,
available only to Bikram Yoga–certified instructors: “I
require you to use only this dialogue, unchanged, adding
nothing to it, delivering it clearly and concisely, as a condi-
tion of your continued certification, privilege and permis-
sion to teach Bikram Yoga” (Choudhury 2002). There is no
chanting or music during the class and, except for Choud-
hury himself, teachers are neither allowed to physically
demonstrate the poses nor do hands-on adjustments
(Eustace 2009; www.bikramyoga.com). Rules also regulate
student conduct. Participants are not allowed to drink water
except during advised breaks and are supposed to stay in
the session for the entirety of the 90-minute period.
In spite of the high level of fragmentation in the market,
our analysis indicates that the steady increase in demand
(and, in turn, in profit margins) within the past decade
(Newsom 2013) has attracted a series of corporate entrepre-
neurs to the yoga market. These entrepreneurs created gen-
eralist brands, which adhere to multiple logics of the field
and employ aggressive growth strategies. Their founders’
familiarity with the practice of yoga is limited to being
casual students of yoga, if at all, without any formal train-
ing. For example, Trevor Tice, who has a business back-
ground in the technology industry, founded CorePower
Navigating the Institutional Logics of Markets / 51
Yoga in 2002. With the goal of his firm becoming the first
true national yoga studio chain, Tice emphasizes building a
“brand” rather than “a cult of personality” around a yoga
style and likens himself to the chief executive officer of
Starbucks: “Howard Schultz created the coffee culture in
America. And we are doing that with yoga” (Schultz 2012,
p. 1). Yoga Works, founded by Maty Ezraty and Chuck
Miller in 1987 and bought by two entrepreneurs, George
Lichter and Rob Wrubel, in 2004, is another prominent
chain-based player. Lichter and Wrubel had previously
worked together at Ask Jeeves International. Their goal was
to use their start-up skills to make yoga accessible to the
masses (Ault 2005). With a strategy that differed from that
of Tice’s, they expanded largely by acquiring existing stu-
dios and now operate 27 yoga studios (Newsom 2013).
Similarly, Bill Koman, whose background is in commercial
development, opened the Yoga Six chain of studios in 2012
with the aim of expanding across the Midwest and the West
Coast. Koman’s brand vision is grounded in providing con-
sistent and high-quality yoga classes to “people who want
to try yoga or have tried it but they don’t know where their
comfort zone is” (Kumar 2012).
Currently, CorePower Yoga is the market’s largest studio
chain, with 86 studios in 12 states, and is expected to double
the number of its studios in the next five years (Newsom
2013). CorePower’s mission is “to share their authentic pas-
sion for yoga and healthy living to inspire everyone to live
their most extraordinary life,” believing in “the physical,
mental and spiritual benefits of yoga” and striving to
“increase awareness and widespread adoption of yoga by
making yoga accessible to everyone through a variety of
yoga styles for beginners and more advanced yoga students,
and class times to meet any schedule” (corepoweryoga.
com). Most CorePower Yoga classes are offered in heated
rooms to increase heart rate and calorie burn, which con-
trasts with Bikram Yoga’s emphasis on heat to prevent
injuries and increase flexibility. CorePower offers a variety
of classes, including Hot Fusion (combination of Hot Yoga
with Power Yoga for detoxification and strength building),
Yoga Ryder (combination of yoga and spinning), and Yoga
Sculpt (yoga and weight training), in addition to different
levels of heated Power Yoga. “Classes are offered to the
tone of upbeat popular American/modern music while tran-
sitioning into slower meditation music (sometimes instru-
mental) at the end of the 60-minute sessions when students
are asked to calm down their heart rates, stretch, and take
savasana (also known as the corpse pose during which
practitioners lie still on the ground)” (field notes).
Though designed with an emphasis on physical fitness,
most CorePower Yoga classes integrate spirituality logic
through New-Age scripts that are devoid of references to
Hinduism but filled with invitations for self-actualization.
Instructors often begin the classes with a vignette from their
own lives, setting the intention for the session—for
example,
Welcome everyone. So, this weekend I was going through
my closet to set stuff that I don’t wear. And I was hanging
on to things, maybe I’ll wear this and that. My friend told
me, “I have known you for three years and I have never
52 / Journal of Marketing, March 2015
seen you wear that, just let go.” So I want you to think of
things that you hang on to. What are things we hang on to
in our lives and don’t serve us well? (field notes)
Whether the theme revolves around simple living, nur-
turing a positive attitude, or exercising self-control, students
are invited to fulfill a better version of themselves through
their practice at CorePower Yoga. They are reminded of the
theme when resting in savasana pose at the end of the prac-
tice, during which instructors walk around with lavender
oil, filling the room with a pleasant scent, and give head
massages to students. Students are asked to be respectful of
the savasana pose, and no one is allowed to leave the room
during this time, thus creating a sacred aura for the practice.
