COFFEE SHOPS IN SINGAPORE : ORGANIZATIONAL DEATH, BIRTH, AND SURVIVAL

Abstract

Coffee shop, a familiar 'face' in the Singapore landscape, has continued to hold itself ubiquitously as a social institution for almost a century now. However, underpinning the survival of the trade is the evolution of the population of coffee shops considerably over time. Apart from outward appearances, the organizational form of coffee shops has also assumed a new facade. To apprehend the organizational change of coffee shops, the contrast between the conspicuous polar-opposites of traditional and modern coffee shops is necessary and heuristically useful. Particularly, through examining the death of traditional organizational form and birth of modem organizational form of coffee shops, the arena is set for understanding these occurrences in terms of the relationship between the organizations and the environments. For this sociological problematic, population-ecology theory is employed as the theoretical framework. The theory points to the relationship between environment and populations of organizations where it gives prominence to the selection process. Specifically, I examine how the changing political, economic, and cultural conditions have brought about the death of traditional organizational form and birth of modern organizational form of coffee shops. However, the emphasis on selection process by population-ecology theory necessarily precludes the discussion of adaptation process by organizational actors, that is, the coffee shop operators. Therefore, in relating adaptation process to the same organizational change, I examine the inertia pressures that retard transformative potential of coffee shops. Furthermore, Bourdieu's concept of habitus is draw upon to bear on the strategic behaviour of coffee shop operators. In conducting the research, I have relied on collecting secondary data and ethnographic data to facilitate my analysis of the problematic. At macroscopic level, result shows that in the last thirty years, due to selection process by industrialization, urbanization, and change in everyday life and consumer taste, many traditional coffee shops have closed down, and thus resulting in the death of the traditional organizational form. Concomitantly, many other coffee shops have emerged with their modern organizational form. The coffee shop groupings, in particular, represent the ideal-type modern organizational form. At microscopic level, inertia pressures (such as sunk costs, normative practice and resource limitations) and habitus of operators served to restrict the survival of traditional organizational form. On the other hand, habitus of the modem operators served to effect necessary changes and thus result in the birth of modem organizational form. In conclusion, organizational change, existing under the persistence of coffee shop as a social institution, is represented by the death of traditional organizational form and birth of modem organizational form of coffee shops (effected through selection process). Moreover, as examined, adaptation process meaningfully linked to selection process do add explanatory cogency to the sociological problematic.