Market-shaping roles – Exploring actor roles in the shaping of the Swedish market for liquefied gas

Market shaping MNCs in emerging markets - stakeholder engagement and the role of embeddedness

“…Therefore, we interpret a stakeholder's engagement disposition as the awareness and interest in the market-shaping strategy and the participation in its implementation, thereby distinguishing strong and weak engagement. Moreover, our study broadens the scope of previous studies on stakeholder engagement and roles (e.g., Flaig & Ottosson, 2022) by including non-business actors and at the same time putting focus on the kinds of resources (tangible/intangible) that stakeholders may hold and be beneficial for a market-shaping strategy. This is especially relevant in an emerging markets context, with a relatively high involvement of social and political actors and importance for foreign MNCs to build up relationships with stakeholders that hold intangible resources (e.g., trust and legitimacy) (Elg et al, 2015).…”

“…Markets are increasingly regarded as "plastic multi-actor systems" that are continuously shaped by the activities of their participants (Flaig et al, 2021;Flaig & Ottosson, 2022;Nenonen et al, 2019;Storbacka, 2019). Market shaping is increasingly viewed as an overall corporate strategy (Hills & Sarin, 2003;Schindehutte, Morris, & Kocak, 2008), as well as a specific strategic intention comprised of "purposeful activities to achieve a certain market-shaping objective" (Flaig et al, 2021, p. 257).…”

“…Engagement is used in the market-shaping literature to discuss the roles of mostly business stakeholders of comparable size and power and who are aware of the firm's market-shaping vision, understand the value that it entails for them and are eager to collaborate towards its implementation (e.g., Brodie et al, 2019;Fehrer et al, 2018;Flaig & Ottosson, 2022).…”

“…For instance, recently Flaig and Ottosson (2022) identified six marketshaping roles depending on different levels of market-shaping engagement towards a focal firm's market vision in terms of engagement disposition (supporting/opposing), engagement connectedness (level of market influence) and engagement behaviour (high/low resource commitment): Market Driver, Market Supporter, Market Missionary, Market Rival, Market Catalyzer, and Market Detractor. In this study we are also interested in investigating the roles of stakeholders who may potentially be unaware of the MNC's marketshaping vision or uninterested in its implementation. Hence, they may neither be intentionally supporting or opposing, but nevertheless hold valuable resources, making it worthwhile exploring how these stakeholders can be engaged to support an MNC's market-shaping vision.…”

“…In this study, we investigate stakeholder roles in market shaping through a deeper look on stakeholder engagement, particularly their awareness of the MNC's market-shaping vision or interest to participate in it (weak/strong), and the kinds of resources (tangible/intangible) contributed by stakeholders. Flaig and Ottosson (2022) argued that, while an actor's engagement is a necessary condition for playing a role in the market-shaping process, the emergence and performance of a role is contextually embedded in the market system's and therefore, other actors' response to this process. In this context, the authors hint at a recursive enactment of marketshaping roles resulting from the mutual influence of market actors.…”