Making Markets: The Practice of Business Models

Lead Research Organisation: Lancaster University
Department Name: Marketing

Abstract

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Description My work focused on the need to understand the materials and practices of market-makers. This distinctive practice-based approach adds to traditional marketing management approaches (that develop tools and models) and looks instead at how managers use such models in their market-making practices. This work shifts the focus from a firm-centric view of organizing for market orientation, to a network view where managers act as part of complex socio-technical systems, creating and exploring connections that help them make particular markets work. Findings show how managers pick up, transform and develop market, organisational and network representations. By circulating and putting models to work, managers use representations to make judgements about who they should work with and what they should do (27). These tools help managers explore the social values of different groups (consumers, workers, collaborators), creating spaces where contestations and tensions can be explored. Such contestations can generate new and innovative ways of acting (producing, consuming, and organizing) and ideas about how economic value might be created from social values. However, tools and models can sometimes act as a 'theoretical cage'. Allowing models to circulate and be contested is crucial. These insights have important implications for the commercial world but also for how we think of markets and marketing practices in more extreme settings where social values are often hotly contested in public debates; BoP markets or healthcare markets. The Fellowship has generated a range of academic outputs in a variety of outlets. Outputs published or accepted during the Fellowship include 13 journal articles, 4 book chapters and 15 conference papers, 3 Special Issues have been completed and 1, an ESRC Business Models Seminar Series grant is now completed, and a NEMODE digital economy grant that explored the development of business models at the Stevenage BioScience Catalyst is also complete with new academic outputs in progress. Impact is illustrated through the study of the 'Public Safety Market'. This market did not exist in any meaningful way at the beginning of this research, with no shared description or representation of the market in circulation. By 2011 representations could be found consistently on Google as a clearly identifiable market. The Public Safety market spend is set to reach USD22.1bn by 2017. Studying actors' efforts to make this imagined market become real (including managers from blue-chip companies, start-ups, governments agencies, public safety institutions, research agencies, and the media), I followed a business model as it travelled. The business model made many connections, took on different forms as it traveled, mobilizing, transforming the actions of those it encountered. The business model unearthed social values and where used by actors to develop economic value. Emergent social values were often contested. For example, there has been much debate about the value of CCTV cameras; they offer extra safeguards but at the expense of privacy. Different groups have different priorities at different times. Events, such as the dreadful bombing at the Boston Marathon can change what social values and consequently what companies and governments can do. Governments try to develop policies that support the societies we want to live in and the particular types of economies that are such an integral part of society. Impact is generated by showing how such events changes markets and the role management practices have in bringing about this change. This work has been translated into the identification of valuation and representational practices, and a deeper understanding of how managers make important connections and judgments. These findings have particular significance for hotly contested markets, around the Arts, the NHS and BoP markets. Work has been used in the policy-makers having being picked up by the BIC and BIS and was included in the BIS Foresight Manufacturing Report.
First Year Of Impact 2011
Sector Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Energy,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology
Impact Types Societal,Economic

 
Description AIM Visiting International Fellows Awards: Hosting Dr. Paul Leonardi, Northwestern University USA
Amount £5,000 (GBP)
Organisation Economic and Social Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2011 
End 06/2011
 
Description AIM Visiting International Fellows Awards: Hosting Dr. Ramendra Singh, The Institute of Indian Management, Calcutta
Amount £5,000 (GBP)
Organisation Economic and Social Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2011 
End 12/2011
 
Description AIM Visiting International Fellows Awards: Hosting Prof. Ajay Kohli, Georgia Tech USA
Amount £5,000 (GBP)
Organisation Economic and Social Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2011 
End 04/2011
 
Description Business Models: Fasttracking Competitive Advantage
Amount £28,500 (GBP)
Funding ID ES/L000520/1 
Organisation Economic and Social Research Council 
Department ESRC Seminar Series
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2013 
End 06/2016
 
Description NEMODE Small Grant: Managing Digitally Mediated Business Model Development at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst
Amount £3,000 (GBP)
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 10/2015 
End 03/2016
 
Title Videography Methods for Research Markets have been developed 
Description My approach develops the use of social practice theory to explore the potential of video. Video is used to generate new 'ways of seeing' organising market and organisational practices. The ontological assumptions of social practice theory are invoked to suggest how market and management researchers should practice the videoing, analysing and representing of videography-based research. Examples are drawn from visual anthropology, film theory and film studies to show how inserting the camera into ordinary everyday research practices is likely to change the way we construct and represent and generate meaning from new organisation, management and market knowledge. In so doing, I show the power of videography to generate new knowledge at an ontological level. Finally, the institutional implications for publishing and the production and circulation of knowledge are considered in light of these new researching-videoing practices, in the context of technological change in the world of video production and circulation. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact I have run Professional Development Workshops at the Academy of Management, the Academy of Marketing, the British Academy of Management and at various Marketing Departments across the UK. 
 