The classes end with students sitting in a crossed-leg posi-
tion with hands brought to heart center for final reflections.
The instructors use these final moments to make announce-
ments about merchandise sales or upcoming teacher train-
ing programs available through CorePower Yoga studios
(field notes).
In addition to coupling the fitness and spiritual logics,
CorePower Yoga has also incorporated logics from adjacent
fields (Scaraboto and Fischer 2013). From the design of its
classes and studios to its exchange structure, it has adopted
the dominant service logic in the fitness industry. For exam-
ple, members can attend any CorePower Yoga studio, even
when they travel, and can attend unlimited classes through
the monthly membership model. The brand also offers a
spa-like environment, providing its members with free
products (e.g., shampoo-conditioner, body wash, deodorant,
hair spray) in sleekly designed locker rooms and a lounge
area where they can sit and enjoy snacks and beverages
(field notes).
Tensions among institutional logics. Consistent with
prior research, market actors’ support of different logics has
resulted in both collaboration and competition among logics
of the field (Dunn and Jones 2010; Purdy and Gray 2009;
Reay and Hinings 2009). We identify a series of tensions
that exemplify competition among the spirituality, fitness,
and commercial logics and illustrate how multiple stake-
holders—including practitioners, teachers, brands, advo-
cacy organizations, and the media—play a role in exacer-
bating these tensions, thus sustaining the pluralistic nature
of the yoga market.
The analysis of the archival data reveals that conflicting
institutional prescriptions about the organizing principles of
yoga at the field and society levels contributed to the
decreasing emphasis on the spirituality logic. Specifically,
the spirituality logic’s goal of enlightenment and union with
God (the religious source of authority linked to Hinduism)
and associated practices such as chanting clashed with the
dominant societal logic of Christianity in the United States.
For example, in 1990, a Christian group in Tennessee
protested a government-sponsored yoga class offered in a
local recreational center. The religious group argued,
“People who relax their minds by performing yoga are
opening the door to the Devil” (Goldman 1990, p. 11). To
alleviate this tension, the program director drew attention to
the medical benefits of yoga: “[Yoga] was to involve only
simple stretching and relaxation techniques. We can’t be
promoting religion or anything. It’s strictly for health rea-
sons” (Goldman 1990, p. 11). Yoga classes offered at public
schools were also met with resistance from parents and reli-
gious leaders in states such as Colorado and New York. The
opponents criticized the religious philosophy of the prac-
tice; the use of Sanskrit words; and, at times, the religious
backgrounds of the teachers (Sink 2003). These tensions
paved the way for a shifting emphasis toward the fitness
and medical logics of the field.
Yet the secularization of yoga also constituted an imbal-
ance among the logics of the field. One of the notable push-
backs came from the advocacy organization, the Hindu
American Foundation (HAF). Motivated by the lack of
emphasis on the ultimate spiritual goal of yoga and the con-
scious delinking between Hinduism and yoga, the HAF ini-
tiated a campaign called “Take Back Yoga” in 2010. Subse-
quent media attention resulted in a flurry of debates within
the yoga community (Vitello 2010). Our netnographic
analysis illustrates that proponents of “Take Back Yoga”
were particularly critical of the reduction of yoga to mere
bodily postures as well as branding of the practice that
strayed from its Indian origins:
[Yoga is] precisely what Hinduism about.... Living Life
with daily morality of Dharma (moral law/regulations)
and Karma (performing your duty well). [It’s] unfortunate
[that] Western media distort the root value and its mean-
ing. Sheetal [cofounder of the HAF] just want[s] to spread
awareness ... that Yoga is not just physical, but ... also
spiritual and its roots are from Hinduism. It’s a Fact that
Yoga and Hinduism are ONE. (Nik, January 30, 2011
[12:40 PM], comment on Wes Little, “Fight Emerges over
Yoga’s Religious Roots,” CNN Belief Blog).
We want to tell the true origin of Yoga to every practi-
tioner.... Christians not only took over Yoga … but also
rebranded/morphed/cheated the west using oxymoron[s]
like “Christian Yoga” with a $30 per hour tag on it. (Vijay,
December 6, 2010 [5:53 PM], comment on Suhag A.
