From the Critics’ Corner: Logic Blending,
Discursive Change and Authenticity in a Cultural
Production System*
Mary Ann Glynn and Michael Lounsbury
Emory University, Atlanta, GA; University of Alberta
abstract Drawing on an analysis of critics’ reviews of Atlanta Symphony
Orchestra (ASO) performances, we investigate how broader shifts in institutional
logics shape the discourse of critics and their judgment of performances. We
highlight how the aesthetic logic that traditionally informs the practices of the
symphony yielded, in the face of declining orchestral resources, to a more
commercially oriented market logic. As institutionalists have argued, shifts in logics
are often catalysed by exogenous shocks. In the ASO, this blending of aesthetic and
market logics became salient in the wake of a pivotal organizational event, the 1996
musicians’ strike. Qualitatively comparing pre- and post-strike reviews of ASO
performances, we find that the discourse of critics shifted to capture the changing
logic of the symphony: post-strike reviews were more attuned to market than
aesthetic aspects of the symphony. Nonetheless, their reviews suggested that
judgments based on notions of cultural authenticity were virtually unaffected.
Although our results echo existing claims that art world critics often act in a ritualistic
fashion, serving as gatekeepers for the authenticity of cultural genres, we extend
scholarship by highlighting how critics’ stories are embedded in broader discursive
fields that reveal how they patrol the boundaries of genres.
INTRODUCTION
Over the past three decades, the development of the production of culture per-
spective has enhanced our understanding of how cultural artefacts such as music
albums, books, and artwork are produced in modern societies (Anand and Peter-
son, 2000; Hirsch, 1972; Peterson, 1977, 2005; for a review,see Peterson and Anand,
2004). Research has highlighted how the production of cultural artefacts is shaped
by a complex apparatus of producers, distributors, media, and critics that are inter-
Journal of Management Studies 42:5 July 2005
0022-2380

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ,
UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Address for reprints: Mary Ann Glynn, Goizueta Business School, Emory University, 1300 Clifton Road,
Atlanta, GA 30322, USA ().
posed between cultural creators and recipients. Due to the ambiguity of quality
assessment, critics often play an especially crucial role as gatekeepers (Hirsch, 1972),
intermediate consumers (Griswold, 1987), and mediators of audience/consumer
response (Shrum, 1991) in many cultural industries. More recently, there has been
increasing attention paid to the role and impact of critics across a variety of sub-
fields from economic sociology to the sociology of music (e.g. Baumann, 2002;
Holbrook, 1999; Janssen, 1997; Lounsbury and Rao, 2004; Zuckerman, 1999).
As interest in critics has grown, research has expanded beyond focusing on the
instrumental role of critics as market-makers to highlight how critics act as key
meaning-makers in fields. For example, Baumann’s (2001) study of the social
history of films in the USA documents how critics, in their reviews, offered a legit-
imating ideology that helped to valorize film as art. He notes that critics acted as
‘influencers rather than as mirrors’ (p. 419), thus crafting the meaning of films as
aesthetic cultural products. We extend this emerging perspective on critics by
focusing on how they also play an important interstitial role in connecting the
localized meanings and interpretations of cultural products to broader institutional
meaning systems. For instance, by writing reviews, critics provide a kind of story
about how people should understand and appreciate their experiences with cul-
tural objects and performances.
Stories, such as those told by critics in their reviews, make sense of an equivo-
cal situation for both internal and external constituencies because they ‘selectively
distill a complex jumble of otherwise ambiguous and contradictory activities, pro-
nouncements, and impressions into a simplified and relatively coherent portrait’
(Ashforth and Humphrey, 1997, p. 53). The story itself, however, is endowed with
institutional meanings that make its elements cohere in a meaningful way. Stories
create order by embedding ‘an account in a symbolic universe, and thereby endow

the account with social facticity’ (Rao, 1994, p. 31). Hence, stories such as critics’
reviews are not purely local constructions, but are consequentially influenced by
broader institutional dynamics and beliefs that constrain and enable the kinds of
stories that can be told (Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001).
The concept of institutional logic is often used by sociologists to refer to higher
order belief systems that shape cognition and action (e.g. Bourdieu, 1990; Oakes
et al., 1998; Thornton and Ocasio, 1999). Friedland and Alford (1991, p. 243)
describe logics as:
. . . supraorganizational patterns of human activity by which individuals and
organizations produce and reproduce their material subsistence and organize
time and space. They are also symbolic systems, ways of ordering reality, and
thereby rendering experience of time and space meaningful.
In the context of decision-making, it has been argued that institutional logics shape
what issues are attended to by decision-makers (March and Olsen, 1976; Ocasio,
1032 M. A. Glynn and M. Lounsbury
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
1997), provide the rules of appropriateness that make certain actions or solutions
legitimate (March and Olsen, 1989), and offer interpretive schemes that funda-
mentally guide perception (Ranson et al., 1980). We argue that cultural industry
logics shape critics’ reviews in a similar manner by guiding how critics assess the
legitimacy of cultural performances or objects as well as how the quality of such
performances and objects are judged. However, we do not conceptualize critics as
cultural dopes. The dynamics of broader logics provide the context within which
critics appreciate and judge, but similar to the French cuisine critics described
by Rao et al. (2003), their actions contribute to the ongoing dynamics of logics.
Hence, critics can resist changes in logics, act as carriers of new logics, or act in
accordance with dominant logics under conditions of field stability. Therefore, by
explicitly examining the relationship between logics and critical reviews, we can
gain insight into how critics may provide a motor for ongoing institutional dynam-
ics (see also Bourdieu, 1996 on the role of critics in mediating homologous fields

