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Charismatic Capitalism

Direct Selling Organizations in America

Nicole Woolsey Biggart author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:The University of Chicago Press

Published:1st Mar '90

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Charismatic Capitalism cover

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.

ISBN: 9780226047867

Dimensions: 22mm x 14mm x 2mm

Weight: 312g

231 pages