Conceptualising market-shaping catalysts: Community-based service organisations

Marketing scholars acknowledge proactive market-shaping as an important strategic approach for organisations to address increasingly unpredictable business environments (Harrison and Kjellberg 2016; Kindström, Ottosson, and Carlborg 2018; Nenonen and Storbacka 2018). Market-shaping is generally understood as “agential efforts to influence both the formation and transformation of socially constructed market systems” (Nenonen and Storbacka 2021, p. 10). The market-shaping processes “change market characteristics – redesigning content of exchange, reconfiguring stakeholder networks, reforming institutions” (Nenonen, Storbacka and Windahl 2019, p. 618) and (re-)configuring value propositions (Nenonen et al. 2020). More specifically, a market-shaping approach calls for a focal organisation to strengthen their key capabilities: first, the ability to influence various market aspects to generate new resource linkages (triggering capabilities); and second the ability to creatively determine how to apply the triggering competencies (facilitating capabilities; Nenonen and Storbacka 2018; Nenonen et al. 2019). Although, market-shaping is typically viewed as an organisational pursuit, collective agential efforts often enable the focal organisation to better leverage their networks to support market-shaping for sustainable shaping outcomes. To date much research has focused on the capabilities and motivation (agency) of focal actors to act based on their capabilities and market learning (Kachouie et al. 2018; Lipnickas et al. 2020; Windahl, Karpen, and Wright 2020). However, in this research we propose that specific market actors, community-based service organisations (CBSOs), act as catalysts to a focal organisation’s market-shaping efforts. As catalysts, the CBSOs facilitate and support the market-shaper’s processes due to the nature and characteristics of their existence.