Shukla, “The Origins and Ownership of Yoga,” HuffPost
Religion Blog).
The New York Times’s publication of “How Yoga Can
Wreck Your Body” by William J. Broad (2012; adapted
from his book, The Science of Yoga: The Risks and
Rewards) was the tipping point in the growing tensions
between the fitness and spirituality logics. Drawing from
interviews with yoga instructors and medical research, the
article elaborated on the physically damaging aspects of
yoga. It linked the emphasis on fitness logic to increased
ego and competitiveness, which eventually leads to injuries.
Suhag Shukla, the HAF’s managing director, points out
how the occurrences of injuries in yoga contradict the
guidelines posed by the first two limbs of yoga, as outlined
in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali:
But before even stepping onto the mat, it is abundantly
clear that the contortion circus many yoga magazines and
classes appear to be, as well as the instances from which
Broad draws his conclusions, are in direct opposition to
key principles of the first two limbs of yoga—the yama of
ahimsa, meaning the practice of non-hurting, including
oneself, and the niyama of brahmacharya, or the exercise
of moderation and self-control (not just sexual). (Shukla
2012)
The unfolding debate within the yoga community tar-
geted the practices of fitness-oriented styles/brands such as
Power Yoga and Bikram Yoga, which primarily focus on
calisthenics and are disconnected from spiritual develop-
ment. Aseem Shukla, cofounder of the HAF, disapproved of
Bikram Yoga’s positioning, arguing, “Call it exercise. Call
it a good workout. Call it what you like.... But don’t call it
yoga” (Martin 2011). Two Internet commenters note
instructors’ tendency to push practitioners beyond their
means in an uncompassionate manner, causing physical
stress that is in conflict with fundamental yogic principles:
I had signed up for a month of Bikram almost a year ago
to try it out. I ended up hurting my back so bad it took
several months to recover. I blame it on a pushy instructor
and my desire to do well. Usually in yoga I can overcome
my urge to get that hard to reach pose, but this instructor
was kind of aggressive. “Push. push. push. push. PUSH.”
he’d yell. And I would. And I messed up my back.
(Megan, January 11, 2012 [9:02 AM], comment on Chris-
tine Hennessy, “How the NYT Can Wreck Yoga,” blog
post)
Yoga as taught in the USA is almost completely seen as a
physical sport, not a spiritual exercise.... And people get
extremely competitive in the way they practice it—they
all think of themselves as Olympic champs and want to
win the gold medal on day one. Also the way [it’s] taught
in the USA—i.e. astanga [sic] yoga—is apparently not the
traditional classical version, but a beefed up version. So
there you go. Take something out of its cultural context,
eliminate its spiritual form, dress it up as “exercise”, put it
on popular magazine covers, and sell it to the masses. You
[are] going to get a few injuries that way. (Sushma, com-
ment on Alison Pace, “Should You Give Up Yoga?
Experts Respond to the New York Times’ ‘Yoga-Can-
Wreck-You’ Controversy,” AlterNet Personal Health
Blog)
As is evident in Sushma’s account, the increase in the
society-level commercial logic also clashed with the field-
level logic of spirituality that is embedded in values such
as disinterest in worldly goods, compassion, and loving-
kindness (Shakespeare 2006). Bikram Yoga, copyrighted
and patented in 2002, became one of the key targets of this
conflict. Our archival data indicate that as early as 2003, a
discourse around private versus public ownership had
developed in the yoga market and was followed by advo-
cacy efforts to protect the public nature of yoga. Studio
owners, yoga teachers and students, and lawyers who
viewed patenting and copyrighting as violations of the tra-
dition of yoga banded together to form the nonprofit organi-
zation Open Source Yoga Unity. This group argued that the
poses that constitute Bikram Yoga have been in the public
domain for centuries and filed a suit to defeat Choudhury’s
intellectual property claims and to prevent him from com-
ing after yoga studios. Although the dispute was settled out
of court under a nondisclosure agreement (The Economist
2004; Fish 2006), the Indian Government also took a stance
against Choudhury’s branding strategy, viewing it as a form
of piracy and a violation of the spirit of yoga. In 2005,
Navigating the Institutional Logics of Markets / 53
India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library began to
document and digitize yoga postures to serve as a source of
authentic yogic knowledge and to prevent future copyright-
ing incursions (Sinha 2011). These problematizations of
Bikram Yoga were intensified when a former student of
Choudhury founded YTTP, which offered donation-based
classes with the mantra that, in yoga, there are no correct
clothes, proper payment, or glorified teachers and that yoga
is for everyone (www.yogatothepeople.com). When YTTP
also began offering “Traditional Hot Yoga” classes mimick-
ing Bikram Yoga classes, Choudhury sued YTTP for copy-
right infringement (Hoffman 2011). In 2012, the U.S.
