EXPRESS: All the News That’s Fit to Capitalize: How Person Brands Shape Emergent Markets

In this article, we examine the role of person brands in shaping emergent markets, markets in which the norms, values, and practices of exchange have yet to be firmly established. Using ethnographic and archival data in the context of the early online news market, we find that person brands use their social, cultural, and symbolic capital to create a unique organizational identity, establish a founding myth, and mobilize resonance with early followers. These organizational assets are carried forward in the emergent market to build cultural-cognitive, normative, and pragmatic legitimacy in a context where these factors are initially low. While prior research in marketing has investigated the market-driving effects of firms, consumers, and intermediaries, our findings yield insight into the role of specific people—person brands as institutional entrepreneurs—in shaping emergent markets. These findings inform managers and other stakeholders in emergent markets as to how to strategically manage the organizational identity, founding myths, and audience resonance built by person brands in order to carry these assets forward as the market further develops.