Market sensing and situated dialogic action research (with a video camera)

Abstract

This paper explores the practice of market sensing through situated dialogic action research. The paper discusses collaborative encounters with a manager who kept a video diary of his work. Through the analysis of five ‘generative moments’ that emerged from the market sensing dialogue between researching-practitioner and practising-researcher, four distinct bundles of market sensing practices are identified; sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting. Dialogue is found to be central to the entanglement and disentanglement of market sensing practices and emergent market frames. Dialogue allows the identification and exploration of tensions and conflict in existing and competing market frames. This in turn generates new and innovative ways of framing markets for future action. Thus, situated dialogic market sensing emerges as an effective way of unearthing and exploring competing market frames and as a mentoring, reflective and reflexive part of market sensing practice.

Keywords

Action Research Dialogue Market Sensing Reflective Practice Sensemaking

Introduction

This paper explores how situated dialogic action research assisted by video can help managers make sense of new and emerging markets and work out what to do next. Market sensing has been understood as a learning process. Day (2002) describes market sensing as the interlinking of market intelligence with sense making practices to create ‘mutually informed mental models’ (Day, 2002: 241) of what a market is or might be.

The general approach to studying market sensing in the marketing literature has focused on identifying the capabilities needed to formulate, test, revise, update and refine their market view. Anderson and Narus (2007) suggest that by market sensing, managers are able to foreground and test assumptions about customers, competitors and their own firm’s resources and capabilities. They identify four key market sensing capabilities: defining the market; monitoring competition; assessing customer value; and gaining customer feedback (also see, Baker and Sinkula, 2002; Foley and Fahy, 2004, 2009; Sinkula, 2002). These are indeed important practices that help managers become sensitive to the activities of actors outside of their own organization. However they tell us little of how managers make sense of market intelligence. We know little of how managers work out or recognize what is constitutive of a particular market or where its boundaries are in ways that might frame their future actions. So how might managers’ and marketers’ work make sense of markets?

Outside of the marketing literature the concept of market sensing has been used to link market intelligence with sense making through talk and dialogue (Heusinkveld et al., 2009). Much of the work that has foregrounded the value of dialogue in sense making has drawn on the context of management consultancy, perhaps because the framing of ideas and concepts, the developing of mutually informed mental models, is so pertinent in this context. This work demonstrates the power of dialogue in the market sensing process. It takes less account of the nature of the dialogue and who the dialogue is with.

In what John Shotter (2010: 53) refers to as ‘situated dialogic action research’, the verbal articulations between a practising-researcher and a researching-practitioner are understood to create new and real possibilities for making an ‘innovative next step’ in a specific organizational situation. This research adopts Shotter’s (2010) approach to address the gap in the literature, exploring how market sense emerges in an action research context. The paper describes how video was used to represent and generate ‘arresting’ or ‘generative’ moments where meaning and understanding were created.

The paper begins with a review of the market sensing literature before considering what the examination of dialogue in market sensing might add to our understanding of how marketers and managers ‘work out what to do next’. Second, a brief methods section is presented. Third, data are presented that illustrate distinct ‘generative moments’ that emerged from the market sensing dialogue between researching-practitioner and practising-researcher. The ‘generative moments’ reveal four distinct bundles of market sensing practices: sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting. The analysis shows that dialogue is central to the entanglement of market sensing practices both within and across the four categories. Dialogue reveals the entanglement of practices and allows the exploration of tensions and conflict in existing market frames; it then generates new and innovative ways of framing markets for future action. The paper concludes by discussing how dialogue supports the co-production of market knowledge in market sensing and suggests that who is dialoguing and how, matters.

Market sensing

In order to explore how situated dialogic action research can help managers make sense of new and emerging markets and work out what to do next, we first need to understand what market sensing is. In ‘Managing the market learning process’, Day (2002) introduces the concept of market sensing, identifying three key stages in the market sensing process: sensing, sense making and reflecting (see Figure 1). Sensing involves a spirit of open-minded inquiry, analysing rivals’ actions, listening to front-line workers, seeking out latent needs, scanning the periphery of markets, encouraging experimentation. Sense making is understood as the clarifying, sorting and simplifying of market information into coherent patterns. Day’s (2002) conceptualization of sense making is narrower than Weick’s (Weick, 1995; Weick et al., 2005). For Weick, sense making encompasses elements of sensing and reflecting. Reflecting refers to the re-examination of the mental models that are used to represent, explain, disseminate and communicate the market.

Figure 1.