Copyright Office released its position on the lawsuit, admit-
ting that prior registrations pertaining to yoga poses were
issued in error and, going forward, “a claim in a compila-
tion of exercises or the selection and arrangement of yoga
poses will be refused registration” (www.federalregister.
gov). Thus, Choudhury’s approach to mobilizing the com-
mercial logic—summarized in his words, “I am doing it
[establishing a brand] in America.... So I am doing big busi-
ness and selling it the American way” (MacGregor 2002)—
was met with normative criticisms and regulatory chal-
lenges. Yet other specialist brands circumvented similar
issues by framing their branding efforts in terms of pure
intentions:
We haven’t created 100 Jivamukti centers. It’s not our
intention to become the Starbucks of yoga and we could.
It wasn’t our intention to make a profit, you could say it’s
a bonus.... I would say as humbly as possible it’s because
of the purity of our intentions that the success has been
manifested. (David Life, cofounder of Jivamukti Yoga,
quoted in MacDonald 2001)
Such a puristic approach enables specialists to justify
their branding practices in line with their authentic identi-
ties. Generalists, in contrast, explicitly emphasize their
business skills and validate their branding efforts in terms
of offering consistent practices and providing access to a
wider range of practitioners because their identities as con-
solidators fit with the commercial logic.
Theoretical and Managerial
Contributions
Recent marketing studies have focused on and conceptual-
ized the creation of new markets as a social legitimization
process mediated by managers, journalists, pioneer brands,
and consumers (Giesler 2012; Humphreys 2010a, b; Martin
and Schouten 2014). Our research offers a new perspective
on market dynamics by linking the evolution of the U.S.
yoga market to changes in its institutional logics and
competitive structure. As socially constructed symbolic and
material organizing principles, institutional logics guide
practices, understandings, and actions of market actors.
Unlike markets that evolve from one logic to another and,
thus, are governed by a dominant logic at a given point in
time (Humphreys 2010a; Lounsbury 2002; Thornton and
Ocasio 1999), there has been a continued presence of multi-
ple logics in the U.S. yoga market.
How can brands navigate such institutionally complex
markets? Recent institutional theory provides a starting
point to address this question by documenting the strategies
organizations adopt to respond to demands of plural logics
(Battilana and Dorado 2010; Greenwood et al. 2011; Kraatz
and Block 2008; Pache and Santos 2013). We build on this
work by developing a framework for managers of specialist
and generalist brands on how to navigate institutional logics
(see Table 5). Our framework illuminates opportunities and
challenges in three strategic areas: (1) management of
plural logic demands, (2) creation and sustenance of brand
legitimacy, and (3) recruitment of brand constituents. We
supplement our discussion with insights derived from our
analysis of one of the leading specialist brands, Bikram
Yoga, and the leading generalist brand, CorePower Yoga
(Newsom 2013).
Management of Plural Logic Demands
A key challenge in managing demands of plural logics is to
decide how to combine distinct logics and draw from the
broad repertoire of brand practices prescribed by logics
(Battilana and Dorado 2010; Reay and Hinings 2009).

TABLE 5
Brand Management in Plural Logic Markets
Management of Plural Logic
Demands
Generalist Brands (e.g., CorePower Yoga)
Strategy Populist coupling
Managerial action Selectively integrate elements
from most popular field-level logic
with commercial logic and loosely
couple other field-level logics.
Specialist Brands (e.g., Bikram Yoga)
Strategy Exclusive coupling
Managerial action Combine select few field logics
while remaining detached from
commercial logic.
Creation and Sustenance of
Brand Legitimacy
Extension
Create new hybrid forms of
practice; integrate adjacent field
logics into brandscape, script,
and rules.
Amplification
Advocate for political and
regulatory support for brand
practices; collaborate with
powerful institutional actors;
theorize brand benefits.
Recruitment of Brand
Constituents
Tabula rasa approach
Recruit constituents (employees
and consumers) with no prior
attachment to the field-level
logics.
Habituated approach
Recruit constituents (employees
and consumers) who are
socialized into the field-level
logics the brand has combined.

