Charismatic Capitalism: Direct Selling Organizations in America (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780226047867)

Tupperware Home Parties, Shaklee Corporation, Amway, Mary Kay Cosmetics--theirs is an approach to business that violates many of the basic tenets of modern American commerce. Yet these direct selling organizations, fashioned by charismatic leaders and built upon devoted armies of door-to-door representatives, have grown to constitute an $8.5 billion a year industry and provide a livelihood for more than 5 million workers, the vast majority of them women.

The first full-scale study of this industry, Charismatic Capitalism, revises the standard contention that the rationalization of social institutions is an inevitable consequence of advanced capitalism. Nicole Woolsey Biggart argues instead that less rational organizations built on social networks may actually be more economically viable.


Author: Nicole Woolsey Biggart
ISBN-10: 0226047865
ISBN-13: 9780226047867
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 03/15/1990
Pages: 231
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 8.46h x 5.55w x 0.55d