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Studies of the social construction of markets have not determined which social environments, which we refer to as proximate social space, are most likely to trigger social construction processes. We find that U.S. nonprofit fiscal sponsors respond to greater potential for category emergence when proximate social space is defined by geography but not by market segment. Further, in addition to responding to potential claimants based on geographic peers, organizations also respond to actual claimants based on peers in the market segment. The pattern suggests that geographic social proximity triggers initial label claiming, which in turn triggers responses from market segment peers.

This paper addresses social interatcion and the formation of value beliefs in markets. It empirically examines value construction by analyzing rebidding behavior in online auctions, wherein individuals reassess the maximum price they would pay for a given product. Statistical analyses of more than 10,000 auctions containing more than 55,000 individual bids on the auction website eBay suggest that rebidding is positively associated with a lack of auction-internal price information and bidder inexperience. Analyses also suggest that engaging in rebidding is positively associated with an individual winning an auction. This work, therefore, helps to provide a deeper understanding about valuation, price formation, and the organization of markets. This work contributes to domains of research related to the construction of value and the emergence, evaluation, and legitimization of new products, services, and ideas.

The purpose of this paper is to address an issue related to the role of interaction processes in the development of customer-supplier relationships in business markets.

Focusing on the role of cognition in interaction behaviours in business relationships, the authors examine two research streams that offer perspectives on interaction processes akin to the IMP – the socio-cognitive perspective and the practice-based approach to markets and marketing.

The two research streams analysed contribute to understanding the link between cognition and interaction behaviours by pointing to the construction of meanings as an important factor in interaction behaviours and indicating storytelling as a tool to construct meanings among the actors.

This paper is among the few studies that focus the attention on communication processes in business relationships and networks.

This paper aims to account for the crafting of the constellation of brand and consumer values around an everyday product, that of bottled water. This paper situates the exponential growth of this market in its historical and cultural context, paying particular attention to the fostering of the “social conditions of possibility” for this product in the French market. The socio-historical context and the interplay of stakeholders to the respondents’ understanding and uses of bottled water, highlighting the importance of a range of factors that made this market and product resonate with their requirements, are linked.

This account responds to the call for more engagement with social theory in marketing and consumer research (Brownlie and Hewer, 2011). It also connects with recent scholarly pleas for a displacement of the consumer from the center of our analytic attention (Askegaard and Linnet, 2011; Holt, 2012). It does so by using the social praxeology approach associated with Pierre Bourdieu to study the affirmation and sedimentation of the practices surrounding the consumption of bottled water in France.

Influential institutional actors invoked discourses of purity, nature and health, juxtaposing these with the risks of tap water consumption. These were cemented by the influence of pediatricians who encouraged changes in family drinking habits which translated into long-term shifts in consumer behavior. By contrast to studies of different contexts, our respondents were greatly enamored by the materiality of the products themselves, using these in innovative ways for aesthetic pursuits. The social praxeology approach uncovers how brand and consumer value have been constructed in the French bottled water market.

This study is based on the historical development and growth of the market for bottled water in France. It would be a valuable exercise to investigate other contexts to determine whether the strategies of symbolic competition, especially the use of expert intermediaries rich in cultural capital that can be identified, are reflected elsewhere.

Bottled water producers will have to confront the issue of the resource-intensiveness of their products. This feature stands in marked contrast to the symbolic capital and points of differentiation that producers have weaved around bottled water. Such contradictions will be exposed by actors in other fields (e.g. the environmental movement). This can be expected to have an impact on the consumption and viability of this market in future.

This paper uses a philosophical framework – social praxeology – to chart the development, affirmation and exponential growth of the bottled water market. Via a combination of historical re-construction and empirical research, it highlights the interactive relationships between government, producers and consumers, uncovering brand and consumer value creation.

In this chapter we examine how the small scale agro-industries located in Southern Brazil, specifically in the North of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, started to deal with changes in their production processes, how they created and adapted technologies, and devised new products. Among the main outcomes of the study we highlight the novelties observed during the field research, especially regarding the family situation and the agro-manufacturing activities, in which we observed (i) a relative raise in autonomy; (ii) improvement in both the income level and the quality of life of household members; (iii) creation of new nested markets and marketing channels; (iv) development of more environmentally sustainable products; (v) improvement of the value added to food products; and (vi) development of new interfaces between families and other social actors.

