Place is a strategic resource that is both valuable and challenging to successfully deploy. However, organizational theory suggests that successfully deploying place as a valuable resource is especially vulnerable to claims of inauthenticity. We seek to better understand the boundary condition around when and how place can successfully be deployed by theorizing how representations of place are made, and more particularly, how places have their own agency. We build this theory using data from the Australian distilling industry, which, not long ago, used to have a global reputation for low-quality mass-produced alcohol products with little connection to their place of origin. We propose a model that helps explicate the difference between weak and strong place-based authenticity claims, helping us to generate insights of the performativity of strategy and how conceptions and ontologies of place lead to a variety of representations of place and, therefore, different strategic positioning in the market. In particular, our findings uncover how a relational representation of place – organizations engaging in dialogue with places – generates an authentic use of place in products and helps firms avoid common pitfalls of leveraging place as a resource.