of art and commerce).
We highlight the utility of our perspective through a systematic investigation of
critical reviews of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) performances under con-
ditions of logic conflict and change. Over the past couple of decades, symphony
orchestras have increasingly experienced resource constraints tied to declines in
patronage, government support, and attendance. In response to these pressures,
orchestras have increasingly drawn on more ‘mainstream’ or ‘pop’ interpretations
of classical music, creating a cultural threat to the ‘pure’ canon of ‘highbrow’
music associated with the symphony (Glynn, 2002). Like other art worlds, this has
led to a blurring of the long dominant ‘aesthetic’ logic in the symphony orches-
tra field with a commercial ‘market’ logic, leading to the questioning of what
constitutes authentic classical music. In the context of symphonic orchestras,
authenticity refers to programming that maintains consistency with the classical
canon and genre conventions (see Peterson, 1997 for a similar perspective on the
role of reproduction for the maintenance of perceived authenticity).
We expect that the tension associated with the broader blending of aesthetic
and market logics in the US symphony orchestra field will importantly influence
the stories told by local orchestra critics in their reviews. More specifically, we
propose that the broader blending of logics will lead to the integration of more
mainstream cultural influences into symphonic performances, forcing critics to
react directly to the pros and cons of competing logics and to reassess the nature
of artistic authenticity. Although we focus on a particular local context, our analy-
sis of how the stories told by critics through their reviews are fundamentally shaped
by the dynamics of the broader field of US symphony orchestras provides a more
general framework for the study of the contested and dynamic nature of authen-
ticity (Peterson, 1997).
We approach this problem empirically by analysing critics’ reviews of sym-
phonic performances relative to a demarcated shift in orchestral attention to the
From the Critics’ Corner 1033
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market logic. In art worlds, criticism manifests itself primarily in the form of
reviews that are published in the media. This has led sociologists to focus a good
deal of theoretical effort on the review process:
A cultural object is received by a reviewer with a particular ‘horizon of expec-
tations’ about the kind of object it represents. Interpretation and framing of the
perceived object form part of the reviewer’s brief, the production of a new cul-
tural object (the review) for an intended audience (readers) Without sub-
scribing in any way to the view that the review is a ‘surrogate performance’ for
the audience, we must recognize that there is frequently no subsequent experi-
ence at all: the review itself may be the basis of opinions formed as well as inter-
actions involving the object. (Shrum, 1991, p. 351)
Our analysis of critics’ reviews responds to Shrum’s (1991, p. 372) invitation to
researchers: ‘The effects of [reviewers’] judgements, and the conditions under
which they occur, beg incorporation into sociological theories of participation in
art.’ There is a need for more attention to reviews and other forms of secondary
discourse, he contends, because ‘in the performing arts, unlike painting, television,
sculpture, film, architecture, and literature, the only remnant of performance after
the moment of production is a review’ (Shrum, 1991, p. 372). We strategically
selected the time frame of our study (1995–98) to assess how critics’ reviews
changed before and after a strike by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra musicians
in 1996. As institutional scholars have shown, logic shifts often take concrete shape
in localized contexts as a result of some sort of exogenous shock or trigger
(e.g. Clemens, 1999; Fligstein, 1990; Scott et al., 2000; Schneiberg and Clemens,
forthcoming).
In the case of the ASO, this pivotal event made vivid the problem of increas-
ing resource constraints and the need to more consciously engage in ideas and
practices related to the market logic at the risk of bastardizing the historically
understood raison d’être of symphony orchestras. Using this historically situated
circumstance as the focal point, we map how the operating aesthetics of music
critics’ reviews shifted in response to a post-strike organizational shift toward an

increased market logic orientation (see Bartunek, 1984 for a similar approach to
change in a complex religious order). We conduct comparative analyses of pub-
lished reviews of performances in the master seasons before and after the strike.
Because this design captures the ‘features of a naturally occurring experiment’
(Allmendinger and Hackman, 1996, p. 338), we can make rigorous comparisons
about the role of the critic as meaning-maker and story-teller under conditions of
institutional change. We begin by examining the role of critics and theories of criti-
cism in art worlds followed by an analysis of ASO critics’ reviews as a way to shed
light on how the embeddedness of critics in institutional fields influences cultural
evaluation and judgment.
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CRITICS AND CONTEMPORARY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS:
THE BLENDING OF LOGICS AND GENRES
The theoretical importance of criticism is particularly salient in the context of
modern art worlds since most consumers have difficulty ascertaining the quality
of goods and services (e.g. Becker, 1982; Greenfeld, 1989; Griswold 1987;
Korczynski and Ott, 2004; Shrum, 1991; White and White, 1965). Critics are
conventionally viewed as cultural authorities who evaluate music and artists on
the basis of established aesthetic systems (DiMaggio, 1987), thus insuring their cul-
tural purity and authenticity. Operative aesthetics are often assumed to be fixed
according to convention and the critic’s role is to apply these in the review of a
piece, although deviations from standard repertoires may lead to changes in con-
vention that provide critics with an opportunity to endorse or resist possible edits
to conventions (Becker, 1982). Thus, as part of the gatekeeping role, a critic oper-
ating through mass media is a primary ‘institutional regulator of innovation’
(Shrum, 1991, p. 643), legitimating extant agreed upon conventions as authentic
and delegitimating radical deviations from conventions as inauthentic. Hence,
critics are crucial agents that help to maintain or change what is considered
authentic in a particular cultural genre (DiMaggio, 1987).

A cultural genre refers to sets of artworks classified together on the basis of per-
ceived similarities that represent socially constructed organizing principles, which
imbue artworks with significance beyond their thematic content. In this paper, we
focus attention on the ritual potency of highbrow cultural genres that can be
understood as ‘class-segmented cultural systems [that] are differentiated, hierar-
chically ordered, and consist of components that are broadly recognized (univer-
sal) and ritually potent’ and thus distinct on all these dimensions from mass culture
(DiMaggio, 1987, p. 442). Highbrow cultural genres are perhaps nowhere as
evident as in the musical performance of the symphony orchestra (e.g. chamber
music, symphonies, concertos, and sonatas are the main genres of music composed
in the classical and romantic periods that are performed in concert halls).
Symphony orchestras are ‘ensembles whose primary mission is public perfor-
mance of those orchestral works generally considered to fall within the standard
symphonic repertoire and whose members are compensated nontrivially for their
services’ (Allmendinger and Hackman, 1996, p. 340). The repertoire of most sym-
phony orchestras tends to be dominated by masterworks of prominent composers
(e.g. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Mozart, Shostakovich, and Wagner) that
have become authorized as core elements of the classical canon through processes
of historical accretion (Copland, 1963; Weber, 1992). As Weber (1984, 1992)
argued, the notion of a classical music canon is a relatively recent development
since it did not take shape until the late 1800s in Europe. It was also around this
time that experiencing live classical music was beginning to become established as
a highbrow cultural activity performed by nonprofit symphonies (DiMaggio,
From the Critics’ Corner 1035
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
1982b; Levine, 1988; for a review of the establishment and early development of
the US symphony field see Dowd et al., 2002).
While there is some evidence of for-profit organizations performing classical
music in the 1800s, DiMaggio (1982b) argued that the orchestral canon and live
symphonic performances did not take root in the USA until they were organized