54 / Journal of Marketing, March 2015

Plural logics place diverse demands on brand resources in
the form of physical capital (e.g., studio space available to
offer various yoga classes), human capital (e.g., training of
yoga instructors), and organizational capital (e.g., planning
and coordinating incentive systems) and pose competing
demands when they conflict with one another (Barney 1991;
Greenwood et al. 2011; Pache and Santos 2013). Thus,
managers must carefully decide which elements of logics to
couple and incorporate into their brands and how to enact
selected practices to create favorable brand associations.
Because generalist brands rely on a diverse population
of consumers for their survival and spread their resources
across a broad spectrum of the environment in hopes of bal-
ancing their risks (Carroll 1985; Lambkin and Day 1989),
they must meet the demands from the wide range of logics
that pervade the marketplace. Accordingly, we propose that
generalist brands adopt a populist coupling strategy, focus-
ing on the most popular field-level logic along with the
commercial logic, while loosely coupling other field-level
logics. CorePower Yoga, for example, combines fitness,
medical, and spiritual logics with an emphasis on the popu-
lar logic of fitness in the field. Its brand essence is mostly
tied to the fitness logic, exemplified in the majority of the
classes offered, which combine physical practices such as
weight training and cycling with yoga; only select restora-
tive classes tap into the medical logic. Whereas the posi-
tioning of the brand emphasizes secular yoga practices, a
New-Age spirituality is loosely coupled with the classes
through ceremonial practices such as setting a spiritual
intention (e.g., simple living) at the beginning of the class,
the ritualistic closure of the class with the spiritual saluta-
tion “Namaste” (derived from Sanskrit, meaning “I bow to
you”; Palkhivala 2009), and incorporation of mystic ele-
ments into the studio space (e.g., Buddha statues). These
ceremonial practices enable the brand to maintain its legiti-
macy (e.g., CorePower yoga as a secular fitness-oriented
practice) with the option to vary its activities to adapt to
localized demands and to satisfy multiple expectations
(Meyer and Rowan 1977; Weick 1976). CorePower Yoga
also explicitly embraces the commercial logic. The com-
mercial logic rewards efficiency, convenience, and calcula-
bility (Pache and Santos 2013), which results in enchanting
outcomes when combined with novel and stimulating expe-
riences (Ritzer and Stillman 2001)—albeit a rational and
simulated type of enchantment. Thus, CorePower Yoga suc-
cessfully appeals to a broad spectrum of consumers through
its spa-like facilities and wide variety of classes conve-
niently offered at multiple locations.
Specialists differentiate themselves from generalists by
concentrating their resources on a narrow segment of the
market (Lambkin and Day 1989). To manage plural logics
of the market, specialists must adopt an exclusive coupling
strategy: combine a select few field logics while remaining
detached from commercial logic to the best of their ability.
By limiting the brand offer, exclusive coupling goes hand in
hand with concentrated efforts to target small and specific
segment(s) of the population. However, the focus is on inte-
grating logics that highlight specialists’ expertise into brand
practices and denouncing the commercial logic to portray a
sense of authenticity (Carroll and Swaminathan 2000).
Consider, for example, how Bikram Yoga couples medi-
cal and fitness logics through its hot yoga sequence that is
strictly regimented as a prescription for well-being. In con-
trast to the variety of classes offered at CorePower Yoga,
Bikram’s adoption of the medical and fitness logics materi-
alizes in a single, rigidly scripted brand offer: the 90-
minute, 26-pose class. By denouncing their commitment to
commercial goals, specialist brands can also leverage
meanings linked to social welfare, tradition, artisanship,
and authenticity, which are oppositional to meanings asso-
ciated with large, corporate brands (Carroll and Swami-
nathan 2000; Thompson and Arsel 2004; Thompson and
Coskuner-Balli 2007). However, managers of specialist
brands should caution against violating such oppositional
identity meanings. Recall from our findings that whereas
Bikram Choudhury’s legal actions regarding copyright
infringement led to the development of doppelgänger
brands, Jivamukti Yoga was able to circumvent normative
criticisms by distancing itself from the commercial logic.
Specialists may symbolically endorse disinterest in a com-
mercial agenda. Yet in practice they will need to craft an
acceptable balance between embracing the commercial
logic and their ideals (Holt 2002). This equilibrium may be
accomplished by (1) crafting a new and sometimes compro-
mising behavior (e.g., YTTP’s donation-based classes); (2)
limiting brand growth (e.g., Jivamukti’s careful growth
strategy); or (3) bargaining with institutional referents so
that they alter their demands (e.g., Choudhury’s repeated
references to the U.S. market logic to legitimize his propri-
etary sequence of poses).
