A Theory of Type Authenticity as Reverential Engagement

Abstract

This dissertation develops a theory of type authenticity, offering a novel account of the "hot" evaluative dimensions of organizing, those that are morally resonant and culturally inhabited. It extends accounts of recognition-based social evaluations, such as cognitive legitimacy and typicality. It demonstrates how such judgments can also emerge from reverence, a distinct mechanism grounded in what I describe as actors' and audiences' ontological beliefs. Reverence is the sensed movement of actors and audiences toward what they regard as normatively good and right. From this perspective, type authenticity is defined as a judgment of character that assesses the reverence of a co-performance between actors and audiences in animating the symbolic, cultural, and ethical substance of an institutional practice in a way that resonates with actors' and audiences' ontological beliefs of an institutional practice. This model distinguishes between institutional objects, recognized for their utility, and institutional subjects, revered for their significance. In doing so, it introduces a novel understanding of institutions and categories as possessing ontological in addition to epistemological coherence. The theory is examined through a qualitative, narrative analysis of 20 long-form oral histories of Southern barbecue pitmasters from the Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) archive. The findings demonstrate that coherence within the category of barbecue is not sustained by shared features or definitions, which often diverge, but by ontological beliefs that animate the practice. Three core beliefs were identified: (1) barbecue is continuous, existing without a distinct beginning or end; (2) barbecue is theatrically performed, which affirms its ontological seriousness; and (3) barbecue is community, where shared doing constitutes its substance. This dissertation makes three contributions to institutional theory. First, it advances a middle-range theory of type authenticity that highlights the normative and ontological dimensions of organizing, complementing existing accounts of recognition and legitimacy. Second, it offers an additional model of category coherence based on reverence. Third, it demonstrates how mission, purpose, and identity operate as symbolic commitments and constitutive elements of organizational management.