Till Örebro universitet

In this article, we explore the ways in which individuals deploy reflexive practices in order to avoid or engage with a call to change either oneself or the social context. We begin by developing a categorization of the modes of reflexive practice associated with avoidance or engagement. We go on to develop?through a relationally reflexive research process?three contributions that build on this. First, we build an understanding of what a repertoire of reflexive practices may include, and ?what is going on? in such reflexive practices. Second, we explain how reflexive practices can be mobilizing, thereby enabling shifts between avoidance and engagement modes, or fix action within a single mode. Third, we develop an understanding of the ways in which emotions and relationships influence how reflexive practices of either kind are deployed.

This paper introduces the three interrelated design catalysts of curiosity, creativity and courage, and explores how they actuate market sense-making activities in design practice. Drawing on the interplay between action and meaning dimensions in design practice and service-marketing theory, it specifically investigates when desirability, rather than feasibility or viability, is the locus of innovation activities. Thus, the following three aspects of market sense-making in design practice are identified: (a) curiosity catalyses empathy and the deep understanding of markets, which are seen as socially constructed of individual (value-in-use) and connected (value-in-context) experiences; (b) creativity catalyses ‘logical leaps’ with regard to understanding the opportunities for creating future markets; and (c) courage catalyses learning through iterations, which reduce cognitive bias with regard to market assumptions, thereby reducing cognitive bias in both curiosity- and creativity-driven activities.

Purpose – Over the past decade, scholars have used a market-as-practice approach to understand how markets are shaped by economic actors, which perform sets of interlinked market practices (Kjellberg and Helgesson, 2006, 2007). However, the more detailed translations of such actor-induced performativity such as market shaping, or market scripting (Storbacka and Nenonen, 2011), focus on commercial companies. In the light of recent discussions within the service-dominant logic field (Vargo and Lusch, 2016), we argue that this emphasis on companies provides an incomplete picture which needs to be complemented by the roles and activities of public actors. In contrast, within institutional work research (Lawrence et al., 2011; Zietsma and Lawrence, 2010), the role of public actors and the mechanisms of maintaining, creating, and disrupting institutions are better known, even though these studies have mostly focused on the changes taking place in the public institutions themselves. Regarding changes in market-related institutions, public actors have mostly been treated as mere objects of companies who engage in institutional work, rather than actors that actively participate in shaping the market (Alvarez et al., 2015; Sarasini, 2013). Consequently, our knowledge is limited about the market-shaping mechanisms of public actors. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the roles and activities of public actors in order to identify how they participate in market-shaping mechanisms.

Design/Methodology/approach – The study is based on multiple case studies which draw insight from different contexts (three industries, three countries). We used purposeful sampling to select the cases, and specifically included cases where public actors had active roles in maintaining, creating, and disrupting institutions.

Findings – The study delineates the various market-shaping mechanisms that public actors employ when influencing markets. These mechanisms are further classified to illuminate which ones are prevalent in different contexts of institutional work: maintaining, creating and disrupting markets.

Practical implications – The study provides guidance for regulators on how to best maintain, create and disrupt market systems. In addition to increasing understanding of the active role of regulators, we discuss how companies can invite public actors to the institutional work needed when shaping markets.

Originality/value – The study contributes to the literature streams related to market shaping and institutional work. We provide novel insights on how public actors participate in market shaping by maintaining, creating and disrupting institutions.

The context of value co-creation is increasingly conceptualized as service systems (Maglio et al., 2009; Ng et al., 2009) or service ecosystems (Lusch and Vargo, 2014; Akaka and Vargo, 2015). Service ecosystems are akin to natural ecosystems in their ability to emerge and go through profound changes over time (Mars et al., 2012; Lusch et al., 2016). However, service ecosystems differ in that they are influenced by actor-created institutions and institutional arrangements (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). Or, as Mars et al. (2012: 277) suggest: actors in service ecosystems "create strategies and structures (e.g., institutions)" and thus "organizations can design and master-plan systems and networks". Therefore, service-dominant logic acknowledges that actors can influence how service ecosystems evolve by affecting the institutional arrangements. Institutional work (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006) has investigated how actors can influence institutions surrounding them (Battilana et al., 2009; Garud et al., 2007). However, Phillips and Tracey (2007) argue that more research is needed about the capabilities actors need to conduct institutional work successfully. The connection between capabilities and actors' ability to influence institutional arrangement and, thus, service ecosystems has been highlighted in the dynamic capabilities discourse. Recently Teece (2011: 75) argues that the "coordinating and resource-allocating activities performed by managers shape markets as much as markets shape business", and Teece (2016: 211) suggests that "dynamic capabilities help enable an enterprise to [?] build and renew resources, assets [?] that lie both within and beyond its boundaries, reconfiguring them as needed to innovate and respond to (or bring about) changes in the market" [emphasis added]. Therefore, our research question is: what capabilities do firms use to shape service ecosystems? The paper investigates this question using grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), building on a multi-national sample of 82 interviewees from 21 companies, who have successfully shaped their service ecosystem. Informed by Gioia et al. (2013), we categorized the data into informant-centric first order constructs (a total of 57), theory-centric second order themes (a total of 16), and overarching aggregate dimensions (a total of 5). The aggregated dimensions are grouped into two distinct capability categories: inducing capabilities, which and are directly responsible for inducing a change in the service ecosystem (second order themes: influencing sales items, price and pricing, customers and use, competing providers, matching methods, supply network, representations, norms), and augmenting capabilities, which enable, enhance or moderate the shaping efforts (second order themes: value creation orientation, systemic thinking, market visioning, business model development, partnering, credibility building, championing change). Our analysis suggests that inducing capabilities are context-specific, whereas augmenting capabilities are more generic in nature. As a conclusion we develop a conceptual model describing how inducing and augmenting capabilities relate to overall change in service ecosystems and to each other.

Viewing markets as socially constructed, and thus consciously reconstructable, systems opens up interesting avenues and possible new tools for strategists. Decisions regarding markets are no longer limited to market selection but markets themselves can be shaped for higher value creation, growth and profitability. In this paper we investigate what kind of capabilities firms need in order to drive the development of their markets. Based on an explorative case study of 21 firms from four countries, we identify 45 firm-level market-driving capabilities. These first-order capabilities are further categorized into six capability-sets: market visioning, value sensing and development, business model development, credibility building, championing change, and transformative leadership. These findings contribute to the emerging discussion on market-driving strategies by illuminating the "black box" between previously explored antecedents and outcomes of market-driving strategies.

In this conceptual paper, we explore how individuals respond to a need to change when faced with the revelation of something undesirable about their social – and particularly organizational – context. Our focus is on reflexivity and reflexive practices, and we contribute to theoretical and practical debates in three ways. First, we identify a typology of reflexive practices involved in engaging with, or avoiding, a call to change. Second, we show how some example practices can be enacted in response to this call in each of the categories we describe. Third, we explain how particular reflexive competences are important in understanding how the process of enacting reflexive practices over time may evolve, through the accumulation and interpretation of experience. We also offer concluding suggestions for further research.