From market driving to market shaping: impact of a language shift

Abstract

Purpose Prior research acknowledges the lack of theorizing of markets within marketing. This paper aims to capture the emerging themes linked to different conceptualizations of the market and provide a language system for theorizing the market. Design/methodology/approach The paper conducts a bibliometric analysis of 177 articles and 22 keywords and adopts Mele et al.’s (2015) market conceptualization to interpret the results. Findings The bibliometric analysis detects five thematic clusters: market driving, market exchange, market shaping, market practices and macro-marketing. Based on their degrees of relevance and development, these are arranged into two groups. The analysis of these two language systems shows a shift toward a more comprehensive conversation on how the market is conceptualized. The authors synthesize this shift under the expression “from market driving to market shaping.” Research limitations/implications The comparison of the two language systems allows the argument that market is a complex concept and that to understand it necessitates a rich set of terms. Practical implications The different ways of conceptualizing the market mean that managers face a choice when analyzing their market situations (what language system to use). This choice will be consequential for their subsequent actions. Originality/value This paper contributes to the identification of two rival language systems and narratives: market driving and market shaping.

The 5R Guidelines for a strengths-based approach to co-design with customers experiencing vulnerability

“…Market-shaping is one of the aims of social marketing and policy and thus the central role of language in this process highlights the importance of shifting from a deficit discourse to strengths-based. An important feature of market shaping is the role of diverse actors in the ecosystem (Pels et al, 2022) and thus a central feature of social marketing research and practice going forward should be the use of strengths-based rather than deficit language by all these actors to ensure consistency in the system to enable customers experiencing vulnerability. Another key implication for social marketing processes is the need for iteration and reflection.…”

“…Language is a key feature of a strengths-based approach with both researchers and policy-makers recommending the use of terms such as resilience, potential and opportunity rather than at-risk, lacking and crisis (Cook et al, 2005; Hammond & Zimmerman, 2012). The importance of language as a market-shaping tool has been recently highlighted (Pels et al, 2022) with acknowledgement that language is a driver of the institutional nature of concepts. Language that is strengths-based focuses on empowerment and typically labels the condition rather than the person (Carroll, 2019; Glavas et al, 2020).…”

“…A second contribution for social marketing is the identification of the importance of language in framing the social issue and designing the solution, expanding on previous research in this area (Small et al, 2020). Language has recently been highlighted as a key component of market-shaping, the evolution of markets over time through networked structures and ecosystems (Pels et al, 2022). Market-shaping is one of the aims of social marketing and policy and thus the central role of language in this process highlights the importance of shifting from a deficit discourse to strengths-based.…”

“…This research note articulates five guidelines for developing a strengths-based approach to co-design in social marketing, developed through a project working with mature women. A primary focus of this new model for social marketing is an emphasis on strengths-based language both in terms of communication and mindset, where the role of language in market-shaping has been identified in previous research with calls for more research on language systems (Pels et al, 2022). Our research responds to this call.…”

Balanced centricity: a joint institutional logic within open collaborative ecosystems

“…To summarize, further research into BC institutional logics is needed to improve our knowledge regarding the process, to zoom out further and to augment the literature on how multiple engaged parties maintain a balance between different aims. The narrative of BC as an institutional logic requires a language shift (Pels et al , 2022) to express open collaborative platforms in terms of actors embedded in them, representations related to the way to signify them as well as how we make sense of them, encompassing diverse ways of understanding the emergence and evolution of these open platforms (Mele et al , 2015)…”