through the nonprofit form in the early 1900s. Symphony orchestras had prolif-
erated in most major cities in the USA by the 1930s, creating an organizational
base and set of practices that solidified the US classical symphonic field (Dowd et
al., 2002). In turn, the growth of the classical symphonic field enabled many of
the high profile orchestras to institutionalize the classical canon and related genres
(Arian, 1971; Mueller, 1951). Hart (1973) showed that from 1900 to 1970, 59 per
cent of the orchestral repertory of 27 major symphony orchestras consisted of
works by only fifteen master composers.
A New York Times (29 April 2001, Sect. 2, p. 1) headline summed up the current
state of affairs: ‘What’s new in classical music? Not much.’ The banner is more
than an attention-grabber; it has empirical support. A 1992–93 Orchestra Repertoire
Report by the American Symphony Orchestra League (ASOL), based on a survey
of the repertoires played by one hundred of the largest orchestras in the US and
Canada in their regular subscription concerts, concluded:
. . . the League’s study does show the strong preference of this country’s orches-
tras to programme from a limited canon, and to project the sound and speak
the language of the 18th and 19th Century European repertoire. In addition,
it shows that major orchestra subscription programmes tend to center around
a few masterpieces. (Americanizing the American Orchestra, 1993, p. 19)
We believe that under conditions of stability in cultural fields such as during the
dominance of the classical canon and aesthetic logic in the field of symphony
orchestras, performances will rely almost exclusively on established conventions
and will be judged by critics based on a ‘rational aesthetic focus’ that emphasizes
virtuosity and musical interpretation (Gilmore, 1993). Gilmore describes the ratio-
nal aesthetic focus in contrast to an innovative aesthetic focus that emphasizes risk
taking in aesthetic expression such as symphonic performances of new composers
outside the canon. While there always exists an underlying tension between a ratio-
nal and innovative aesthetic focus, field stability will tend to favour the dominance
of the rational aesthetic focus. Hence:
Proposition 1: In a stable cultural field, critics’ reviews of performances in the

field will rely on the conventions associated with the existing canon, genres and
the dominant logic. Given canon and genre conformity, critics will tend to focus
on the aesthetic quality of performances (e.g. virtuosity and musical interpreta-
tion) and judge authentic performances positively.
1036 M. A. Glynn and M. Lounsbury
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Despite the enduring nature of the classical canon, its taken-for-grantedness as
well as the unique status of high culture more generally has begun to be chal-
lenged (e.g. Gilmore, 1993; Peterson and Kern, 1996). This has partly occurred as
a result of evolutionary processes such as those related to shifts in the cohesive-
ness of urban elites who no longer enforce the boundaries of high culture as they
did a century ago. More proximately, nonprofit organizations including those in
the arts are not as insulated from market forces as they once were as a result of
recent declines in governmental funding and concomitant pressures for revenue
generation and accountability. As a result, marketing techniques and managerial-
ism associated with the commercial market logic have crept into the arts, thereby
threatening the purity and longstanding dominance of the aesthetic logic (see
Oakes et al., 1998 for a related example of how business planning techniques
transformed provincial museums in Canada).
Market and aesthetic logics are akin to Weber’s two types of rationality: formal
and substantive. Formal rationality is ‘the extent of quantitative calculation or
accounting which is technically possible and which is actually applied’ (Weber,
1978, p. 85). It invokes an imagery of independent agents who consciously eval-
uate choices and make decisions that optimize the agent’s cost-benefit tabulations.
Weber used the technology of capital accounting in commodity-producing cor-
porations as an illustration of the kind of knowledge and process that facilitates
formal rationality by enabling accurate profit calculations. In essence, formal ratio-
nality is a set of ideas and orientations that guide market behaviour in modern
capitalism.
In sharp contrast to formal rationality, which focuses on simple means-ends cal-

culations, substantive rationality draws attention to how social action is shaped by
ultimate values (Weber, 1978). The tension between substantive and formal ratio-
nality becomes especially apparent when aspects of society that are considered
sacred are profaned by equating their purported value to the price that these ‘prod-
ucts’ can bring in the course of commercial exchange (Douglas and Isherwood,
1979; Espeland and Stevens, 1998). Such tensions have been identified in the
creation of labour markets (Polanyi, 1944), the development of money (Simmel,
1978), efforts to establish commercialized blood banks (Titmuss, 1971), the pricing
of children (Zelizer, 1994), and attempts to purchase tribal land (Espeland,
1998).
In the context of symphony orchestras, we use the notion of market logic to
refer to broader notions of self-interest and profit-motive that animate commer-
cially driven action in Western capitalistic economies and are predicated on formal
rationality. By aesthetic logic, we refer to notions of artistry that animate and
inform the integrity of the classical canon and its musical genres, consistent with
substantive rationality. Our general argument is that recent trends in the US sym-
phony orchestra field have led to a blending of the sacred aesthetic logic with the
more profane market logic. Weber (1978, pp. 1121–2) believed that this kind of
From the Critics’ Corner 1037
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
blending of formal and substantive rationality occurred quite regularly in what he
described as the ‘routinization of charisma’:
The charismatic following of a war leader may be transformed into a state, the
charismatic community of a prophet, artist, philosopher, ethical or scientific
innovator may become a church, sect, academy or school, and the charismatic
group which espouses certain cultural ideals may develop into a party or merely
the staff of newspapers and periodicals. In every case charisma is henceforth
exposed to the conditions of everyday life and to the powers dominating it, espe-
cially to the economic interests.
The need to accommodate the market logic in the symphony orchestra field was

documented in a research report, The Financial Condition of Symphony Orchestras, that
noted how ‘sustaining the economic vitality of orchestras has become a growing
and difficult problem for the field’ (Americanizing the American Orchestra, 1993, pp.
4–5). The challenge has resulted in calls for balancing the symphonic repertoire
to attract a broader audience base; in turn, this has led to some innovative pro-
gramming. More generally,
orchestra leaders fret about the sensibilities of the hypothetical ‘core audi-
ence’, assuming almost a universal antipathy among subscribers to music that
is outside of the ‘core repertoire’ Two generations ago, subscribers of the
well-established orchestras committed for a full season of subscription pro-
grammes, often without even knowing what the repertoire would be Pres-
sure did not exist, as it does today, to make every concert appealing as a single
event. (Americanizing the American Orchestra, 1993, p. 21)
Today, orchestral programmes increasingly feature new composers, ‘modern’ 20th
century talent, as well as some from other arenas such as lowbrow pop culture
(Dowd et al., 2002). Hence, the blending of market and aesthetic logics has facil-
itated a mixing of musical genres; in turn, this blending dilutes the highbrow
culture category, thus challenging the very definition of what is considered authen-
tic classical music. As DiMaggio explains:
. . . commercial processes erode ritual classifications. Commercial producers
seek large markets and economies of scale. By contrast, status groups try to
monopolize symbolic goods for use in rituals of inclusion and differentiation
The discrepancy between commercial and symbolic value creates an oppo-
sition between ritual and commercial principles of classification and
competition between markets and status cultures. (DiMaggio, 1982a, p. 450)
Becker (1974) makes a similar argument in his discussion on major change in artis-
tic traditions.
1038 M. A. Glynn and M. Lounsbury
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Any major change necessarily attacks some of the existing conventions of the

