Actionable marketing knowledge: A close reading of representation, knowledge and action in market research

Ruiz, Carlos Díaz; Holmlund, Maria

doi:10.1016/j.indmarman.2017.08.005

Cited by 23 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Marketing knowledge is in itself a relatively open-ended term: There are working definitions (Jones, 2002; Rossiter, 2001), but the meaning of such concepts varies across industry and academic settings (Cornelissen, 2002). Market research produces knowledge as representations of markets, consumers and so on to enable managers to act within their business environment (Díaz Ruiz and Holmlund, 2017; Nilsson and Helgesson, 2015). It bears mentioning that other decision makers, and their ability to act within their respective environments, can constitute the goal of market research work too: for example, non-governmental organizations or government bodies may commission market research firms to produce knowledge about the public (c.f.…”

Section: Understanding Knowledge Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While market representations may not correlate with the world, declarations of the state of things constitute a crucial part of marketing knowledge formulation (Díaz Ruiz and Holmlund, 2017; Rossiter, 2001). There are several epistemological positions on the nature of knowledge, ranging from realist ideas of correspondence between representation and reality, to pragmatic focus on usefulness of representations, to constructivist and performative notions of knowledge as something shaped, and in turn shaping (Bjerrisgaard and Kjeldgaard, 2013; Callon, 1998; Sismondo, 2011).…”

Section: Understanding Knowledge Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are several epistemological positions on the nature of knowledge, ranging from realist ideas of correspondence between representation and reality, to pragmatic focus on usefulness of representations, to constructivist and performative notions of knowledge as something shaped, and in turn shaping (Bjerrisgaard and Kjeldgaard, 2013; Callon, 1998; Sismondo, 2011). The ability to act on resulting knowledge has been noted to be more central to managers than the ‘truth value’ of reports: compelling material that conveys a sense of order satisfies the condition of preparing a decision maker for action: ‘marketing knowledge can be both successful in its declarative aspect […] and simultaneously useless for specific firms’ (Díaz Ruiz and Holmlund, 2017: 3). Marketing knowledge is descriptive as well as actionable.…”

Section: Understanding Knowledge Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Know your customer: Client captivation and the epistemics of market research

Nilsson

2018

Marketing Theory

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Market research requires both making knowledge and maintaining client relationships. This article inquires into how this feature of commissioned knowledge is dealt with by a group of market researchers. Reception determines the value of the knowledge produced, prompting producers to both prepare informative content and ensure that it lands well with the recipient. Therefore, the nature and dispositions of clients and how their reception can be shaped are integral to the making of knowledge. The article explores an ethnographic case of how market researchers attempt to appeal to and shape the dispositions of their clients throughout the research process. Drawing on means of capture as a metaphor, I show how market researchers frame working with clients as a straightforward issue despite conflicting definitions of just who the client is and what it means to help them.

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Section: Understanding Knowledge Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Understanding Knowledge Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Understanding Knowledge Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Know your customer: Client captivation and the epistemics of market research

Nilsson

2018

Marketing Theory

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“…The strategic marketing literature has a sustained history of developing tools and frameworks for analyzing the external environment (Pettigrew, 1992), including environmental-scanning (Aguilar, 1967;Choo & Auster, 1993;Peteraf & Bergen, 2003;Veflen Olsen & Sallis, 2006), market-sensing (Foley & Fahy, 2004;Mason, 2012), and market intelligence (Diaz Ruiz & Holmlund, 2017;Makadok & Barney, 2001). One recurrent assumption is that marketing strategists learn about their environment through a process of accumulation.…”

Section: Market-scanning In the Strategic Marketing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, an emerging research stream shows managerial frameworks are representational (Diaz Ruiz & Kjellberg, 2020;Harrison & Kjellberg, 2010), which means that they involve simplifications and abstractions that hide as much as they reveal (Diaz Ruiz & Kowalkowski, 2014). This stream argues that managers learn about their environment through mental models, which guide action by reducing the interpretative flexibility for what market information means and how it should be used (Diaz Ruiz & Holmlund, 2017). By extension, market-scanning frameworks reduce interpretative flexibility, foregrounding certain elements of the market while obscuring or omitting others.…”

Section: Market-scanning In the Strategic Marketing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Market-scanning and market-shaping: why are firms blindsided by market-shaping acts?

Ruiz

Baker

Mason

et al. 2020

JBIM

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Purpose This paper aims to investigate two seminal market-scanning frameworks – the five-forces analysis and PESTEL environmental scanning tool – to assess their readiness for anticipating market-shaping acts. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the market-shaping literature that conceptualizes markets as complex adaptive systems, this conceptual paper interrogates the underlying assumptions and “blind spots” in two seminal market-scanning frameworks. The paper showcases three illustrative vignettes in which non-industry actors catalyzed market change in ways that these market-scanning frameworks would not be able to anticipate. Findings Marketing strategists can be “blindsided” as seminal market-scanning frameworks have either too narrow an interpretation of market change or are too broad to anticipate specific types of market-shaping acts. The assumptions about markets that underpin these market-scanning frameworks contribute to incumbents being slow to realize market-shaping acts are taking place. Research limitations/implications The authors extend market-scanning to include a type of managerial myopia that fails to register the socially embedded, systemic nature of complex contemporary markets. Furthermore, the paper provides an “actors-agendas-outcomes” scanning framework that offers awareness of market-shaping acts. Originality/value This paper is the first to consider market-scanning frameworks from a market-shaping perspective.

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Markets, infrastructures and infrastructuring markets

Araújo¹,

Mason

2021

AMS Rev

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Despite a growing understanding of market infrastructures—the rules and socio-material arrangements that enable agreements on the properties of goods, and the calculation of value, equivalence and exchange—we know little of what lies beneath the arrangements that underpin and are implicated in exchange. The socio-material lens has done much to explain how specific assemblages circulate information and goods, but has done little to explain how different infrastructures configure relations between dispersed market practices. Using the history of the development of the market for market research we show how knowledge-based infrastructures constitute markets as knowledge objects: new expertise emerged through alliances between academia, government, and private actors form a new occupation embodied in specialist agencies that set themselves up in an infrastructural relation to marketing practices. Our conceptualization of markets as knowledge objects extends extant understandings of markets by showing how: (1) extant knowledge-based infrastructures are drawn on to construct new markets; (2) infrastructural relations emerge between different markets to constitute multiple systems of provision and demand, leading to an increasingly valuable knowledge infrastructure; and (3) organized practices in one market are often heavily reliant on connections to other markets, including knowledge-based infrastructures such as market research services.

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Actionable marketing knowledge: A close reading of representation, knowledge and action in market research

Cited by 23 publications

References 54 publications

Know your customer: Client captivation and the epistemics of market research

Know your customer: Client captivation and the epistemics of market research

Market-scanning and market-shaping: why are firms blindsided by market-shaping acts?

Markets, infrastructures and infrastructuring markets

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