Understanding market dynamics potential （了解市场动态的潜力）.pdf

1 Paper to be presented at the IMP Group 2003 conference in Lugano Lars-Gunnar Mattsson Stockholm School of Economics1 Understanding market dynamics- potential contributions to market(ing) studies from actor-network theory Introduction Given that the market is a socially constructed institution for governance of economic activities, the market is an aspect of social order. How the social order is established, changed and stabilized is an important aspect of social ordering. Marketing practice, i.e. the behaviour of actors involved in market exchange, influences social ordering. Thus, marketing practice influences the dynamics (social ordering) of markets. Markets and marketing are also phenomena studied within academic disciplines (and in non- academic research). Theories, concepts, methods and empirical results concerning markets and marketing also interact with marketing practice. Furthermore, markets and marketing practice also interact with actors not involved in market exchange or research such government policy makers and institutions since they contribute to shaping market(ing)norms. How market(ing) practice, academic research and government policies/institutions, all three phenomena broadly defined, interact is a major concern if we want to understand market dynamics. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the major ideas in the Sociology of Science and Techniques (SST) approach, and more specifically the Actor-Network Theory (ANT, e.g Callon and Law, 1989) might be applied more generally to market studies, recognizing that there is a growing literature, and interest concerned with such efforts. (E.g. Callon, 1999; Couchoy, 1999; Helgesson, 1999; Kjellberg, 2001; Méadel, 1999; Méadel and Rabeharisoa, 1998) including also submissions to the 2003 IMP Group-confer