Description Implications for our new understanding of markets for policy-makers and regulators 
Organisation Lancaster University
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution A meeting was convened with the Big Innovation Centre Market-Making Project to explore the implications for our new understanding of markets for policy-makers and regulators.
Start Year 2011
 
Description ModSeC : modularity enabling the development of new innovative service offerings 
Organisation University of Oulu
Department Biocenter Oulu
Country Finland 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution ModSeC (Modularity Enabling the Development of New Service Offerings) is a two-year project on modularity at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Oulu, Finland. The project, funded by TEKES Serve Innovative Services, explores how modular design principles can facilitate the development of innovative solutions in business-to-business services. In ModSeC project the focus of research is on Understanding and clarifying the customer´s needs and role in b2b logistics and professional services co-creation Clarifying the service provider´s role in outsourcing relationships Clarifying modular service design and architectures Examining the nature and efficiency of the market structures and organizational solutions for modular service implementation Describing applicable future business models in modular service business. The ModSeC project is conducted by researchers from the University of Oulu and the Helsinki School of Economics, with collaboration from a number of international researchers at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, Georgia State University, U.S.A., and the University of Hull, U.K., as well as Lancaster University Management School, University of West Georgia. The project involves following Finnish industrial collaborators in sectors including logistics, engineering contracting and telecommunications: Pöyry Civil Ltd, Herman Andersson Ltd, Nokia Plc and Itella Corporation.
Start Year 2009
 
Description The research agenda for market studies 
Organisation Stockholm School of Economics
Department Market Studies Research Group
Country Sweden 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Market Studies Research Group meeting to progress the research agenda for market studies as an emergent field.
Start Year 2012
 
Description Academic writing 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presented at AIM Capacity-building workshop
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Approaches for studying management practices 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Many organization, strategy and management researchers have commented on the value of the practice-based approach which, drawing on movements in social sciences more generally, has been referred to as 'the practice turn'. While practice is often conceived as bundles of activities, there are significant differences in the conceptions of activities and their connections to one another. Practices are the context of action and are themselves constituted through meaningful action. Thus the study of practices incorporates understanding activities, experiences, presentation (and re-presentation), skills, learning and the materiality of action. However, a rich theoretical background and diverse contributions create conflicting advice for managers and researchers alike. The purpose of this symposium is to enable those in the field to explore the different positions adopted and to discuss where productive dialogues and debates between those positions might be fostered.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011,2012
 
Description Business model innovation 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This lecture explored what business models are and how firms can create competitive advantage through business model innovation.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011,2012
 
Description Capacity Building Workshop: Theory and its Construction 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This event was designed as a capacity building event.

The vitality of a discipline is reflected in the vibrancy and quality of its theories that explain and predict phenomena of interest. This research makes two main contributions. First, it clarifies the structure of a theory as comprised of three core components. This reveals the commonalities between theories based on narrative logic and mathematical logic (analytic models). It develops three general structures of arguments that can be used to support three different types of propositions (main effects, interaction effects, and non-linear effects). An understanding of the general structure of arguments clarifies certain dilemmas confronting scholars developing new theoretical propositions, and how they can be addressed. Second, this research maps the theory construction process in order to develop insights for generating more impactful theories. Specifically, it identifies key characteristics that make a theory impactful, and based on these, suggests ways in which scholars can engage in the theory construction process to generate more impactful theories.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011,2012
 
Description Capacity building workshop: how to publish in top tier management journals 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This workshop was designed to share experiences and understanding of how to publish in top tier management journals.

In this Capacity Building workshop Paul Leaonardi, Northwestern and AIM International Visiting Fellow, provided scholarly advice and practical guidance to Management scholars who are working with qualitative data. The workshop was designed for those wanting to learn how to analyse and present their data for high quality publication in top international management journals.

Early career faculty find themselves under huge pressure to prepare and study for teaching at the same time as being asked to publish in the top journals. One way of dealing with these pressures is to focus on developing not only publishing skills, but strategies for publishing. Dr. Leonardi also talked about developing a publishing strategy for early/mid-career academics that supports publishing skills development in an intellectually coherent way.