Connecting sensing, sense making and reflecting through dialogue.

The concept of market sensing has its foundation in the market orientation literature. Early marketing literature suggests that in order to orientate a firm to a market, managers needed to acquire, disseminate and coordinate market intelligence (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990). The market orientation literature became influential as studies suggested that a greater degree of market orientation led to better business performance (see, for example, Hooley et al., 2000, 2003; Narver and Slater, 1990). Market sensing is understood as central to market orientation.

Market sensing as sets of capabilities

To date, much of the market sensing literature has focused on identifying the capabilities firms need to enable them to learn about markets. Capabilities have been defined as ‘complex bundles of skills and collective learning, exercised through organisational processes, that ensure superior coordination of functional activities’ (Day, 1994: 38). For example, Foley and Fahy (2004) identify four key market sensing capabilities: Learning Orientation (commitment to learning, shared vision, open-mindedness); Organizational Systems (organizational structure: decentralization, formalization, reward systems, metrics/benchmarking); Market Information (development of a marketing information system); and Organizational Communications (organizational norms and values and decision criteria). Heusinkveld et al. (2009) link market sensing capabilities to effective new product development, while Johnson et al. (2003) emphasize the need for firms to have a wider focus in option identification, developing market sensing capabilities that move beyond existing market structures and preference. However, despite the valuable contributions of this work, two limitations persist.

First, identifying market sensing capabilities does not generate understanding of how the various capabilities might be practised. How, for example, do managers shift from sharing market data to knowing what to do next? Second, this literature assumes that there is a market out there – clearly identifiable, recognizable, bounded, and ready to be oriented toward. This suggests a rather static view of market sensing. Yet Day (2002) recognizes the ongoing and iterative nature of market development and market sensing practice. This disparity suggests that the way markets are conceptualized affects our understanding of market sensing.

Market sensing and the conceptualization of markets

Two emerging streams of literatures focus on the market dynamics. Both recognize that markets do not just exist to be served, but can also be shaped by their actors. The market-driving literature adopts a firm centric view. Jaworski et al. (2000) see market driving as focusing on how firms alter the structure of a market or the behaviour of market actors by: eliminating actors in the market, building new sets of actors and changing the functions performed by actors. They explain:

Our expectation is that highly successful firms are able to be both market driven and drive markets. However, as Abell (1993) points out, the structures, mind-sets, procedures, and processes necessary to maximise both the present and future are distinctive. Hence, we anticipate that it will be very challenging to be both market-driven and driving markets at the same time. The ability to do both is probably strongly related to mental models or assumptions of managers about the nature of the environment in which they compete. It would be very useful to explore the nature of these assumptions in future. (Jaworski et al., 2000: 45–54)

The underlying tension in Jaworski et al.’s (2000) observation is concerned with how markets are conceptualized. The friction is between conceptualizing markets as clearly identifiable, stable entities that can be mapped from market intelligence, and markets that can be manipulated and shaped through action.

The second stream of literature – the market studies literature – calls for the refocusing of research efforts on understanding what a market actually is. Venkatesh and Peñaloza (2006: 147) explain that ‘markets are not universal, self-contained entities, but rather take on distinct discursive forms and material practices across various social contexts and over time’. Markets, then, can be understood as being constructed through a range of practices involving different forms of expertise and material devices (Callon, 1998). This has implications for the way we study market sensing. If markets are understood as emergent, social constructions, taking a discursive form, then in order to study how managers make sense of and frame markets, we need to talk with managers as they do it.

Framing markets and market sensing

Callon and Muniesa (2005: 1239) draw on the notion of framing as a ‘calculative device’ that enables actors to take action. Market frames provide the meaning of what a market is. Thus market framing is the practice used to define actors who are otherwise clearly distinct and disassociated from one another and the objects, goods and merchandise to be offered. Thus market frames are socially constructed and negotiated (Snow and Benford, 1988) – they are the sense that is being made of the market.

Market frames might be understood as emergent outcomes of market sensing but framing is never finished. It is ongoing. The concept of framing offers useful insights into other market sensing practices. First, framing theory suggests that multiple, competing market frames exist: with competitors, customers, industry analysts and other actors (Kjellberg and Helgesson, 2006). The work of market sensing then becomes the work of uncovering, identifying and exploring alternative, competing market frames.

