markets as practice - marketing school of thought

Carolina Appelqvist - 40090Helena Brodbeck – 40093Robin Hesselstad - 20878Magnus Karlsson -20796Eleni Miliou - 40099Riikka Murto - 40097

MARKETS-AS-PRACTICE

AGENDA

• On the nature of markets and their practices - Training session 1

• Article 2 - Training session 2

• Article 3 - Training session 3

• Article 4 - Training session 4

• Break (10 minutes)

• Sum up

•  

ON THE NATURE OF MARKETS AND THEIR PRACTICES

Kjellberg & Helgesson (2007)

MARKET PRACTICE?

What is shaped?

How is it shaped? “all activities that contribute to constitute markets”

“how ideas about markets and market tools take part in shaping markets”

Callon

“is a set of concepts, routines, habits or practices which are submerged in shaping a social setting”

Finch & Acha

PERFORMATIVITY

A NEW VIEW ON STUDYING MARKETS…

3 PRACTICES

• Exchange practices 

Idiosyncratic and general

• Representational practices

Images of markets and how they work 

 • Normalizing practices

Rules of competition and marketing  

TRANSLATIONS

EXCHANGE PRACTICES

• Idiosyncratic and general

• Norms affecting: Ex. New Public Management

• Re-presentations affecting: Ex. Stock market

REPRESENTATIONAL PRACTICES

 • Images of markets and how they work

• Norms affecting: Ex. Swedish competition law

• Exchange affecting: Ex. SAS   

NORMALIZING PRACTICES

• Rules of competition and marketing

• Exchange affecting: Ex. retailers opposed a ban

• Re-presentations affecting: Ex. Swedish food distribution

TRAINING SESSION 1

Discuss the main points of:

• Exchange practices

• Representational practices

• Normalization practices

EXAMPLE FROM NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

• Representational practices – flavored waters are soft drinks with mineral water as an ingredient

• Normalizing practices - how sugar content should be measured

• Exchange practices – where brands should be placed in relation to each other

WHAT CATEGORY IS THIS?

TRAINING SESSION 2

Give examples of:

• Exchange practices

• Representational practices

• Normalization practices

MAKING AND EXCHANGING A SECOND-HAND OIL FIELD, CONSIDERED IN AN INDUSTRIAL MARKETING SETTING

Finch & Acha (2008)

MAIN IDEAS

• Builds on Callon's ideas and mainly on the Actor Network Theory (ANT)

• Until now: ANT only applied to retailing and financial markets

• Main goal of article: transfer ANT to industrial and B2B settings

• For this purpose production plays an important role and shouldn't be considered as a spillover.

4 SIGNIFICANT THEMES

Following critical aspects need to be considered:

1. Singularizing/totalizing

2. Framing and overflowing

3. Performativity and calculation

4. Multiple versions

SINGULARIZING/TOTALIZING

• Singularizing:

"a pattern of actions in which an object of production becomes translated into an object of a market, so qualifying as a good and being of interest to consumers”. 

• Totalizing:

Markets establish a limited number of criteria on the basis of which goods can be related and compared to one another. 

“Markets make comparable what was previously incomparable” M.Callon

FRAMING AND OVERFLOWING

• Framing: 

The market is framed, cut or disentangled from the wider social network through goods attaching themselves to a ranking based on certain characteristics.

• Overflowing: 

Potential goods and potential characteristics inevitably overflow from the market, becoming unattached as residuals. The market’s boundary is marked by overflowing.

PERFORMATIVITY AND CALCULATION

• Performativity:

"a set of concepts, routines, habits or practices which are immediately submerged in shaping a social setting"

• Calculation: 

the process by which the value of a market's goods is being defined.

• Example:

Monte Carlo simulation as the result of performativity for the oil and gas industry was used to calculate value of oil fields

MULTIPLE VERSIONS

• Law and Singleton: 

"An object is different according to the different sets of others arranged around it in different settings"

• Callon et al.:

different careers for objects in production and in use (product vs. good)

• Kjellberg and Helgesson:

seemingly contradictory practices co-exist (singularizing vs. totalizing)

• Bowker and Star:

markets ‘sort things out’ by means of calculation, but there can be different calculations.