Dr. Leonardi has published in top US and European Journals including The Academy of Management Journal, The Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, MIS Quarterly and The Journal of Organizational Change Management. He will be drawing on his experience to provide guidelines and feedback for workshop participants.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Developing papers for publication in top tier journals 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Martha Feldman spent time reading abstracts and discussion managing research and publication pipelines, positioning papers for journals and likely success rates.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009
 
Description Enabling practices : making markets 'worth the effort' at the bottom-of-the-pyramid 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This workshop brought together practitioners, academics, policy makers, third sector representatives and academics and set out to map out the 'enabling practices' that create spaces where needs at the 'bottom-of-the-pyramid' are unearthed, articulated, represented and translated into 'market making practices'. Exploring multiple, contested and reframed needs generates insights into the efforts (and practices) that shape orders of worth in economic life. Despite their best efforts, Governments and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) such as Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières and Save the Children have failed to alleviate poverty. Many commentators argue that it is "trade not aid" that will lift people living at the bottom-of-the-pyramid, out of poverty (Cox and Gelder 2010; Smith 2009). The 'bottom-of-the-pyramid' is a term coined by Prahalad and Hammond (2002) to describe the large numbers of people living in subsistence conditions. These people typically earn less than $2 per day, lack adequate access to basics such as food and education, have limited literacy and numeracy skills, lack access to transportation and consequently have limited consumption choices. Many of these people live in 'emerging markets' (Sridharan and Viswanathan 2008); the fast growing, underdeveloped markets, including a group of countries know as the BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India, China. Yet despite the recognition of the need to support trade locally in these markets, our understanding of how to do this limited (Karnani 2007). How trade might be imagined, fostered and supported in ways that develops local economies that are constrained by minimum resources, is poorly understood.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description From Don Quixote to NASA : the role of context in the exact (re)production of a complex capability 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Luciana D'adario was hosted as a visiting scholar to present her research and discuss ideas with an interested group of scholar at Lancaster University.

Luciana's talk drew from the three-year ethnographic study of the $30m transfer of a high-end computer server product - and related production capability - at a leading US electronics manufacturer. In the course of this complex project, practitioners were followed closely as they implemented Intel's "COPY EXACT!" philosophy and NASA techniques with the aim to reproduce identically the origin site manufacturing capability (US) at destination (UK). How far did they succeed? What does it take to transfer identically a complex capability across ten thousand miles and different organisational cultures and structures? This talk maps the journey of discovery through which practitioners learned how similarity can be achieved, in practice. Building on recent advances in Routines and Performativity Theory, a novel characterisation of routines reproduction is given that puts some of the extant transfer theories to the test.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description Grant writing 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presented at workshop designed to help participants develop grant proposals.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description Imagining intellectual identity 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This was a capacity building session designed to help junior faculty explore their intellectual identity, form affiliations and build networks through activities with journals, leading scholars in their field and find communities of practice that they can become actively involved in. The aim of the workshop was to illustrate how interests and activities can be woven into a research trajectory that helps faculty become internationally renown scholars.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Marketization and the NHS 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This presentation was part of a one day workshop to NHS service providers interested in learning about what markets are and how they are made and shaped by their different actors.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Markets, business models and growth of the firm 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact A large practitioner conference was organised and in London to share findings of the study. The core argument from findings presented at the conference by myself and the managers i worked with on this project are summarized as follows:

The business press is full of examples of how firms use business models to identify and frame or reshape new markets. Yet to-date our understanding of how business models affect market-making has not received much consideration by the marketing literature. This research explored the use of business models in market-making through an assimilation of the business model and market-making literatures and the examination of an illustrative case heralded in the media as the 'way forward for market making'. Findings show that by considering the implications of business models as a tool for market-making and its implications for the way we think about the growth of the firm.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Organising and music : dialogues of organisation and performance : workshop 2 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This was a practitioner-academic workshop. Each musician / practitioner was assigned to a group. Each group was facilitated by an academic. The practitioners described specific event that had shaped their organizing activities. Academics interpreted and explored these stories through different theoretical lenses.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Poverty & Business Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Ramendra Singh presents his work on the relationship between poverty in India and the way business is conducted. Using Bartels (1968) theory of market separation, Ramendra rethinks the kinds of separation between producers and consumers in this context.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Qualitative research in B2B marketing : the devil's in the detail 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Research in the field of marketing has a strong quantitative heritage. This presentation looks at the types of insight qualitative research might reveal, the questions it might address and the approaches one might adopt in studying business-to-business markets through qualitative study. A practice-based approach is presented as a useful way forwards.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011,2012
 
