Institutional entrepreneurship and the negotiation and blending of multiple logics in the Southern Arizona local food system

In this paper, we explore the entrepreneurial leadership strategies and routine work of actors located across a diverse array of organizational settings (i.e., farmers’ markets, community farms, community-supported agriculture programs, food and seed banks, local food print media) that combine to shape and sustain the Southern Arizona (AZ) local food system (LFS). We use the theoretical principles of institutional entrepreneurship and logic multiplicity to show how the strategies and routine work of local food actors at the organizational level combine to negotiate system-level meaning and structure within and across the Southern AZ LFS, which is an otherwise seemingly fragmented and contentious social space. We illustrate how the entrepreneurial work performed within multiple organizations and organizational types converge to form a hybrid (or blended) local food logic. Implications are discussed and recommendations for practice are proposed.