TRAINING SESSION 3

• Come up with a similar opportunity in retailing and industrial context where you can view a product differently (than other actors in the market).

• Explain how your example illustrates the concept of singularization.

NEW APPROACH TO SEGMENTATION

SEGMENTING A MARKET IN THE MAKING: INDUSTRIAL MARKET SEGMENTATION AS CONSTRUCTION  Debbie Harrison, Hans Kjellberg (2009)

This article discusses the case of Biacore, which engaged in segmenting activities while shaping the market for its new product technology.

EXISTING LITERATURE ON SEGMENTATION

Classical approaches:

• Segmentation = "process of identifying relatively homogeneous customer groups within a defined market"

• Assume that the market is already made up of (potential) customers -> descriptive• Priority: identification of segments for which an effective marketing program can

be developed • Assumed one way causal relationship between description of the market and the

marketing program 

Recent approaches to segmenting industrial markets in the making:

• Acknowledge the interaction between multiple customers and the supplier• Active networking approach • However: still assume existing markets

CASE STUDY

1984 – 1989: Biacore as a development project of different companies • Target application area: diagnostics

• Second potential market: research tool -> set of potential customers  different and smaller

• Company linked to the diagnosis market withdrew from the project  -> access to diagnostic market was cut off

•  Production volume had to be reduced

CASE STUDY

1990 – 1995: Co-development in interaction with users

• Activities centered on launch for research market

• Interested potential customers were invited to experiment with the biosensors

• Free after-sales discussion of results developed close relationships

• New ways of using the machine were discovered by customers and documented by Biacore

• New versions of the instrument were developed

CASE ANALYSIS

• New focal segment was not well definable and homogeneous like initially thought, descriptive techniques could not be applied

• New product development meant no assistance from competitors or co-creators

• A long-term, iterative process during which product characteristics and uses, customer identities and interaction patterns gradually evolved

• Knowledge and identity for Biacore was created

• Once usage patterns were established, move from ’segment of one’ to ‘segment of many’

CASE ANALYSIS

• Suggests that markets in the making need preliminary activities before the can be segmented

• Suggests industrial segmentation is neither one-way, nor exclusively descriptive but also constructive

1995 – 1999: becoming a formally independent company

• 2 main customer groups were established   

• Change to more cost-efficient marketing approach

• Sampling was replaced by shifting new customers to existing publications

TRAINING SESSION 4

Can you think of other traditional marketing tools that may be affected by the markets as practice approach and how they can be adapted and applied to the new view?

MARKETS-AS-PRACTICE Sum-up

LINKS TO PREVIOUS SEMINARS:

 • Social constructivism

• Science and technology studies

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF MARKET PRACTICES

STABILITY AND CHANGE

• Examples of market practices from retail and industrial contexts

• A paradox: contradictory versions of the market co-exist but need to be partially reconciled for markets to work

• Singularizing/totalizing

• Framing and overflowing

MARKETING TOOLS AND THE SHAPING OF MARKETS

• Segmentation as market construction

• Performativity and calculation  

• Practical implications to marketers?

JEOPARDY / MILLIONAIRE RULES

• 3 participants up on stage

• We give the answers you ask the question

• Each question start by What is/Who is/When is/Where is…

• Each participant given an animal sound

• Participant continue to choose question if correct

• Loses points if wrong

• Life lines

o Ask a friend in audience

o Ask audience

• Definitions

• Practical examples of...

• Name the practice

• Name the market perspective

DEFINITION QUESTIONS

• Performativity 100p• Singularization 200p• Representation practice 300p• Constructive segmentation 400p

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

• SAS example – Representational practice 100p• Soda drink example.. - Normalizing practice

200p• New public management – Exchange practice• Oil field – Singularization

MISSING WORD

• Good 100p• Carolina 200p• Translation 300p• Totalization 400p

PERSPECTIVE OF MARKETING

• Economic 100p (slide 23)• Economic sociology. 200P (slide 3)• Markets as practice 300p • Science and technology 400p (slide 11)

FINAL QUESTION

Category: Markets as practice

FINAL QUESTION

Answer:

The three practices of marketing.

FINAL QUESTION

Question:

- What is normalizing, exchange, representational?