art directly Every convention carries with it an aesthetic, according to which
what is conventional becomes the standard by which artistic beauty and effec-
tiveness is judged An attack on sacred aesthetic beliefs as embodied in par-
ticular conventions is, finally, an attack on an existing arrangement of ranked
statuses, a stratification system . . . the resistance to the new expresses the anger
of those who will lose materially by the change, in the form of aesthetic outrage.
(Becker, 1974, pp. 773–4)
And, in fact, the social differentiation which bred elitism and exclusivity, both of
the critics and the audience, seems to have succeeded all too well:
for the larger public, classical music has long been culturally marginal
the repertory of most companies is still embedded in the past. Declining atten-
dance remains a major problem for established symphonic orchestras
Though there are probably several reasons for the apathy of the larger Amer-
ican public, the main one is the imbalance between the old and new in classi-
cal-music programming. Mainstream music lovers are said to be indifferent or
openly hostile to contemporary music. As long as classical music is in the preser-
vation business, it should come as no surprise that potential new audiences, who
are instinctively drawn to new works in other fields, dismiss classical music as
dated and irrelevant. (Tommasini, 2001, pp. 1, 32)
Given these trends, we investigate how symphony orchestra critics have reacted to
these broader transformations in their role as an institutional regulator of inno-
vation (Shrum, 1991, p. 643) and thus the acknowledged voice for musical authen-
ticity. As illustration, consider how the dilution of cultural genre boundaries was
received by one observer – ‘The orchestra’s warm embrace of Hollywood may be
a deceptive sign of a thaw in the longstanding cold war between the musical cul-
tures’ (Schiff, 2001, p. 1) – but panned by a critic for exhibiting a ‘pretentious and
pernicious tonal tripe scored in the usual sodden and overripe Hollywood
manner’ scolding the symphony for commissioning ‘a well-remunerated
Hollywood hack’ (Schiff, 2001, pp. 1, 36). As DiMaggio (1982a, p. 452) observes:
‘much of the Western world has entered a period of cultural declassification – the

unravelling and weakening of ritual classifications critics in as disparate fields
as pop music, painting, and literature bemoan aesthetic malaise and rampant
eclecticism.’
Nonetheless, how critics react to the encroachment of commercialism is an
empirical question – do they act as defenders of the status quo or as agents who
strategically accommodate aspects of logic blending? Much research suggests that
art critics will adamantly defend the boundaries of high culture since they have
been shown to evidence a strong elitist bias (Blau et al., 1985). Hence, when orches-
From the Critics’ Corner 1039
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tras develop mixed programmes to boost audience attendance to meet economic
needs by blending high and popular genres, extant research suggests that resis-
tance by critics is likely. Hence, despite broader shifts in logics, it is reasonable to
posit that the conduct of critics will be substantially similar to that under the pre-
viously stable institutional order.
Proposition 2: In a changing cultural field where competing logics interact, critics
will praise performances that feature the traditional canon and genres and will
tend to be dismissive of performances that feature more popular works or blend
highbrow and lowbrow genres; performances that evidence musical authentic-
ity will receive more favourable reviews.
Alternatively, instead of emphasizing the inertia of critics, it is also plausible to
suggest that critics will be more pragmatic about broader institutional shifts and
act in more strategic ways to accept some elements of change while rejecting others
(DiMaggio, 1987). This view conceptualizes critics as astute agents who play a key
role in the redrawing of genre boundaries, arguably allowing themselves to remain
relevant as cultural authorities to broader publics. Given the ascending market
logic in our case, critics may expand the scope of their commentary and evalua-
tion to include aspects of orchestral marketing, audience instruction, use of
metaphor and analogy from other genres, and non-aesthetic economic concerns.
This leads to our third and final proposition:

Proposition 3: In a changing cultural field where competing logics interact, critics
will change the focus of their reviews by incorporating more elements consis-
tent with the newly emerging logic.
RESEARCH CONTEXT AND METHODOLOGY
The Atlantic Symphony Orchestra
The ASO, founded in 1947, has grown from a regional orchestra to a national one
and, today, is considered one of the top ten American Orchestras. At the time of
the study, the orchestra consisted of 95 full-time musicians and a Conductor/Artis-
tic Director; the size and composition of the ASO is comparable to that of major
symphonies in the United States (Allmendinger and Hackman, 1996, p. 343).
Along with this growth trajectory has been change, both in the organization and
its cultural products. These changes that have ushered in ideas and practices asso-
ciated with the market logic were importantly highlighted by orchestral musicians
who charged the ASO board and management with treating the orchestra ‘like it
was a potato chip factory’ (Kindred, 1996, p. C3). In her study of the musician’s
claims on the organizational identity, Glynn (2000) observed that the shift was
evident in the composition of the board:
1040 M. A. Glynn and M. Lounsbury
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Twenty or 30 years ago, the ASO board consisted largely of an ‘old guard’ of
doctors and lawyers who were not necessarily ‘big money’ but were ‘lovers of
music’. More recently, the board shifted to embody a ‘corporate mentality’,
seemingly driven by increasing numbers of business people who became
members. As a result, musicians claimed that there was an increasing focus on
bottom-line expenditures with a fondness for what musicians described, in
derogatory tones, as ‘McKinsey-like’ presentations, briefings, reports and ‘indoc-
trination’. (Glynn, 2000, p. 289)
The broader blending of market and aesthetic logics vividly came to the fore
during the 10-week ASO musicians’ strike, from 22 September to 4 December
1996. The focus of the strike was on musicians’ salary and working conditions and

