| My dissertation research centers around the experiences of shareholders at 'State-Line Farm', a small, sustainable, not for profit community supported agriculture (CSA) organization in the Midwest. Using a combination of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, my research details the interrelated mechanisms and processes that supported shareholders' experience of community, shaped their perceptions of social exchange, and facilitated members' construction of coherent and convergent explanations in the face of unexpected and ambiguous organizational change. I begin by establishing how three social mechanisms at the organization level - the division of labor; recruitment and homophily; and false consensus - allowed members to experience the CSA as a community of like-minded producers and consumers of ethical food despite their ideological disagreements. I then demonstrate how State-Line's organizational identity, which draws heavily on a community logic, influenced the cognitive and affective outcomes of social exchange. By constraining the forms of exchange deemed normatively appropriate and priming sensemaking processes, State-Line's identity facilitated members' experience of social exchange as being consonant with community ideals and supportive of positive affective group bonds, even in instances where contemporary sociological exchange theories suggest that they should not. Finally, I articulate how the length of a member's tenure and the strength of their identification with the organization were integral to their ability to construct coherent and convergent explanations when faced with a radical shift in the structure of the CSA. I show that long term members were more likely to engage in sensemaking, and were better able to provide coherent explanations when they did. Additionally, I found that those who more strongly identified with the organization were more likely to offer convergent, 'community lost', narratives than members with weaker identification. |
