Summary of articles and presentation of the main notions behind the marketing school of thought that views markets as constituted and shaped by practices.

1. MARKETS-AS-PRACTICE
Carolina Appelqvist - 40090
Helena Brodbeck – 40093
Robin Hesselstad - 20878
Magnus Karlsson -20796
EleniMiliou - 40099
RiikkaMurto - 40097

2. 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
•

3. ON THE NATURE OF MARKETS
AND THEIR PRACTICES
Kjellberg&Helgesson (2007)

4. MARKET PRACTICE?
What is shaped?
How is it shaped?
“all activities that contribute to
constitute markets”

5. PERFORMATIVITY
“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

6. A NEW VIEW ON STUDYING MARKETS…

8. 3 PRACTICES
• Exchange practices
 Idiosyncratic and general
• Representational practices
 Images of markets and how they work
• Normalizing practices
 Rules of competition and marketing

9. TRANSLATIONS

10. EXCHANGE PRACTICES
• Idiosyncratic and general
• Norms affecting: Ex. New Public Management
• Re-presentations affecting: Ex. Stock market

11. REPRESENTATIONAL PRACTICES
• Images of markets and how they work
• Norms affecting: Ex. Swedish competition law
• Exchange affecting: Ex. SAS

12. NORMALIZING PRACTICES
• Rules of competition and marketing
• Exchange affecting: Ex. retailers opposed a ban
• Re-presentations affecting: Ex. Swedish food distribution

13. TRAINING SESSION 1
Discuss the main points of:
• Exchange practices
• Representational practices
• Normalization practices

14. 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

15. WHAT CATEGORY IS THIS?

16. TRAINING SESSION 2
Give examples of:
• Exchange practices
• Representational practices
• Normalization practices

17. MAKING AND EXCHANGING A
SECOND-HAND OIL
FIELD, CONSIDERED IN AN
INDUSTRIAL MARKETING
SETTING
Finch &Acha (2008)

18. 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.

19. 4 SIGNIFICANT THEMES
Following critical aspects need to be considered:
1. Singularizing/totalizing
2. Framing and overflowing
3. Performativity and calculation
4. Multiple versions

20. 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

21. 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.

22. 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

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. NEW APPROACH TO SEGMENTATION

26. 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.

27. 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

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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‟

31. 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

32. 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

33. 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?

34. Sum-up
MARKETS-AS-PRACTICE

35. LINKS TO PREVIOUS SEMINARS:
• Social constructivism
• Science and technology studies

36. CONCEPTUALIZATION OF MARKET
PRACTICES

37. 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

38. MARKETING TOOLS AND THE SHAPING OF
MARKETS
• Segmentation as market construction
• Performativity and calculation
• Practical implications to marketers?

40. 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

41. • Definitions
• Practical examples of...
• Name the practice
• Name the market perspective

43. DEFINITION QUESTIONS
• Performativity 100p
• Singularization 200p
• Representation practice 300p
• Constructive segmentation 400p

44. PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
• SAS example – Representational practice 100p
• Soda drink example.. - Normalizing practice
200p
• New public management – Exchange practice
• Oil field – Singularization

45. MISSING WORD
• Good 100p
• Carolina 200p
• Translation 300p
• Totalization 400p

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

47. FINAL QUESTION
Category: Markets as practice

48. FINAL QUESTION
Answer:
The three practices of marketing.

49. FINAL QUESTION
Question:
- What is
normalizing, exchange, representati
onal?