Leadership - Articles

Hayagreeva Rao - Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovation

From concepts is his book, Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovation, Stanford Professor Hayagreeva Rao presents the idea of market rebels—those that create radical innovations by challenging preexisting cultural norms. Social movements and activists create social innovation, transform markets, and bring about collective action through techniques that Rao introduces as “hot causes” and “cool mobilizations.” With case studies from the automobile industry, the microbrewery movement, and a campaign from a nonprofit health organization, Rao provides an outline of how market rebels apply these techniques to drive innovation. He spoke at the 2009 Nonprofit Management Institute, an event sponsored by the Stanford Social Innovation Review.