Paper info

Learning with the market: facilitating market innovation

Suvi Nenonen and Kaj Storbacka

The paper was published at the 28th IMP-conference in Rome, Italy in 2012.

Our research focuses on how market actors can actively engage in higher levels of learning when they attempt to create or shape markets. The paper investigates how actors with market driving strategies can proactively engage in higher-level market learning processes. The analysis showed that higher-level market learning outcomes are different from organizational learning outcomes in that they need to influence market-level properties, and not only cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects of the actors in the market. We identified a number of conceptually overlapping market-level properties that can constitute a focus for learning efforts: network structure, market practices and market pictures. The key finding in understanding the higher-level market learning process was the role of learning episodes. We posit that market actors attempting to drive market innovation can pro-actively engage the market in various learning episodes directed towards changing some of the market-level properties.