To Örebro University

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.