was precipitated by management’s decision not to tenure six probationary
ASO musicians, although they had satisfied tenure standards of musical quality.
Management rationalized their decision as one of resource constraint and finan-
cial scarcity; their explanation reflected the primacy of market logic at the expense
of the aesthetic. Although management later recanted their decision and tenured
the six musicians, partly in response to an infusion of resources and vocal
community outrage, the ASO musicians still voted to strike when their contract
expired.
During this period, a series of offers and counteroffers were tendered; ultimately,
a new contract was negotiated with provisions for fixing the size of the orchestra
at 95 tenured positions and for increasing wages over the next four years. The
ASO Musical Director, Yoel Levi, negotiated an extension on his contract to the
summer of 2000 and later announced he would resign at the conclusion of his
contract. Subsequently, however, he asked to withdraw his resignation; this was
refused by the board, citing artistic differences. Levi left as Musical Director in
May 2000. Analysing critics’ reviews of performances before and after the strike,
we conceptualize the strike as an event that made the broader blending of market
and aesthetic logics in the field of US symphony orchestras salient in the ASO
context.
The Music Critics and their Newspaper
In our study, the music critics wrote their reviews for the local commercial news-
paper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). This paper provided the only complete
and regular coverage of ASO performances; hence, it was the best source for the
critical reviews that comprised our data set. However, because we draw from just
one newspaper source and a set of reviews authored by just two critics, we exam-
ined how the cultural authority of the critics or the constraints of their journalis-
tic setting, could affect the logic-blurring as well as perceptions and judgments of
authenticity.
From the Critics’ Corner 1041
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The sociology of news production literature, as well as the general news pro-
duction literature, suggests that the market logic is increasingly eclipsing the sub-
stantive logics that once dominated newspapers and television news. Schudson
(1999, p. 998) notes that most journalists in news institutions confront ‘the con-
straints of deadlines and the need to please a mass audience’ which may com-
promise their accuracy and fairness. Bagdikian (2000) similarly notes how
commercial news corporations are increasingly influenced by the corporations that
own them, advertise in them, or indirectly influence them. We investigated how
these kinds of concerns could potentially bleed into the reviews at the AJC, thus
raising an alternative explanation for our results.
We returned to interviews conducted at the time of the ASO strike, in 1996, to
ascertain if there was any evidence of an encroaching market logic in the news-
paper that could affect critics’ perceptions or judgments of musical authenticity.
We used interviews from the time that the reviews were written, in order to deflect
any threats of bias from recall or hindsight; the interview data are from Glynn
(2000). This evidence suggests that AJC was seen as supportive of the musicians
rather than the business concerns represented by many on the ASO Board of
Directors. This noted by a faculty member at a local university who was not affil-
iated with either the AJC or the ASO, as well as some board members and musi-
cians. One board member described the AJC coverage as ‘pro-musician’, as
opposed to a ‘pro-management’ stance that was evident in newspaper accounts
covering other symphony strikes, such as the one in Philadelphia. In an interview
conducted in December 1996 with an ASO board member, the interviewee com-
mented on the AJC music critic and his newspaper, acknowledging the expertise
of the former and his opinion of the biases inherent in the latter:
[The music critic] who(m) I think probably has a reasonable grip on the classic
music criticism, not fantastic, but certainly reasonable, is far too close to the
musicians to try to describe what’s going on in terms of context the board
we don’t understand why, in a community in which the newspaper is the
bully pulpit, and in which its support of the arts is so important they are so

short-sighted about what they are doing.
The two critics who wrote the reviews that are the subject of this study, displayed
a deep understanding of the operative aesthetics of classical music, signalling that
they were knowledgeable and credible musical authorities. One critic, Derrick
Henry, was himself a musician and member of the musician’s union. In announc-
ing his arrival at the AJC in April of 1985, the newspaper detailed his background
and expertise in classical music:
Henry, 35, comes to Atlanta from Boston, where for the past two years he has
served as a music critic for the Boston Globe. Henry also serves as a contribut-
1042 M. A. Glynn and M. Lounsbury
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
ing editor to Opus and Keynote magazines, and as a correspondent for The
Strad in London. He has written extensively on music, recordings, and audio
for various publications. His record liner notes have appeared on such labels as
Columbia Masterworks, Musical Heritage Society, Nonesuch and Westminster.
His 1983 book on recordings, ‘The Listener’s Guide to Medieval and Renais-
sance Music’, was jointly published by Facts on File U.S.A. and Blandford Press
in the United Kingdom.
Henry earned his bachelor’s degree in music history from UCLA and a grad-
uate degree in musicology from Yale University. He is currently completing a
dissertation for Yale on the first book of symphonie sacrae by the great German
composer Heinrich Schuetz (1585–1672).
His musical expertise was recognized, even by those who disagreed with his opin-
ions on the strike. One ASO board member, in an interview conducted in Decem-
ber 1996, opined that Henry just didn’t ‘get it and is totally wrong in every aspect,
except music reviews’.
In an interview with Henry in December 1996 (taken from Glynn’s (2000) data),
he expressed support of the musicians and classical music, but disdain for the
financial management that he felt represented a threat to the integrity of the
orchestra.

The second critic (Jerry Schwartz) was similarly knowledgeable in classical
music. Like Henry, he had also worked for the New York Times prior to joining the
AJC and was a musician; he played piano, bass and various brass instruments.
Jerry Schwartz passed away in 1998, shortly after reviewing the ASO perfor-
mances in the post-strike period. His obituary noted his musical expertise,
acknowledged by the then-ASO President:
A trained musician who played piano, bass and various brass instruments, Mr.
Schwartz covered classical music, including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
and the Atlanta Opera, for the Journal-Constitution as a free-lancer for the last
18 months. ‘Jerry was a committed journalist, rooted in classical music criti-
cism’, said ASO President Allison Vulgamore. ‘When he covered the symphony,
he took the score with him and followed along’, said his friend Jonathan Wax
of Atlanta. ‘He wasn’t just sitting there listening’. (Groover, 1998, p. 08B)
Thus, although the two critics were employees of the local commercial newspa-
per that published their reviews, they nonetheless evidenced a professionalism in
their musical training, background, and experience that suggested that they could
ably defend and uphold aesthetic values in the face of a changing orientation at
the symphony. Because these critics were anchored in the values of classical music,
they would seem to be more likely to defend the aesthetic and resist any shifts to
incorporate or blend a market logic into their reviews.
From the Critics’ Corner 1043
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
Comparative Study
We compared these two critics’ reviews pre- and post-strike to test our proposi-
tions concerning authenticity and judgment of performances in a period of rela-
tive stability (P1) and favourableness of more authentic performances (P2), as well
as incorporation of market logic consistent elements (P3) in the more turbulent
period of logic blending. To examine these propositions, we draw from All-
mendinger and Hackman’s (1996) comparative study of orchestral programmes
that established important controls (i.e. important dimensions of stability) as part