Second, recognizing that we bring frames or mental models (Day, 2002) to all market sensing practices (sensing, sense making and reflecting) suggests that without uncovering these frames, managers might be unable to notice new possibilities, market opportunities or threats (Anand and Peterson, 2000; Fiss and Hirsch, 2005), limiting their ability to create new and innovative market frames. The concept of frames and framing might therefore be helpful in reflecting practices, not just in evaluating market sensing outputs (such as new market frames) but also in evaluating market sensing inputs (such as observations of market structures and mechanisms). Framing collaboratively engages managers in reflexivity: constantly questioning constructed realities (Cunliffe, 2002b; Pollner, 1991).

Finally, framing studies repeatedly illustrate the significance of doing framing in practice. Fiss and Hirsch (2005) warn that the process of creating frames and giving meaning is fraught with conflict, as interested actors and institutions (both internal and external to the organization), articulate particular versions of reality to different audiences. These tensions might be of particular value to those trying to unearth current assumptions about markets and seeking novel and innovative ways of seeing the same thing differently (Shotter, 2010) in the framing of a new market. How then might the different market sensing practices be entwined with market framing? The negotiated and discursive nature of framing gives dialogue a central role.

Market sensing, market framing and dialogue

Day (2002: 244) makes the striking observation that the ‘kind of dialogue’ managers have, with customers and other actors, is very important. As Shotter (2010) observes, in organizational life we use language in directing attention, selecting distinctive features in our surroundings and in analysing and or synthesizing, organizing and directing both our own judgments and activities of inner dialogues with ourselves in ways that are shareable with others. Dialogue is a practice through which sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting are performed (Shotter, 1993; Weick et al., 2005). Indeed, Weick (1995: 41) emphasizes the social nature of sense making, concluding, ‘people who study sensemaking pay a lot of attention to talk, discourse and conversation because that is how a great deal of social contact is mediated’.

Studying dialogic practices offers opportunities for a deeper understanding of market sensing. It stands to generate micro-level insights into how managers perform market sensing practices – for example how do managers talk, and with whom do they talk in order to make sense of market structures, actors and emergent markets mechanisms? How might a market sensing dialogue with a researcher be different from that with a colleague, supplier or customer? Does who dialogue is with make a difference to the emergent market frames? Shotter (2010: 268) suggests that ‘situated dialogic action research’ not only offers the opportunity of interactions that explore and verbally articulate the real possibilities of action in a specific situation, but that a researcher might better unearth and orientate the problem, rather than solve it. Dialogue with a researcher, who can collaboratively work with a market sensing manager to unearth assumptions about structural and cultural aspects of organizations, markets and other actors, might both offer important insight to the market sensing process itself, while shaping the market sensing at the same time. The following section describes the methods adopted to conduct a collaborative research initiative to identify a new market.

Method

The empirical data reported form part of a longitudinal, multi-methods engagement with SimCo.¹ SimCo is a mid-sized consultancy offering organizational transformation and change initiatives in both the public and private sector. The firm specializes in a particular Japanese-influenced improvement method which, for reasons of confidentiality, I will refer to in the following account as ‘Change’. As part of the Japanese approach to consultancy, it describes its consultants as sensei. Sensei are seen as teachers and mentors rather than people who study a situation and make recommendations. Sensei ‘enable others through knowledge’² but are also intensely aware of their own continued self-learning. Because of the complex nature of the service offering, sensei manage sectors, geographic territories, and sell and deliver the service offering, and take a major role in market sensing.

The major action research initiative involves working with a sensei. We’ll call him Al. Al is based in the UK and has responsibility for public sector work. However, the credit crunch has had a massive impact on public sector spend and Al finds himself looking for new markets. This paper focuses on a particular encounter between Al and me. In past months we have been talking about how Al understands what his organization is selling and how this is represented at trade shows, in organizational literature (sales brochures, web pages and such like) and how he uses this during organizational visits and with participants in change initiatives. The action research initiative is framed around identifying and entering a new market that is geographically distant but has common themes with markets Al has previously worked in. Work between us becomes about identifying areas for action and undertaking action: more specifically, working out what a new market might look like and how Al and his organization might become an active part of that market.

I interview Al and his colleagues and spend time at trade shows with them, observing them interact with customers, potential customers and other actors in the public sector market. I hear their narratives about what they do themselves and what their organization does. One of Al’s activities is to attend conferences on trade stands and as a delegate. As a delegate he always tries ‘to ask good questions’ of presenters so that he can establish the capability and credibility of his organization with other conference participants. After asking questions of a presenter at one particular conference in the UK, and explaining how the services his organization offers might be of help to the presenting company in overcoming the challenges they face in the aviation sector, Al is approached by another conference delegate from ‘oil and gas’. Al sees ‘oil and gas’ as a new market opportunity and visits the firm in the Middle East. As a researcher I do not have the time or financial means to follow Al around the world so we need to find a way for me to follow the action and keep in touch – Al keeps a video diary (cf. Gibson, 2005). The video is not an ‘all seeing eye’ but rather represents what Al sees as significant to our efforts. Gibson (2005) points out that what and how video diarists choose to show in their videos is a form of data in its own right.

