Assembling Market Representations

Markets have been argued to be of central concern in marketing theory; nevertheless, the representations that depict what a market is, and how it works, remain understudied. To remedy the gap, this paper takes a qualitative in-depth approach to observe the representational objects that market research practitioners privilege when describing a market to their clients. The organizing of representational objects into market representations is studied through Latourian translations and assemblages. Four distinct dimensions of market representations are identified: frame, content, purpose and approach. Within those dimensions, tensions arise out of the sorting and privileging representational objects managers do when settling the frame of the market (exchange or non-exchange), what to include in the content of the representation (actors or practices), what purpose will be accomplished (ostensive or performative) and how to approach what is assembled (internal or external perspectives). This paper disentangles assemblages so that market representations can be qualified.