of the research design.
First, over the time period analysed (1995–98), the programming content drawn
from the traditional musical canon did not change substantially, consistent with
previous research (e.g. Americanizing the American Orchestra, 1993, p. 19). In her study
of the ASO, Glynn (2002) found that 75 per cent of the works performed in the
pre-strike season were from the classical canon compared to 79 per cent in the
post-strike season. Second, there was not a significant change in orchestral per-
sonnel; thus, any perceived change in reviews cannot be explained by changes in
the orchestral membership. Third, there were only two primary music critics over
this period. Derrick Henry and Jerry Schwartz authored all but one of the 46 pub-
lished reviews in the data set. Henry and Schwartz each did approximately half
the 24 reviews for the pre-strike season, writing 58 per cent and 42 per cent respec-
tively. Consistent with other researchers (Murnighan and Conlon, 1991; Shrum,
1991), we classified the reviews as favourable (positive), unfavourable (negative) or
mixed (neutral).
To be sure that we were examining changes in critics’ reviews relative to the
strike, we sought to eliminate competing explanations for our findings. For
instance, we investigated the extent to which there might be evaluative biases asso-
ciated with any individual critic, any particular point in time, or length of review.
For the pre-strike season, there were 13 favourable reviews; these were split nearly
evenly between the reviewers, with Henry completing 54 per cent. Schwartz did
nearly all (95 per cent) of the 22 reviews for the 1997–98 season. To check that
there was not a systemic bias in the favourableness of their opinion, we also exam-
ined the 17 reviews for the abbreviated 1996–97 season (which is not included in
the analyses that follow); Henry authored all of these.
An analysis of their opinions overall indicated that there did not seem to be a
systematic bias in favourableness, either by reviewer (61 per cent of all Henry’s
reviews were favourable versus 58 per cent of all Schwartz’s reviews) or by year
(the number of favourable reviews for each year was: 54% (1995–96), 70.5%
(1996–97) and 60% (1997–98). This is consistent with our conceptualization of

critics as actors whose main raison d’être is to maintain the symbolic boundaries
around cultural genres. Thus, there did not seem to be partiality in the subjectiv-
ity of reviewers’ opinions before or after the strike.
1044 M. A. Glynn and M. Lounsbury
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
Finally, we also examined the length of reviews. In the pre-strike season, reviews
averaged 395 words, with reviews ranging from 256 to 825 words. The one very
lengthy review (16 December 1995) concerned the Christmas programme and a
particular symphonic work, Berlioz’s oratorio L’Enfance du Christ, describing and
explaining its different sections, story line, and key points. It was a work rarely per-
formed, and the critic went to some length to describe each component of it; on
balance, the review was focused on the musical work and not on the ASO per-
formance of it. Eliminating this lengthy outlier changes the mean to 374
words/review in the pre-strike season. In the post-strike season, reviews averaged
339 words, ranging from 259 to 460 words. Hence, there did not seem to be a sig-
nificant difference between these two mean lengths.
Data Sources and Analysis
Music reviews. The primary data source was the 44 published reviews of ASO per-
formances in the local newspaper, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, for two Master
Seasons (September through May): 1995–96, the year preceding the strike (N =
23 reviews) and 1997–98, the first full season after the strike (N = 21 reviews).
While there are benefits to analysing reviews over longer periods, our interest here
is to evaluate whether there was any immediate effect on critics as a result of the
musicians’ strike that brought issues concerning the market logic to the fore. Since
logic blending may shape critic discourse more slowly over a longer time period,
our analysis provides a more conservative examination of our propositions.
Analysis. Our primary unit of analysis is the critics’ review. Shrum (1991, pp.
351–2) outlines the five elements of the review: (1) descriptive, which provide
information about the cultural object, performers, or setting as a ‘thumbnail syn-
opsis of what the audience may expect’; (2) analytic elements, which provide inter-

pretations about aesthetic significance; (3) entertainment elements (displays of
erudition or outrage) which are interwoven through the description and analyses;
(4) instruction for cultural producers; and (5) evaluative elements which are ‘posi-
tive or negative judgments, often distinct from the descriptive passages of the
review’. In our analysis, we utilized all of these. We content analysed each of the
critics’ reviews, by season, counting the number of reviews in which we observed
each of the following:
Referents to aesthetic and market logics. To shed light on Propositions 1 and 3, we noted
those aspects of the review that referred to either of these logics. Referents to the
operating aesthetic logic included specific mentions of the artistic, expressive, emo-
tional or subjective nature of the ASO performance. These were directed toward
the aesthetic experience and included mentions such as ‘transcendent art’, ‘tran-
scendent beauty soulful, lustrous and evocative’, ‘creamy lushness’, or literary
From the Critics’ Corner 1045
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
comparisons that used analogy or metaphor drawn from other genres. An example
is the following: ‘Even though the music is a briar patch waiting to ensnare a con-
ductor and orchestra, Levi and the ASO are probably the Brer Rabbit of sym-
phonic partnerships, skipping through Mahler as it were a lark.’
Referents to market logic included references that focused on the sales of tickets,
the production of recordings, the audience reactions, and/or the organizational
concerns of the strike. Examples include mentions of ‘nearly sold-out houses’,
‘far more heavenly and less commercial’, and ‘The marketing folks at the Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra are doing their best to draw crowds to the Master Season
concert series.’
Artistic authenticity. We conceptualize artistic authenticity as musical programming
and content that consists of music from the established canon of masterworks and
that adheres to conventions associated with the genres of those masterworks.
Similar to Bielby and Bielby (1994, p. 1292) who analysed the rhetorical strategies
of ‘pitch men’ for television programming, we examine critics’ reviews of the con-

formity of the ASO programme to the institutionalized musical canon and related
genres; this should reveal critics’ perceptions of authenticity. Drawing on Peter-
son’s (1997) notion of reproduction as central to maintaining perceived authen-
ticity, we coded ‘Authentic’ to indicate that the programme was consistent with the
classical canon and genres; and ‘Inauthentic’ to indicate that it was not consistent,
either by virtue of the works played or the way in which they were played, scored,
or interpreted. Analysis of authenticity is used to examine Propositions 1 and 2.
Performance evaluations. To probe Propositions 1 and 2, we coded critics’ reviews as
positive if they were favourable to the programme, regardless of its conformity to
the classical canon and genres, and negative if they were not.
FINDINGS
Tables I and II show results from a content analysis of critic reviews.
[1]
Table I
provides counts of references to aesthetic and market logics in critic reviews and
Table II focuses on critic perceptions of authenticity and judgments of overall per-
formance. Both tables provide comparisons between pre-strike (1995–96) and post-
strike (1997–98) ASO seasons.
The argument in our first proposition, that critics will rely on the elements of
the aesthetic logic (conventions of the classical canon and related genres) in their
reviews in the pre-strike period, was supported as shown in Table I – 91 per cent
of all reviews in the pre-strike period contained aesthetic references. Table II shows
that performances perceived to be authentic in the pre-strike period were over-
whelmingly judged to be positive, providing further support to Proposition 1. In
fact, Table II also shows that there was a striking similarity across periods in the
1046 M. A. Glynn and M. Lounsbury
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
critics’ evaluations of musical performances when they perceived them to be
authentic. We found that, for both the pre- and post-strike periods, the majority
of programmes were perceived to be authentic (i.e. consisting of pieces from the