Al’s video diary tells me what he has been doing (describing his practices), how things are going (positive and negative feelings and outcomes of his activities) and shows me where he is (hotel rooms, cities, company visits, trade shows) and what he is working with (technologies, slide decks, brochures). Each month Al uploads his video to ‘the cloud’ for me to view. The videos are typically five or six minutes long. I watch the video alone. I take notes of my first impressions and try to reflect on what Al is showing as well as what he is not showing in the video (Holliday, 2000).

An examination of Al’s choices in producing the video contributed to the interpretation of the interviews and reflected the logic of the everyday practices (Lomax and Casey, 1998). Similarly my role in framing those practices is also recognized. In this sense, the video diaries can be understood, at least to some extent, as being co-produced. When Al returns from his trip we meet and watch the video together. The video frames our dialogue and action. I audio-visually capture our dialogue as we watch and discuss the video (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Data and dialogue.

In my dialogue with Al, I do not refer to academic models or market sensing. I focus on exploring and understanding what he is trying to tell me and why he has made certain connections and assumptions about the market. Shotter (2000) explains that central to Bakhtin’s (1986) whole account of speech communication is the notion that we exist with a ceaselessly unfolding flow of relationally-responsive activity spontaneously originating through interactions with others and our surroundings. Shotter’s (2000) claim is that within this flow of speech-entwined activity, we make sense of first-time events in terms of the differences they make to our lives. Consequently, as a researcher, instead of attempting to understand our communicative activities as orderly, repetitive activities, from within abstract theoretical systems of our own devising, we should remain along with everyone else within this flow of spontaneously responsive activity, but seek ways to act back into it, to refine, correct, and further develop the responsive understandings in terms of which it is sustained.

The purpose of the research was twofold: (1) to generate a better understanding of the practice of market sensing and (2) to understand how situated dialogic action research might become a useful part of market sensing. A multi-stage approach to analysis was adopted. First, the data were screened to identify ‘generative moments’, key moments in the dialogue where some kind of change could be identified. To identify this change, the market sensing model (Figure 1) was adopted. Key moments of change in sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting were identified. These moments were then grouped around narratives that emerged: new business, the book, new market context, new language, market value. The dialogues were then re-examined to see how the practices of sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting were performed and entangled. Finally, the dialogue between Al and me was examined to see if sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting were being practiced and emergent from the dialogue.

The dialogue of five moments in market sensing

This section presents key generative moments that emerge from the dialogue where Al and me are reflecting on and practising market sensing. A generative moment represents a change in understanding. Most of our dialogue can be construed as reflecting, as we are discussing what Al has been doing and why, as well as what he might do next.

In what follows, video diary quotations are identified as ‘Video Al’ and my dialogue with Al (about the video) as ‘K’ and ‘Al’ respectively.

Moment 1: ‘New Business’

In Moment 1, what strikes me is the significant change in new business development strategy that Al identifies. Al and I have talked in the past about the tradeoffs made in ‘chasing big business’ (Al) and working steadily on small accounts to build lots of relationships with senior organizational members that generally have quite small budgets. Al shows me the video he has made in which he explains the new strategic approach.

Video Al:

I suppose the biggest piece of 2011 so far has been a real change in strategy for us. We’ve found that Al’s been so successful that it’s pointless just picking up a million…

I ask Al to reflect on this reframing of the ‘new business strategy’ from ‘win new business’ to ‘win big business’ (Al’s terms).

Stop it there. … you talk there about the change from doing lots of bits of business to being more strategic about what you’re doing. This is a major change right? …

Al:

Er, um, well I guess it came from a couple of places. Number 1 the corporate strategy. So the corporate strategy, corporate, well SimCo. is growing and the reason it’s really growing is that it’s winning big contracts…[…]., You know [names industry leader]… it’s obviously harder to win a big deal like that. But when you do, it’s so much easier than scrambling around winning lots of little deals, er with the hope that they might grow.

