The Logics of Boutique Fitness

Over the last 15 years, boutique fitness studios have grown in count and economic contribution. Their pop culture relevance has also skyrocketed in tv shows, movies and politics. Organizations in the relatively new, and growing, boutique fitness field range from large national brands, to locally owned franchises, to mom & pop businesses, each vying for consumers’ discretionary income and leisure time. This study focuses on how single owned facilities navigate the nascent and constantly evolving boutique fitness field. I use a mixed methods approach to understand how individual characteristics and organizational ownership overlap, focusing on how three boutique fitness studio owners’ individual characteristics shape how their organizations navigate the logics of the boutique fitness field. I attend to individual characteristics but also address the role of contextual and historical significance of each community. Each of the three focal organizations navigated the tensions of the boutique fitness field: market, community and health, differently. While each logic was present in each organization, the centrality and interpretation of each logic differed in each business. One organization struggled navigating the tensions between market and community, while another was predominantly health focused. The third was focused on community, which involved evoking characteristics of the black church. I contend that the owners’ individual characteristics shaped how each organization navigated the tensions present in the boutique fitness field. Additionally, each organization’s varying response to ClassPass, an industry technological disruptor, exemplified the varying ways each studio navigated these tensions, and then influenced their future paths. This study provides examples of how organizations navigate more than two competing organizational logics, drawing attention to the overlap of individual and organizational factors in small businesses. This study shows that individual characteristics of the owners’ shape logic adoption and interpretation, with specific focus on race.