Description The art of business models 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact To be internationally competitive, organisations imagine, envision and evolve competitive strategies for existing and new markets. Some firms have achieved this through the development of new and innovative business models. Business models, used as frames to create shared understanding of how a firm will make money, help managers understand what they need to do and how they might do it . In this sense, business models can be understood as representations of knowledge of how a business might or should work . Thus, such representations seek to shape management practice. As such business models can be understood as being performative; shaping the actions of managers and other actors in a market as well as iteratively influencing the business models of the firms that form part of that market system. Despite such observations we know very little about the micro, firm-level representational practices that underpin the development and use of business models. Lynch and Woolgar (1988) offer useful insights in to the representational practices in science. Yet we know little about the representational practices of managers in their market-making activities. We need to understand more about the process of 'translating' a firm's market vision and business strategy encapsulated in their business model into localised, contextualised and enacted practices. The aim of this research is explore and identify the representational practices used in developing and using business models. We ask: how are business models represented and used, in different forms, to different audiences, in different places? This paper presents the finding of a two year study that follows the development and use of a business model to conceptualise, mobilise and make a new market for Citizens Safety - known as the Citizens Safety Architecture.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description The value of interfaces 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This was a workshop run with a team from an NHS Trust working to understand how markets are emerging in the NHS and how this was changing working practices. In this workshop I take a systems approach to healthcare provision and draw on the concept of 'interfaces' to explore how boundaries are created by Invitations to Tender (ITTs) and Service Specification documents and reflect on issues raised by the marketization of the NHS.

The argument here is that interfaces such as ITTs and Service Specification are performative - they shape what we do. Thus, how they are developed, represented and circulated really matters. Service Specifications include distinct calculative devices that help us work out what to do and thus shape the healthcare system of the future. I argue for further research into the valuation practices that are being used to shape healthcare provision so that we might better understand the type of healthcare system we want.

At the beginning of this workshop we heard how Vicky had taken her 10 year old son, Fred to the Children's Mental Health team only to be told that Fred wasn't depressed enough yet to get help as this team had only been awarded the contract for 'Category 2' patients and Fred was clearly a 'Category 1'. 'Vicky's Story' (p.X), illustrates what we try to avoid by the boundaries created by contract. No-one wants the social value of 'excellent care' to get lost in the bounded marketization process of the service provision. Social relations, and social values matter in market contexts.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Video and videography in marketing : research, practice & impact 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Organised special session within large conference

This Special Session Proposal suggests a capacity-building session on the use of videography to study marketing practices and the practices of markets. It is intended to facilitate the building of a community of interest around videography. The session begins by outlining the importance and relevance of researching market practices in their own right. Second I outline the valuable contribution that videography specifically is beginning to make to this field. Third, the proposal identifies the specific purpose of this session: to explore, through exemplars and discussion, both the research of practices through videography and the researching practice of videography. The document concludes with a description of the session structure and contributions. No special qualifications or experience are needed to attend. We encourage active engagement from anyone who might have an interest in videography and film, from Doctoral Students to experienced faculty and practitioners.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description When does technology use enable organizational change? : convergent practices, collective affordances, and alterations in consultation networks 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Paul Leonardi was hosted by myself at Lancaster University as an AIM Visiting International Scholar. He presented his research and helped to developed the conversation between an cluster of national scholars working with the same theories. Paul's presentation argued the following:

The goal of this study is to augment explanations of how technology-induced organizational change unfolds with an understanding of when such change is likely to happen. I draw a distinction between technological artifacts, technologies-in-use, and technologies-in-practice to illustrate why convergence in the use of a technological artifact's features may be an important pre-condition for organizational change. I then turn to longitudinal data collected on the use of a new computer simulation technology in two engineering groups at a major U.S. automaker that show how the technological artifact was used by engineers for more than three months during which time they enacted various idiosyncratic technologies-in-use but brought no change to their work behaviors and consultation (advice-seeking) networks. Initially, divergent uses of the technological artifact's material features by engineers in both groups precluded them from being able to coordinate their work in ways that allowed them to structure their consultation networks differently. Eventually, engineers in only one of the two groups converged on the use of a common set of the technological artifact's material features to enact a shared technology-in-practice. This convergence was necessary to turn the technology into a resource that could collectively alter the group's work and, consequently, the structure of its consultation network. From these findings, I induct the concept of a "collective affordance" to explain when technology use is likely to bring changes to people's work and communication networks and why even a widely used technological artifact may not ever bring about organizational change. I discuss implications of these findings for the emerging sociomaterial approach to technology and organizing.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011,2012