Theorising change and stability in service ecosystems: a morphogenetic approach

Effectuation and Morphogenesis in the New Zealand Fairtrade Marketing System

“…Simmonds, Gazley, and Dallenbach (2018) draw together criticisms of these approaches at empirical and theoretical levels, and Simmonds (2018b) addresses the problems at a metatheoretical level. Their central thesis is that the conception of structure in these approaches, and therefore the assumptions regarding how marketing systems are ordered and evolve are burdened by one or a combination of; the conflation between social interaction with social structures, a failure to account for the irreducible complexity of the domains of social, economic, cultural, material and institutional forces and the inability to account for the multiply determined and historically contingent nature of the dynamics within marketing systems.…”

“…In response to these issues and to supplement the development of marketing systems research at its interface with entrepreneurial marketing and effectuation, we utilize the morphogenetic approach recently articulated in the work of Simmonds (2018a, 2018b) and Simmonds, Gazley, and Dallenbach (2018). Their frameworks complement that of macro-marketing and marketing systems scholars while offering different vocabularies, conceptual tools and considerations of emergence and causation.…”

“…Simmonds, Gazley, and Dallenbach (2018) argue for a stronger emphasis on the entangling grid of different social forces, structures and relations, which position actors within a marketing system and provide conditioned yet non-deterministic paths of action. All entities, whether individuals, business networks, or overarching societal totalities are argued as being emergent and irreducible.…”

“…The approach posited by Simmonds (2018a, 2018b) and Simmonds, Gazley, and Dallenbach (2018) does not set out to explain systems processes as the result of particular actions or practices, or through the effects of specific institutions or network relationships, as other theoretical positions do. Rather, it builds an explanation of the causal powers, behavioural capacities and tendencies found within structures that interplay over a period of time.…”

“…In this paper, we join the vanguard of macro-marketing scholars who advocate for a systems perspective to help understand both markets and marketing (Layton 2007; Mittelstaedt, Kilbourne, and Mittelstaedt 2006). In doing so, we apply Simmonds, Gazley, and Dallenbach’s (2018) morphogenetic cycle framework to map adaptation, change, evolution (morphogenesis) and stability (morphostasis) within the NZ specialty coffee industry (Archer 1995). We make two theoretical contributions in this study.…”