Creation and Sustenance of Brand Legitimacy
Brands gain legitimacy by demonstrating a social fit
between their practices and society’s shared norms (Kates
2004). Market actors can influence this process by strength-
ening the associations between their actions and existing
frames in the institutional environment as well as by creat-
ing new linkages between their actions and related frames,
respectively referred to as amplification and extension
strategies (Benford and Snow 2000; Humphreys 2010a).
Because generalists spread their resources in a broad spec-
trum of the environment to garner wide appeal (Freeman
and Hannan 1983; Lambkin and Day 1989), we propose
that gaining cultural cognitive legitimacy will be best
accomplished with an extension strategy. Specialist brands,
in contrast, secure competitive advantage through differenti-
ation or by focusing on smaller niches (Porter 1980), which
will be best achieved through an amplification strategy.
Amplification is “the idealization, embellishment, clari-
fication, or invigoration of existing values or beliefs” (Ben-
ford and Snow 2000, p. 624). In line with the cultural
branding approach (Holt 2004), creating and circulating
mythic stories that strengthen associations between the
brand offer and the cultural tensions may be a good starting
point to implement the amplification strategy. For example,
Choudhury highlighted the medical benefits of Bikram
Yoga by pointing out obesity problems in the United States.
Navigating the Institutional Logics of Markets / 55
Other managerial actions for amplification involve advo-
cacy, collaborations, and theorizing. Advocacy refers to the
“mobilization of political and regulatory support through
direct and deliberate techniques of social suasion”
(Lawrence and Suddaby 2006, p. 221). For example, in
2003, Choudhury began hosting International Yoga Asana
Championships with the help of his wife, Rajeshree Choud-
hury (Tomasko 2003). She founded the nonprofit USA Yoga
Federation to promote yoga as a sport (www.usayoga.org),
and together, the couple approached the Olympic Associa-
tion to develop yoga into an official Olympic sport (Deife
2005). Managers can also consider collaborations with
powerful actors in adjacent fields. Choudhury recently part-
nered with the U.S. military to amplify the medical benefits
of Bikram Yoga because the brand proposes to “build the
inner character and confidence and ... help the warrior
regain joint mobility and physical readiness more quickly”
(www.bikramyoga.com/VA-and-Military). Brand managers
can also elaborate on the cause-and-effect relations of their
offer and its potential benefits through theorizing
(Lawrence and Suddaby 2006). To support the medical
benefits of Bikram Yoga, Choudhury publishes academic
studies on the brand’s website, including a recent study on
the effects of Bikram Yoga on military-related stress (www.
bikramyoga.com/Military-stress-study).
Generalist brand managers, alternatively, can consider
the extension strategy to spread their practices to a broader
range of consumers. Extension exemplifies the notion of
implosion, whereby cultural boundaries between a practice
and other sociocultural activities are blurred (Ritzer and
Stillman 2001). In the case of casinos, for example, the ero-
sion of the boundary between gambling and shopping has
allowed casino managers to appeal to wider segments of
consumers (Humphreys 2010a). Managerial actions for
extension include bringing in logics from adjacent fields to
craft the brand experience (e.g., brandscape, rules, scripts)
and creating new hybrid forms of practices. In the context
of yoga, generalist brands have linked the initial frame of
yoga studios with those of spas and gyms. They have also
created new hybrid forms that combine popular fitness
activities such as spinning with yoga postures.
Recruitment of Brand Constituents
In plural logic markets, because constituents within the
brand’s network (managers, employees, consumers, and
distributors) may be committed to a distinct set of norms,
values, and beliefs, managers’ strategic coupling of logics
can create internal conflicts (Battilana and Dorado 2010;
Kraatz and Block 2008; Pache and Santos 2013). As con-
stituents are ultimately the ones who enact institutional log-
ics, creating a brand identity that strikes a balance between
the logics the brand combines can be challenging. Brand
managers can lessen the internal conflicts by adopting
recruitment approaches that help create internal cohesive-
ness in their goals and brand identity. In addition, as organi-
zations face normative pressures for professionalism
(DiMaggio and Powell 1983), brand managers should pay
attention to not only academic credentials but also employ-
56 / Journal of Marketing, March 2015
ees’ socialization into the logics to enhance the brand’s cul-
tural authority in the market.