traditional canon that were performed in a genre-consistent way) and evaluated
favourably (57 per cent). In addition, performances perceived to be inauthentic
received far fewer favourable reviews in both periods (26 and 19 per cent respec-
tively). These results lend support to our second proposition concerning the elitist
bias of critics, regardless of shifts in logics.
Across both the pre- and post-strike periods, ASO programmes consistent with
the ‘convention’ of the orchestral canon and related genres were applauded for
their authenticity. For instance, a concert of different Russian Romantic composers
was praised for meeting expectations – ‘a programme that stresses the sheer joy of
orchestral music: gorgeous melodies, inexhaustible colours, virtuosic achievement’
(Henry, 5 January 1996, p. 1D). A programme praised as ‘ingenious and themati-
cally relevant’ elicited this analysis:
The art of symphonic programme-making has become increasingly staid and
formulaic over the past 20 years, with little effort given to thematic links or com-
plementary contrasts of mood. Veteran conductor Franz-Paul Decker
demonstrated that it’s possible to assemble an ingenious and thematically
From the Critics’ Corner 1047
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
Table I. Frequency of aesthetic and market logic references in critics’ reviews: comparison of critics’
reviews for pre-strike (1995–96) and post-strike (1997–98), Atlanta Symphony Orchestra seasons
Master Aesthetic Market Both Total Total
season logic logic logics aesthetic logic market logic
1995–96 14 1 7 21 8
(N = 23 reviews) (61%) (4%) (30%) (91%) (30%)
1997–98 5 6 6 11 12
(N = 21 reviews) (24%) (29%) (29%) (53%) (57%)
Table II. Critic assessment of authenticity and overall perfor-
mance: comparison of critics’ reviews for pre-strike (1995–96) and
post-strike (1997–98), Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performances
Authenticity/overall 1995–96 season 1997–98 season

performance (N = 23 reviews) (N = 21 reviews)
Authentic/positive 13 (57%) 12 (57%)
Authentic/negative 1 (4%) 1 (5%)
Inauthentic/positive 6 (26%) 4 (19%)
Inauthentic/negative 3 (13%) 4 (19%)
relevant programme, even when sticking to familiar composers from Germany
and Austria. (Henry, 9 February 1996, p. 1D)
The critics were perceptive about recognizing the boundary conditions not only
for classical music but for other genres as well. For instance, a Christmas pro-
gramme, Gospel Christmas, was subject to a different set of ‘conventions’ which the
reviewer applied and legitimated:
Ultimately a programme like ‘Gospel Christmas’ is beyond criticism. Forget the
fact that the balance between orchestra, jazz combo, chorus and soloists wasn’t
always perfect. Forget the fact that some of the arrangements of the traditional
carols were less successful than others in showing off the singers. This was a
performance of people moved by their faith and an appropriate opening for the
season of holiday performances. (Schwartz, 1 December 1995, p. 7E)
As in the above example, some inauthentic performances elicited positive evalua-
tions in both pre- and post-strike seasons. The favourableness of reviews, however,
was limited to those programmes in which deviations from convention were incre-
mental. In particular, innovations that were viewed favourably tended to be those
that had thematic relevance or resonated with tone or mood as in the ‘ingenious
and thematically relevant’ programme noted previously. However, when the
reverse was observed, i.e. musical programmes that were innovative but lacked
substance and thematic relevance, negative evaluations ensued:
It’s a bad sign when the programme note designed to explain a new work takes
longer to read than the piece does to perform Certainly, classical music will
not survive if it is forced endlessly to eschew the repertory from 1750 to World
War I. (Schwartz, 17 November 1995, p. 4D)
Another review referenced (and critiqued) the ASO administration and its mar-

keting efforts for its nonconformity to the classical canon. The reviewer con-
demned it for being ‘a concert of almost pops-like fluffiness’ and metaphorically
invokes the Spanish programmatic theme with reference to Spanish food:
. . . the marketing folks at the ASO are doing their best to draw crowds to the
Master Season concert series. But this year has produced so many one-trick pony
programmes that it’s beginning to get a little unnerving. Already this year there
have been all-Beethoven, all-Mozart and all-French programmes. Yet to come
are all Russian, all Mendelssohn and all Baroque. This week, it’s all Spanish
themes
There’s nothing wrong with the programming any of the music played this
week. But the colour and drama of these pieces works best when contrasted
1048 M. A. Glynn and M. Lounsbury
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
with works of different hues and styles. Put another way, for how many con-
secutive meals could you eat gazpacho and paella before the novelty of their
rich spiciness began to wear thin? (Schwartz, 9 January 1998, p. 12P)
In addition, when inauthentic programming involved a boundary transgression,
as often happened in a blended programme pairing the traditional canon (of
Romantic and early 20th century works) with a modern piece from Aaron Jay
Kernis, Invisible Mosaic III, a critical blast that defends the contours of classical
music was heard:
The sad thing is, this piece is not much different from so many, many ‘contem-
porary works’ dragged kicking and screaming across the Symphony Hall stage
in recent years there’s something better than these uninspired train wrecks.
(Schwartz, 17 November 1995, p. 4D)
Such reviews tended to draw – and defend – the line between the conventions of
high culture and popular culture, relative to both the programme (as in the above
excerpt) and the performance, e.g. ‘But Levi’s performance with the ASO was well
balanced. While it was theatrical, it was never bombastic.’ Remarking on another
change in the boundaries – removal of the traditional 4th wall (between the per-

formers and the audience) through lectures and instruction about the music and
programme – was common in the post-strike period. The critic commented on
the ‘extraordinary’ quality of this:
It was yet another evening where music in Symphony Hall was almost super-
seded by the importance of conversation before and after a master season
concert. Before the start of the scheduled programme, music director Yoel Levi
announced there would be an encore – an extraordinary event in Symphony
Hall. Even more extraordinary was a post-concert dialogue with a few hundred
members of the audience. (Schwartz, 21 November 1997, p. 7F)
The boundary demarcation of the ‘fourth wall’ served traditionally to preserve the
social distance between artist and audience ‘to permit the mystification necessary
to define a body of artistic work as sacred’ (DiMaggio, 1982, p. 380). Thus, this
greater accessibility may de-privilege the high arts. In similar fashion, the critic
invokes a metaphoric referent to popular culture that makes the point more acces-
sible to the ‘mass culture’:
But since – as Monty Python put it – so many of our classical composers are
decomposing, it’s a special occasion when one is able, and willing, to speak. In
the case of performers, it’s also enlightening to hear what the interpreter of the
music thinks is important. (Schwartz, 31 October 1997, p. 2H)
From the Critics’ Corner 1049
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
Perhaps consistent with the greater musical accessibility, the critics noted that
sometimes the music and its interpretation had to be in ‘digestible form’ presum-
ably for those without educated, experienced or elite palates – ‘the orchestra exe-
cution just wasn’t up to its usual high standard the music emerged in a more
detailed, digestible form instead of the usual overpowering force’ (Schwartz, 6
March 1998, p. 2H). The reviewer ‘translates’ for the audience via analogies that
build on the conventions of popular mass culture, even with reference to every-
day life: ‘Beethoven, Levi and the ASO used to be two hours of root canal. This
is two hours of music’ (Schwartz, 6 March 1998, p. 2H). Clearly, the reviewers

