Market system dynamics (MSD): A process-oriented review of the literature

Abstract

The renewed interest in the market as a unit of analysis has increased adoption of a market system dynamics (MSD) perspective. Since studies drawing on MSD have significant overlaps with other research traditions equally focused on market changes, we trace the theoretical boundaries of the literature on MSD, and unpack its evolution, in order to appreciate conceptual achievements and research directions. Building on change-process theorizing and on a reiterative processual multi-stage research strategy, we conduct a systematic review of the literature on MSD. We organize the findings into three stages of MSD’s maturation–infancy, adolescence, and adulthood–and show that MSD has grown into a market approach that is ever more multi-actor, theoretically-plural, and based on longitudinal methodologies. The existing literature has gradually shifted towards a balance in agency and structure in market change, and towards a more cautious view on the consumer’s role. Under-researched areas are pinpointed, along with research avenues that can further reinforce MSD.

Towards a Bhaskarian Metatheory for Marketing Systems

“…This focus on specific behaviours, objects, and symbolic expressions hinders our ability to transcend immediate social situations and daily interactive orders (Reed 2000). The resulting narrative tends toward voluntarism, overlooking the influence of the past and the broader conditioning of socio-historical totality on the construction of the present context (Pedeliento et al 2023;Simmonds, Gazley, and Daellenbach 2018). This issue parallels the insufficient consideration of the web of social, cultural, and historical contexts that constitute consumers' roles and the capitalist logic of escalating resource throughput.…”

“…Despite its progressive stance and the clarity provided by frameworks like Layton's Marketing Systems (Layton 2015), macromarketing is limited by the absence of a cohesive metatheory to guide its discourse and practice (Akaka et al, 2023). The recent resurgence in the call for robust conceptions and explicit attention to metatheory in marketing research (Lucarelli and Giovanardi 2019;Möller and Halinen 2022;Pedeliento et al 2023;Thomas 2018) is timely. While previously much more prominent in marketing theory (Bartels 1970;Zaltman, Pinson, and Angelmar 1972), discussion of metatheory has been subsumed by the fragmentation of knowledge and research, methodological focus and the bifurcation of paradigmatic assumptions (Hunt, Madhavaram, and Hatfield 2022).…”