In this article, we consider the evolution of the US stock market from the 1770s through the early 20th century. Adopting an institutional lens, we conceive of the stock market as an institutional field constituted by socially constructed cultural logics and myths. We focus on the role of the US government as an actor embedded in the stock market field and sharing in the prevailing field logics. Tracking the dominant logics of the stock market field at different historical periods, we examine how these logics impacted government regulatory action upon the stock market, and how those government regulations affected the subsequent logics of the stock market field. Our research included both quantitative content analysis of articles in historical newspapers and qualitative historical analysis of multiple primary and secondary accounts of stock market problems and solutions across more than 150 years. We document how government regulatory action both reflects and shapes the logics of the stock market field.

Although the generation of social value is the focus of social entrepreneurship, little research attention is paid on how social value and transformation can be created. By adopting a market approach, this study aims to develop a framework showing how social enterprises in tourism/hospitality can generate social value and transformation.

A thorough literature review revealed that a market approach is an appropriate lens for understanding social entrepreneurship. Consequently, a framework based on “learning with the market” is proposed as a useful tool for identifying, managing and also creating (new) opportunities for social ventures. The justification and the theoretical underpinnings of the market-based framework are further supported by discussing various other theories and concepts.

The framework identifies three capabilities that social entrepreneurs need to develop for generating social value and transformation: network structure, market practices and market pictures. Several examples from tourism and hospitality social enterprises are analyzed for showing the applicability and usefulness of the framework.

The paper proposes a conceptual framework as well as several research directions for further testing, refining and expanding it.

By applying the framework on several tourism and hospitality social enterprises, the paper provides practical implications about the capabilities that social enterprises should develop for engaging with other market actors to identify and exploit (new) market opportunities for social value co-creation, and influence market plasticity for forming new markets and driving social change.

The suggested framework identifies the capabilities and the ways in which (tourism/hospitality) social enterprises can engage with and form markets for co-creating social value and escalating their social impacts through social transformation.

The paper provides a new marketing approach (that overcomes the limitations of traditional economic theories) for understanding how social enterprises can shape, manage and engage with social markets for generating social value.

Despite the growing amount of research on the social and organizational role of legitimacy, very little is known about the subtle discursive processes through which organizational changes are legitimated in contemporary society. The purpose of this paper is to explore the subtle processes of interdiscursivity and intertextuality through which an organization constructs a sense of legitimacy.

Drawing on the case of a newly privatized oil company in a transitional, post-communist economy, the authors’ research uses critical discourse analysis to analyze the annual reports, corporate press releases, and relevant media from the four years following privatization.

The authors argue for a relational understanding of legitimacy construction that emphasizes how legitimacy relies on the multiple processes of intertextuality linking corporate narratives and media texts. Corporate narratives are not produced solely by the discourses that occur at the individual and organizational levels; they are also produced by the much broader discourses that occur at the societal level.

This study’s main contribution is that it reveals the intertextual and interdiscursive construction of corporate narratives, which is a key element in understanding how discourses around privatization are interlinked and draw upon other macro-level discourses to construct legitimacy.

This chapter explores the nature of the cultural context that frames value creation and provides insight to the way in which value is collaboratively created, or co-created, in markets.

We develop a conceptual framework and research propositions for studying the co-creation of value-in-cultural-context through the intersection of consumer culture theory (CCT) and service-dominant (S-D) logic and the integration of a practice-theoretic approach for value co-creation.

The integration of CCT, S-D logic, and practice theory provides a conceptual framework for studying the co-creation of value among multiple stakeholders and the (re)formation of markets.

Drawing on this framework, marketers can contribute to the co-creation of new markets by influencing changes in cultural contexts – practices, norms, meanings, and resources – that frame value co-creation and exchange.

This chapter explores the integration of CCT and S-D logic by focusing on value co-creation and applying a practice approach to further weave together these distinct research areas. In addition, the proposed framework elaborates the conceptualization of value-in-context to consider the cultural context that influences and is influenced by the co-creation of value.