Moment 2: ‘The Book’

In Moment 2 the change is around how Al understands why the new ‘big business’ strategy is working. He makes a new connection with the publishing of a book by a colleague and reflects on its limitations in winning them ‘big business’.

Al:

and where did those big deals come from? Fascinating. One of SimCo’s guys […] [GK] has written a book […] called [names book]. And it’s very important because it talk, [pause] the problem is it’s really pitching to someone who is aware of [the concept we sell; Change] and where it is. The problem is how you lead [Change] and a key thing with [Change] is … [pause]

So that book got SimCo three huge bits of business last year, because people were quite literally amazoning ‘I want to lead [change]’ – and the book came up. They read the book and they went OK I’ll use this guy. […] his little book did the trick.

But where did the books do the trick? … and this is the hard bit for me. The book did the trick with people who’d been there before. OK, so, I know what [Change] is, I know how it works, I’ve become a corporate leader in a new organization and I want to do more of this. How do I do it? I understand what the problems are, I understand what it means, so it’s more mature, this is why you should go to SimCo because … If you’re not there [if you don’t already have an understanding of the concept of Change and how it works in principle]. If you’re an [Co.A] or a [Co.B], this [Change] is still a bit of a wacky idea.

yeh, so you need a wacky idea book?

Al:

yeh, [long pause] … perhaps we do need a wacky idea book […].

Moment 3: A new business context

In Moment 3 Al is describing the change in business context. This is a stark contrast to the market Al knows best – the UK public sector. Al is pitching for business in this new market but has not won any yet.

Al:

An interesting thing you know, about [Co.A], is how we got in to [Co.A]. So we pitch up to the company headquarters, it’s … [Al holds his arms aloft, looks astonished]. Ah, you know, it’s just, just, … ahhhhhh, aaaa-m-a-zzz-ing! Exactly … fountains and couches and ohhhhh.

wow.

Al:

you know and people serving you stuff and um. And it’s a lady that’s running it. wow. WOW! Just amazing … in that culture. I mean, wow god love Mr [Co.A]. How brave is that in that culture?

She’s good then.

Al:

Ah yes, I mean I pitch up and I do my pitch and she’s all over me. The BEST questions … I mean so sharp. She’s on the big issues straight away, she’s terrific, but it just says so much that it’s a lady that’s running it … but she is a-amazing. So, the transformation is being led by a lady. And I mean the transformation challenge for these families is that they’ve been led by this strong parent. The sons generally […] haven’t really had to think about the business at all.

No?

Al:

[…] they’re just being faced with the generation that has established the company going [retiring]. And they’re all established in the 60’s 70’s and they’re hitting this dynasty. It’s a big challenge for them.

Moment 4: A new language

In Moment 4 Al is describing what he has been doing to learn the language of the new market he is trying to engage with – ‘oil and gas’, in order to develop a new sales pitch.

Video Al:

Anyway we’ve been targeting oil and gas. […]

Al:

So I start to say I’ve got to get myself smart in oil and gas. […] You’ve got to be able to pitch this stuff at oil and gas. So how am I going to do that? How am I going to change my story from the standard SimCo. pitch to one that speaks to oil and gas? […]

you’re looking to find a way to show you know their business and where you fit.

Al:

So yes, three things to do that. First, I went on to Wikipedia learning everything there is to know about oil wells, oil rigs, getting in to the language of oil and gas. Getting in to the layer of set up …

what’s special about the language – what’s different?

Al:

Well for me, a huge part of it is stories. If you can relate the stories and the talk to that person as if you know what the hell you’re talking about he will feel a lot more comfortable with you. So if you talk about the ‘well floor’ as opposed to talking about the ‘oil rig’… suddenly these guys are talking this language and you’ve got to be familiar with the language of what they do. […] So suddenly you’re immersing yourself in the language of oil and gas. So I read Wikipedia. I then went on to Amazon and bought “Oil and Gas 101”. […] I’ve got these three books and I say to myself who do I know in oil and gas? Well, just when I was leaving [Al’s Public Sector market] I had done a pitch on the aircraft carriers at a conference in Dallas in about 2006.

And blow me, who’d come up to me at the end of this conference but the vice president of an organization called Xco. Xco. make bits for oil rigs … And I was going across the US … and I thought I’ll go early and visit Barry at Xco. I go down to Houston, […] and so it’s all meshing. and he introduced me to a couple of guys who do well service stuff and we … well I sat for a day and talked to these guys […] I ran that pitch across these oil men.

tell me … you said, ‘I want to pitch to somebody else’ … how did you

Al:

… I actually said […] I’d like to tell you what I do because I think you might find it interesting. So I wasn’t running it across them cold like ‘this is a pitch’. […]

We look at Al’s slide deck that he’s developed for Oil and Gas.