The cultural authority of generalist brands is linked
more closely to the expertise of brand authors’ capital in
major market institutions (e.g., finance, marketing, retail)
than to their expertise in field-level logics. To recruit brand
constituents, generalists should adopt a tabula rasa
approach by enlisting constituents who do not have prior
attachment to field-level logics (Battilana and Dorado
2010). This strategy will help generalists groom employees
and consumers to the logics endorsed by the brand and
avoid resistance from constituents who have already been
ingrained in particular logics and have preconceptions
regarding practices that serve the brand’s goals. The cul-
tural authority of specialist brands, in contrast, emanates
from the brand authors’ expertise and capital in field-level
logics. Accordingly, specialists are better off adopting a
habituated approach and targeting constituents who are
already socialized into the field logics to create a coherent
and credible brand identity.
The differences in target marketing and employee
recruitment between Bikram Yoga and CorePower Yoga
illustrate the appropriateness of the tabula rasa and habitu-
ated approaches on the basis of brands’ degree of strategic
focus. Bikram Yoga targets a specific segment of the mar-
ket: consumers who have physical or mental injuries. For its
teacher recruitment, it requires prospective instructors to
have a minimum of six months of Bikram Yoga experience
and requests a letter of recommendation from the affiliated
studio director. The Bikram Yoga Teacher Training program
then serves as a formal conduit (Press and Arnould 2011) to
orient the instructors through 500+ hours of training in the
theory and practice of postural yoga, yoga therapy, and
courses on human anatomy with guest medical doctors.
Bikram Yoga’s recent collaboration with the military (i.e.,
inviting veterans who are accustomed to intense training
and have physical and mental resilience to become certified
in Bikram Yoga) bolsters its niche focus and brand identity
(www.bikramyoga.com/VA-and-Military). In comparison,
CorePower Yoga abides by the minimum 200 hours of
training suggested by the Yoga Alliance and does not
require its teachers to have prior yoga experience. Similarly,
it specifically targets consumers who are new to yoga by
offering a “truly unique yoga practice that’s accessible more
than traditional” (www.corepower.com). This tabula rasa
approach fits with CorePower Yoga’s attempts to dominate
the market and garner mainstream appeal by utilizing its
managements’ entrepreneurial and business backgrounds
(CorePower Yoga 2014).
Conclusion and Further Research
Our analysis of the changes and shifts in institutional logics
of the U.S. yoga market builds on the body of work on mar-
ket evolution as a social process of legitimization (Giesler
2012; Humphreys 2010a, b) and addresses the calls to
explore links between competitive dynamics and market
evolution (Lambkin and Day 1989; Soberman and Gatignon
2005). Our findings have important theoretical and manage-
rial implications for market evolution and brand manage-
ment. First, markets that are characterized by plural logics
evolve over time as institutional actors with different cul-
tural capital and interests amplify/repress distinct logics.
Second, the factors that underscore shifts in and sustenance
of multiple logics in markets are (1) the cultural capital of
market actors, (2) the legitimization of distinct logics, (3) the
emergence of generalist and specialist brands, and (4) the
contestations of logics in the field. Third, managing brands
in institutionally complex environments involves (1) mobi-
lizing logics to recruit brand constituents, (2) legitimizing
the brand, and (3) managing plural and, at times, competing
logics. Fourth, addressing the demands from plural logics
requires managers to adopt strategies that are in line with
their brands’ degree of strategic focus.
Our examination of how brands confront plural logics
and shape the competitive dynamics of markets extends the
cultural approach to brand strategy (Diamond et al. 2009;
Giesler 2012; Holt 2004; Holt and Cameron 2010; Thomp-
son, Rindfleisch, and Arsel 2006). In this perspective,
brands derive their value from how well the myths they
embody respond to tensions between peoples’ lives and
society’s prevailing ideology. Brands become icons not
because they offer distinctive benefits but because they
deliver cultural expressions that meet the ideological needs
of their target consumers. Social disruptions are indicative
of demand for new cultural expressions and present “ideo-
logical opportunities” that brand managers can tap into
through new myths and cultural codes. Accordingly, the key
challenges for marketers are to develop an understanding of
cultural tensions; to compose a cultural expression that
bears the right ideological, mythical, and cultural content;
and to reinvent their brand in the face of social disruptions
(Holt 2004; Holt and Cameron 2010). Our study links dis-
ruptions to the shifts in institutional logics of markets and
demonstrates that brands must navigate these shifts differ-
entially on the basis of their strategic degree of focus. That
is, generalist and specialist brands should use their cultural
insights in distinct ways to create cultural innovations and
revitalize their brands’ images. Given the differences in
their cultural capital of the field, level of resources, and tar-
get consumers, generalists should adopt an extension strat-
egy, whereas specialists should adopt an amplification
approach in crafting cultural innovations.