seemed to resent that the orchestral programme was no longer the sole province
of the elite or educated patrons.
Despite the apparent elitist bias of critics that is evidenced in Table II and in
much of the aforementioned reviews discussed, Table I shows that the actual lan-
guage used in reviews did change markedly across the two periods – aesthetic logic
references declined from 91 per cent to 53 per cent while market logic references
increased from 30 per cent to 57 per cent. This near-doubling in critics’ mentions
of commercial aspects, including audience experience, marketing concerns (espe-
cially ticket sales), recording contracts, or other related concerns (e.g. administra-
tion of the orchestra) provides support for Proposition 3 that suggested that the
organizational shift and blending of logics would be reflected in the discourse of
critics’ reviews.
Overall, our results suggest that the impact of the ASO musicians’ strike in
blending of market and aesthetic logics in the structure and functioning of the
orchestra was also discerned by critics in their reviews. In spite of the changes pre-
cipitated by the strike, critics continued to try to defend and perpetuate the bound-
aries around the canon and related genres, highlighting their effort to resist changes
associated with the ascending market logic. While no changes to the canon of mas-
terworks seem to have occurred, there is some evidence that there may be slight
erosion of the evaluative frameworks of critics at the margins. Our evidence indi-
cates that this erosion seems to have become more dramatically manifest after the
musicians’ strike when there was a shift in attention towards commercial concerns.
Taken together, our results lend support to our propositions that critics would
be defenders of traditional, authentic musical genres despite logic blending, but
would shift some of the language in their reviews when the market logic became
more pervasive. More generally, we believe that our findings suggest that during
stable periods, aesthetic yardsticks of authenticity apply non-problematically, but
as a cultural production system undergoes crisis, preferences that critics reveal
about how such crises should be resolved will be reflected in their subsequent
frameworks for evaluating authentic performance. Even though it is unclear what

impact critics will have on symphonic programming and performances over the
long haul, we believe that our analyses show that critics both reflect shifts in insti-
tutional logics while also having the agency to react to (and resist) such shifts.
1050 M. A. Glynn and M. Lounsbury
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
CONCLUSION
In this study, we explored changes in critics’ reviews of Atlanta Symphony Orches-
tra (ASO) performances as a way to investigate how the reviews of critics are
shaped by broader shifts in institutional logics. We showed how the blending of
market and aesthetic logics worked their way into the reviews of critics, but this
blending did not alter the elitist bias of critics that led to overwhelmingly positive
judgments of performances perceived to be authentic. Consistent with conven-
tional sociological analyses of critics, our analyses showed that critics did engage
in efforts to maintain the sacredness of boundaries around traditional classic
genres; critics invoked standards of authenticity to make sure that the core canon
remained pure and unsullied by more commercial or mainstream interests. While
critics seemed to become more open to popular genres after the strike, it is impor-
tant to note that the musical canon itself has not been compromised a great deal
(e.g. Glynn, 2002; Americanizing the American Orchestra, 1993). Hence, change seems
to be occurring incrementally at the edges of the symphonic repertoire, while
critics and symphony orchestras aim to resist wholesale redefinitions of their field
that would threaten its authenticity. While it is possible that the very nature of
what is considered authentic may be undergoing some redefinition, this is not
readily detectable in the short time period of our study.
It would be useful to follow this over a longer time period to understand how
organizations and other key actors such as critics react to or even help to catalyse
broader institutional changes related to logic shifts, including concomitant changes
to perceptions of authenticity. For instance, Jones’ (2001) exemplary study of a
shift from a technology to content focus in early 20th century American film
showed how entrepreneurs with different career histories provided a key motor for

change. Her study highlighted how a co-evolutionary perspective on entrepre-
neurial careers, institutional rules and competitive dynamics can shed a great deal
of light on changes in cultural industries. Here, we focused more limitedly on how
key actors reacted to a broader shift in institutional logics that became locally
salient as a result of a strike event. While we depicted critics and the ASO as react-
ing to the institutional shift, we also emphasized their agency in accommodating
a small degree of change while resisting more insidious elements.
By showing how the reviews of critics were shaped by broader logics and genres,
therefore, we highlighted how broader cultural elements shaped localized texts,
but that the creators of texts were able to construct texts as a resource of discur-
sive struggle over the nature of the symphony. Hence, by relating the reviews of
critics to broader meaning structures, we believe that we have made progress in
showing how struggles related to identity and status are central to stories that are
told (Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001). Symphony orchestra critics are vested stake-
holders in the symphony orchestra field who not only aim to for authenticity,
upholding longstanding traditions by patrolling the boundaries of the musical
From the Critics’ Corner 1051
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005
canon, but act to promote the survival and growth of orchestras as cultural insti-
tutions. By showing how the reviews of critics changed, we highlighted how those
reviews are in fact stories that reveal important insights about the nature of sym-
phonic identity and the strategies of organizational adaptation that are employed.
And, in their stories, critics tend to stake claims of authenticity in preserving the
purity of the core canon while deflecting threats of assimilation by the market and
more mainstream culture. Thus, we find that critics are central to authenticating
artistic expression by valorizing and naturalizing musical tastes. In addition, critics
are key actors who can moderate and influence how institutional change works its
way into organizations, and in turn, may be drivers in the ongoing restructuring
of institutional logics and processes.
NOTES

*Earlier versions of this research were presented at the 18th EGOS Colloquium, 5–7 July 2002 in
Barcelona, Spain, as part of sub theme #6: Creative Industries, and the Miniconference on the Soci-
ology of Music, August 2003 in Atlanta, GA. We thank EGOS and ASA participants for their con-
structive comments, as well as Candace Jones, Anand Narasimhan, Jose Luis Alvarez and the three
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.
[1] Note that the aggregate sum of individual cell counts in Table I equals the total number of
reviews. However, in Table II, individual cells do not sum to total number of reviews because
five reviews contained no references that could be clearly coded as signifying the aesthetic or
market logics (or both).
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