Al:

OK so immediately I’m showing them that this is their world. […]

and you’re showing depth of knowledge because as a lay person you would know that had something to do with the oil industry [point to picture of rig]

Al:

yes, but not the other two … yes. So I’m trying to tell a story almost with my selection on the first slide. […].Now, interesting they picked me up on the very first word.

Industry?

Al:

Yeh, they said there is no oil and gas industry.

Why? What do they call it?

Al:

A market […] well actually, this is the biggest insight […] for the whole deal, there are the big seven, […] but everybody beneath them is a subcontractor. […] Now that’s a huge insight for me.

Moment 5: What markets value

In Moment 5 Al makes connections that reveal an important commonality between other markets he has worked in and the new market he is trying to make sense of. The theme is the priority of ‘safety and quality’.

Al:

What did emerge from this discussion, and it’s not picked up in the slides but higher environment pressure, safety and error proofing. These guys service the Gulf, that’s why they are there … [big pause – Al looks across at me] – But safety and error proofing has become a priority. It’s become a big thing. Safety and quality.

So this is just like aviation? [Here I spot a theme from previous slide decks Al and I have discussed over the past months.]

Al:

Yes, yes indeed. What other business do we know where safety and quality are incredibly important? Aviation. Exactly. Exactly. So this is a theme. It’s not a pitch to oil and gas men about saving money. This is absolutely about delivering process improvement in an environment where safety and quality are absolutely paramount.

Analysis and discussion

This section addresses two key questions in turn: (1) how are the practices of market sensing entangled? and (2) how might the use of situated dialogic action research influence market sensing practice? Finally, we consider the wider implications of this research for the co-creation of knowledge and knowing-in-practice.

The practice of market sensing

The five generative moments presented in the previous section are summarized in Table 1, illustrating four stages of market sensing practices: sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting (see Figure 1).

Table 1.

A summary of market sensing practices with illustrative quotations from the dialogue.

Market sensing dialogue
	Sensing	Sense making	(Re)Framing	Reflecting
Moment 1 New Business		the reason it’s really growing is that it’s winning big contracts	2011 so far has been a real change in strategy for us	This is a major change right?
Moment 2 The Book	People were literally amazoning I want to lead [change] – and the book came up	If you’re not there … it’s a bit of a wacky idea	It talks …[pause] the problem is its really pitching to someone who is aware …	and where did those big deals come from?
				where did the book do the trick?
Moment 3 New Market Context	So we pitch up to the company headquarters, … Ah, you know, it’s just, just, … ahhhh, aaaa-m-a-zzz-ing!	the transformation challenge for these families is that they’ve been led by this strong parent.	they’re just being faced with the generation that has established the company going [retiring].
	it’s a lady that’s running it. wow. WOW! Just amazing … in that culture.
Moment 4 New Language	I went on to Wikipedia learning everything there is to know about oil wells, oil rigs, getting in to the language of oil and gas.	He’s now the President of an organization called Y.Co and … so it’s all meshing	You’ve got to be able to pitch this stuff at oil and gas.	I start to say I’ve got to get myself smart in oil and gas.
	Xco. make bits for oil rigs … And I was going across the … and I thought I’ll go early and visit.	It’s not an industry it’s a market: this is the biggest insight […] there are the big seven, […] but everybody beneath them is a subcontractor	I actually said […] I’d like to tell you what I do because I think you might find it interesting.	So how am I going to do that? How am I going to change my story from the standard SimCo. pitch to one that speaks to oil and gas? How do you do that?
	Suddenly these guys are talking this language and you’ve got to be familiar with the language of what they do			I say to myself who do I know in oil and gas?
	I went on to Amazon and bought ‘Oil and Gas 101’
Moment 5 Market Value		safety and error proofing has become a priority. It’s become a big thing. Safety and quality.	So this is a theme. It’s not a pitch to oil and gas men about saving money. This is absolutely about delivering process improvement in an environment where safety and quality are absolutely paramount	What other business do we know where safety and quality are incredibly important?

Table 2 provides a summary of the different types of practices that were being described or performed through market sensing. What are the specific practices that are performed and how are these different types of practices entangled?

Table 2.

Types of market sensing practice identified in the different moments of dialogue.