Cultural expressions may lose their distinctiveness or
resonance over time. In addition, competing ideologies may
expose brands to cultural backlash in the form of doppel-
gänger brand images. Prior cultural branding approaches
have pointed to the tensions between prevailing society-
level logics as sources of doppelgänger brand images and
opportunities for cultural innovations (Giesler 2012; Holt
and Cameron 2010). Our analysis shows that brand man-
agers must monitor field-level logics in addition to society-
level logics and must track the relations between and within
society- and field-level logics. Managing demands from
plural logics entails not only resolving tensions between
logics but also strengthening and creating linkages between
logics that collaborate with each other. Because generalists
have more resources and target diverse audiences, they can
adopt the most popular field-level logic and loosely couple
other logics to maintain legitimacy while alleviating imbal-
ances among the logics of the field. Specialists, conversely,
should concentrate on logics that resonate with their cultural
capital of the field and distance themselves from society-
level commercial logic that is oppositional to their identities.
We also broaden the scope of cultural branding studies
by highlighting the link between cultural strategy and inter-
nal branding. Especially for service brands, employees are
essential components of the brand gestalt (Diamond et al.
2009). In addition to mobilizing the right myths and cultural
codes in brand design, devising recruitment strategies that
take into account constituents’ level of socialization into the
field logics is critical to create a coherent brand identity. To
harmonize brand meanings and ensure commitment to and
consistent delivery of brand values, generalist brands
should adopt a tabula rasa approach, and specialist brands
should adopt a habituated approach in recruiting service
providers and consumers.
Our analysis of multi-actor (institutional entrepreneurs,
government, and brands) market dynamics that underscore
changes in logics extends institutional analyses of market
evolution in marketing (Giesler 2008, 2012; Humphreys
2010a, b). By focusing on a highly fragmented market, we
show how competitive structure and field dynamics inform
market evolution. In addition to media, pioneer brands, and
consumers, we document the role of multiple brands as
institutional entrepreneurs with distinct cultural capital,
strategies of legitimization, strategic focus, and ideological
positions in shaping the fields in which they operate. We
also contribute to the logics perspective by including
insights from resource partitioning theory and showcasing
sources of institutional complexity in fragmented fields.
Our research presents a novel theoretical account of brand-
ing strategy amid institutional change and explores how
legitimacy is assessed differently on the basis of an organi-
zation’s strategic degree of focus. We offer specific patterns
of selective coupling and constituent recruitment for gener-
alist versus specialist brands and illustrate how their institu-
tionalization of existing or new logics shapes the evolution
of fields (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Lounsbury 2002;
Thornton and Ocasio 2004).
Overall, these insights can help brands make the most of
their resources with the right management (e.g., recruitment
and training of suitable brand constituents, adoption of the
right coupling strategy to manage demands from distinct
logics) and gain competitive advantage in markets with
plural logics (Oliver 1991). Our findings from the yoga
market extend to other markets characterized by generalist–
specialist competition dynamics as well as to institutionally
complex markets with plural logics. Empirical accounts of
resource partitioning theory for markets ranging from news-
paper publishing to beer and wine have documented the
symbiotic relationship between generalist and specialist
organizations (Carroll 1985; Carroll and Swaminathan 2000;
Swaminathan 2001). In markets in which the resources are
sufficient to sustain a specialist segment, generalists and
specialists can exist without directly competing with one
another. Our theoretical framework proposes managerial
Navigating the Institutional Logics of Markets / 57
strategies for legitimacy under specialist–generalist
competitive structures. Furthermore, our discussions offer
insights for managers who face demands from plural logics
in institutionally complex environments such as microfi-
nance and banking (Battilana and Dorado 2010), health care
(Dunn and Jones 2010), organic food (Thompson and
Coskuner-Balli 2007), and coffee (Holt and Cameron 2010;
Thompson and Arsel 2004). In the coffee market, for exam-
ple, our framework would explain Starbucks’s iconic status
in terms of its populist coupling strategy of combining com-
mercial, artisanal, and fast-service logics while loosely cou-
pling elements from authentic Italian coffee culture (e.g.,
drink names). In terms of recruiting baristas, whose respon-
sibilities have largely been reduced to the push of a button
to brew coffee (Holt and Cameron 2010), a tabula rasa
approach of no prior commitment to the artisanal logic
would be best to avoid internal tensions within the brand. In
comparison, small local coffee shops are likely to gain
competitive advantage by leveraging their oppositional
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