What is Norm entrepreneurship?
Norm entrepreneurship is the deliberate effort to establish, shift, or overturn social norms by strategically acting against the current norm and recruiting others to follow. Norm entrepreneurs are individuals or organizations who catalyze norm cascades.
How it works
Successful norm entrepreneurs identify a norm that is ripe for change (many people privately disagree with it), provide a focal point for the new norm (a clear alternative behavior), create social proof (making early adoption visible), and reduce the cost of adoption (providing social cover for others to follow). They differ from mere deviants in that their goal is to change the norm for everyone, not just to exempt themselves.
Applied example
Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her bus seat was an act of norm entrepreneurship, not just personal courage. It was strategically chosen (Parks was a respected community figure whose arrest would generate sympathy) and supported by an organized movement ready to amplify the act into a catalyst for broader norm change.
Why it matters
Norm entrepreneurship shows that social change does not happen spontaneously but requires strategic agents who are willing to bear the costs of early deviation in order to shift the norm for everyone.
