scholarly journals Towards a General Theory of Markets: A Social Practice Theory Approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Martyn James Gosling

<p>In recent years new conceptualisations of marketing have been founded in social practice theory. Markets and market boundaries, however, while debated, have not been re-theorised and definitions remain based in the neoclassical economics paradigm. Social practices theory provides a basis for defining markets and market boundaries by practices and their performances by market actors. This thesis advances the debate on a general theory of markets by theorising a new conceptual model of markets as social structures demarcated by nine specific categories of routinised practices described here as parameters. A qualitative study grounded within the social constructionist epistemology was conducted to explore the market practices model, particularly the categories of practices forming the parameters that define market boundaries. The New Zealand mobile telecommunications market provided an opportunity for a situational-specific exploration involving interviews with service providers, users, and regulators as actors performing in the market between 1990 and 2014, triangulated against 26-years of documentary evidence. The research enabled understanding of practices through the comparison of performances between progressive eras in the mobile telephone market in New Zealand. The findings supporting the market practice model not only advance new theory that extends our understanding of markets and market boundaries but also provide context for marketing academics. Furthermore, the model provides new perspectives for business strategy and policy development. The thesis concludes with a summary of contributions to the academic knowledge of markets and an overview of directions for future research and debate.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Martyn James Gosling

<p>In recent years new conceptualisations of marketing have been founded in social practice theory. Markets and market boundaries, however, while debated, have not been re-theorised and definitions remain based in the neoclassical economics paradigm. Social practices theory provides a basis for defining markets and market boundaries by practices and their performances by market actors. This thesis advances the debate on a general theory of markets by theorising a new conceptual model of markets as social structures demarcated by nine specific categories of routinised practices described here as parameters. A qualitative study grounded within the social constructionist epistemology was conducted to explore the market practices model, particularly the categories of practices forming the parameters that define market boundaries. The New Zealand mobile telecommunications market provided an opportunity for a situational-specific exploration involving interviews with service providers, users, and regulators as actors performing in the market between 1990 and 2014, triangulated against 26-years of documentary evidence. The research enabled understanding of practices through the comparison of performances between progressive eras in the mobile telephone market in New Zealand. The findings supporting the market practice model not only advance new theory that extends our understanding of markets and market boundaries but also provide context for marketing academics. Furthermore, the model provides new perspectives for business strategy and policy development. The thesis concludes with a summary of contributions to the academic knowledge of markets and an overview of directions for future research and debate.</p>


Author(s):  
Emily Haynes ◽  
Judith Green ◽  
Ruth Garside ◽  
Michael P. Kelly ◽  
Cornelia Guell

Abstract Background Innovative approaches are required to move beyond individual approaches to behaviour change and develop more appropriate insights for the complex challenge of increasing population levels of activity. Recent research has drawn on social practice theory to describe the recursive and relational character of active living but to date most evidence is limited to small-scale qualitative research studies. To ‘upscale’ insights from individual contexts, we pooled data from five qualitative studies and used machine learning software to explore gendered patterns in the context of active travel. Methods We drew on 280 transcripts from five research projects conducted in the UK, including studies of a range of populations, travel modes and settings, to conduct unsupervised ‘topic modelling analysis’. Text analytics software, Leximancer, was used in the first phase of the analysis to produce inter-topic distance maps to illustrate inter-related ‘concepts’. The outputs from this first phase guided a second researcher-led interpretive analysis of text excerpts to infer meaning from the computer-generated outputs. Results Guided by social practice theory, we identified ‘interrelated’ and ‘relating’ practices across the pooled datasets. For this study we particularly focused on respondents’ commutes, travelling to and from work, and on differentiated experiences by gender. Women largely described their commute as multifunctional journeys that included the school run or shopping, whereas men described relatively linear journeys from A to B but highlighted ‘relating’ practices resulting from or due to their choice of commute mode or journey such as showering or relaxing. Secondly, we identify a difference in discourses about practices across the included datasets. Women spoke more about ‘subjective’, internal feelings of safety (‘I feel unsafe’), whereas men spoke more about external conditions (‘it is a dangerous road’). Conclusion This rare application of machine learning to qualitative social science research has helped to identify potentially important differences in co-occurrence of practices and discourses about practice between men’s and women’s accounts of travel across diverse contexts. These findings can inform future research and policy decisions for promoting travel-related social practices associated with increased physical activity that are appropriate across genders.


Author(s):  
Amir Ebrahimi Fard ◽  
Rijk Mercuur ◽  
Virginia Dignum ◽  
Catholijn M. Jonker ◽  
Bartel van de Walle

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rebbecca Sweeney

<p>This thesis investigates the practices of participants in three “clusters” of New Zealand schools associated with the Extending High Standards Across Schools (EHSAS) project funded by the Ministry of Education from 2005 to 2009. The investigation addresses four questions: (i) What collaborative practices were used by the participants in the EHSAS clusters? (ii) Do the research participants perceive the collaborative practices that they used as making a difference to student achievement? (iii) What do the participants perceive as the benefits and limitations of collaborative practice? (iv) How consistent are participants’ perceptions with research findings in the field? The thesis begins by searching national and international research in order to define effective collaboration. It is argued that across certain relevant studies, the key purposes of collaboration are for teachers and students to learn and improve in order to reach the common goal set by the cluster. Associated practices can be used to build skills and knowledge in teachers, school leaders, and cluster members. Following this, a Grounded Theory approach was used to analyse and interpret data that emerged from the three clusters’ milestone reports and interviews with cluster members. The analysis found that the leaders of EHSAS clusters believed that shared leadership across principals is essential to cluster work, and that a hierarchical cluster structure is the best way to transmit knowledge from leaders to teachers. They also believed that if they shared resources, ideas, strengths and expertise with one another they would then have knowledge that would be useful to teachers wanting to change and improve their practices, and raise student achievement. Despite some of their beliefs being consistent with research literature on effective collaboration, according to the literature, many of the EHSAS leaders’ practices would not have enabled the learning and improvement that they espoused to be leading. The final chapter of this thesis identifies where EHSAS leaders’ beliefs and practices were inconsistent and what this means for future research and the implementation of similar projects aiming to promote collaboration across schools.</p>


Addiction ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra Meier ◽  
John Holmes ◽  
Alan Warde

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