Exploring the Shaping of Markets through Controversies

Abstract

Markets are sites of conflicting practices that raise controversies over their very organization. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory, this article defines controversies as dispute processes during which actors make sense of a situation by confronting their interests, beliefs, values, and opinions with those of others, and, in so doing, elaborate social facts. It develops propositions to study and narrate such controversies around three key methodological questions: case selection, data collection, and data analysis. The intention is to respect the complexity of controversies while at the same time structuring their analysis in a way that allows for intelligible accounts. The article therefore contributes to the study of modern agora and market shaping. It enables macromarketing scholars to go beyond dichotomies between human and non-human and between theory and practice, and to push forward our understanding of the links between markets, marketing, and society.