Market sensing dialogue
	Sensing	Sense making	(Re)Framing	Reflecting
Moment 1 New Business		Connecting	Reframing intent	Questioning Evaluating output
Moment 2 The Book	Noticing Recognizing	Connecting	Reframing problems	Questioning
Moment 3 New Market Context	Observing structural and material aspects Noticing cultural and political aspects Recognizing	Connecting Representing market information	Reframing problems
Moment 4 New Language	Observing structural and material aspects Noticing cultural and political aspects Recognizing	Dialoguing Sharing market information Representing market information Recognizing competing market frames	Interpreting Disseminating frames	Questioning Evaluating input Dialoguing
Moment 5 Market Value	Observing Recognizing	Dialoguing Connecting	Representing markets Disseminating frames	Questioning

Types of market sensing practices and their entanglement

Sensing practices

Three types of sensing practices were identified: observing structural and material aspects of markets (5 instances), noticing political and cultural aspects of markets (6 instances), and recognizing cues for action (5).

In Moment 2, the response of the market to the book was noticed by Al, ‘people were quite literally amazoning [the book]’. Starbuck and Milliken (1988) describe noticing as filtering, classifying and comparing, and distinguish noticing from sense making practices. They explain:

Noticing determines whether people even consider responding to environmental events. If events are noticed, people make sense of them and if events are not noticed, they are not available for sensemaking. (Starbuck and Milliken, 1988: 60)

To treat noticing as part of the sensing practice enables us to understand what Al is categorizing as important to the market. Noticing seems to relate to cultural and political aspects of sensing (Fiss and Hirsch, 2005) – in this instance, management culture suggests searching books and the Internet for solutions to their business problems is common practice.

Al is attributing agency to the book as a material object (cf. Orlikowski, 2007). Al is recognizing the impact of the book on the market, in the moment that he is dialoguing with me: ‘they read the book and they went OK I’ll use this guy’. According to Weick (1995), noticing creates cues for action. Noticing precedes recognizing, which, in addition, explicates understanding of not just what the sensing cue was, but the impact or effect of the sensing cue. It seems likely that both noticing and recognizing are influenced by existing frames (Day, 2002; Foley and Fahy, 2004), as sense making and sensing are understood to be bounded by the discourse within which actors operate (Steinberg, 1999).

In Moment 3 ‘a new market context’, we see further examples of noticing and recognizing practices that emerge out of the dialogue, but additionally observing practices are draw out: ‘so we pitch up at the company headquarters … ahhh, aaaa-m-a-zzz-ing! … and it’s a lady that’s running it’. Al is observing structural and material aspects of the market and this forms part of his sensing practice; he observes the material wealth of the organization: its location, the hierarchy within the organization – and through his talk with me cultural, material and structural aspects emerge. Al does not try to separate what he is observing as environmental cues, from their meaning. Al’s talk constantly entangles sensing practices with sense making practices. This has important implications for how we understand market sensing as it shifts us away from the idea of market sensing as a staged process.

Sense making practices

Four sense making practices were identified; connecting (23 instances), representing market information (7 instances), sharing market information (11), and recognizing competing market frames (3).

Connecting practices identify and explore the connections between ideas, actors, materials and markets. Connecting practices were found in all five moments. In Moment 4, for example, Al makes the connection between actors, organizations and markets – ‘and blow me, who’d come up to me at the end of this conference but the vice president of an organization. […].and I was crossing the US and I thought I’d go visit […] and its all meshing’. In moment 5 it is me doing the connecting, realizing the similarities between two different markets – ‘so this is just like aviation?’ There is wide recognition in the communications and sense making literature that connecting is often performed through dialogue. Weick et al. (2005) concur that answers to questions emerge from reflection, connecting with past experience and dialogue. In market sensing, the connections are crucial to understanding the scope of the market, creating boundaries within which to act (Anand and Peterson, 2000). However, the fact that this connection is made by me may be significant. As an academic part of my job is to abstract concepts and use them to identify connections across many different contexts. This is what I do here. Could someone close to an industry or market do this?

During his visit to the US, Al’s connecting practices become entangled with representing and sharing practices – Al creates a slide deck that he calls his ‘oil and gas pitch’ within which he has represented market information. Al shares this market information with ‘these [oil and gas] guys’ and through their talk, Al and the oil and gas men create a new market frame of the actors in the market. In discussing the representational practices of science, Lynch and Woolgar (1990) observe that visual displays such as graphs, diagrams, photographs and drawings depend for their meaning on the complex practices in which they are situated. It is not just which market information but how it is shared in this specific context. Again dialogue matters here, being a central component of how sharing market information is performed.

