Unintentionality in market shaping – A multiple case study of touring exhibitions from New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom

Abstract

This study addresses the issue of unintentionality in market shaping with special regard to bifurcation points, representational practices, and shared mental models. Based on three case studies of touring exhibitions, we found that the intended outcomes of market shaping actions are potentially surpassed by actual outcomes, far beyond the original goals by creating novel forms of markets through feedback loops that reshape the very definition of what the role of an organisation is, broadening the market, bringing new stakeholders, and creating new market segments, questioning the value elements of a market offering. We explain these outcomes by a model of energy change in a system that receives new parties and resources which in interaction reach a bifurcation point that gives way to the emergence of new, potentially multiple, shared mental models that deliver new object representations, which explain how market shaping actions result in certain unintentional outcomes in coexistence with the intentional outcomes initially planned.