One further sense making practice was identified – recognizing competing market frames. In Moment 3, Al’s sense making leads to his proposing an alternative or competing frame for the market, ‘they’re just being faced with the generation that has established the company, going. And they’re all established in the 60s and 70s … It’s a big challenge for them’. Here Al seems to be framing the market through both structural and cultural aspects, recognizing changes in leadership as an opportunity. The market frame ‘ready for [change] services to support new organizational leaders’, competes with the ‘safety and quality’ frame identified in Moment 5. These different frames would lead to different ‘pitches’ to customers and could have different outcomes. In this way we see how sense making practices (recognizing competing frames), become entangled with reflecting practices (evaluating outputs – in this case, whether specific pitches were successful in winning business), and framing (new leadership v. safety and quality as competing frames of customer demand).

Framing practices

Four types of framing practices were identified: reframing intent, reframing problems, interpreting, representing markets and disseminating market frames.

Moment 1 has Al reflecting on the reframing of his new strategy to win new business. Al calls the new frame ‘big business’. ‘Big business’ frames Al’s action around how he identifies and selects business prospects, who he spends time talking to at trade shows and the types of pitches he puts together. Frames manifest themselves by the presence (or absence) of certain key words and concepts (Entman, 1991; Gamson et al., 1992). Al’s view, therefore, is marked by what Benford (1993) refers to as a ‘vocabulary of motives’ that frames the action he is intending to take. Al is specifically reframing intent.

Moment 2: Al reframes the problem that SimCo still has despite the valuable work ‘the book’ has done in helping to develop new business – The problem is it’s really pitching to someone who is aware [change]…’ Smith (1988: 1491) defines a problem as: ‘an undesirable situation that is significant to and maybe solvable by some agent, although probably with some difficulty’ but Weick (1995: 89) recognizes that problems are framed, commenting that: ‘the strength of Smith’s definition is its implication that problems are conceptual entities that are designed rather than discovered’. The implications for market sensing are that reframing problems is a next step towards generating new or innovative frames for action.

Al also works at interpreting and disseminating market frames. Al checks his interpretation of the market by showing the oil and gas men his pitch – ‘I’d like to tell you what I do because I think you might find it interesting’ (Moment 4). Interpretation is an important part of managerial work because there is often ambiguity and never complete information (March and Oslen, 1979; Milliken, 1990; Weick, 1995). As Callon (1998) observes, marketing has made a powerful contribution to the dissemination of market frames to mobilize markets. Al needs to have a shared understanding of market frames if he is to influence the market and so he moves between representing and interpreting market frames – his own and those of others. Disseminating these frames is part of that work. As market frames co-develop or become adopted they also become ‘capable of absorbing the actors and decisions which formerly defied them’ (Callon, 1998: 27).

Reflecting practices

The analysis revealed three types of reflecting practices: evaluating outputs, evaluating inputs and questioning. The most frequent reflecting practice was questioning with 22 instances identified, 6 of evaluating inputs and 2 of evaluating outputs.

In Moment 1 Al is reflecting by questioning himself, ‘and where did these big deals come from?’ We see multiple instances of reflective questioning in Moments 1, 2, 4 and 5: ‘so how am I going to do that’; ‘I say to myself, who do I know in oil and gas?’; ‘what other business do we know where safety and quality are incredibly important?’ Al’s questioning is consistent with the notion of reflexivity as Al tries to explore or propose competing frames and oppositional logic. Reflexivity can be understood as: ‘an insecurity regarding the basic assumptions, discourse and practices used in describing reality’ (Pollner, 1991: 370).

My dialogue with Al goes some way towards engaging him in reflexivity as I question Al on his assumptions, while proposing objects which appears to provoke further self questioning from Al (Cunliffe, 2001, 2002a). Al’s questioning goes much beyond Day’s (2002) notion of reflection by suggesting that reflecting practices also evaluate inputs as well as outputs – ‘I’ve got to get myself smart in oil and gas […] how am I going to do that ?’ – and entangle sense making practices with ongoing questioning practices about how outputs and inputs are framed.

In Moment 1 we see that while Al is reflecting he is also sense making, making new connections (connecting ideas, objects, people) by looking backwards to understand what has happened: ‘the reason we’re growing is that we’re winning big contracts’. Weick (1995: 24) recognizes the retrospective nature of sense making, explaining that: ‘people can know what they are doing only after they have done it’. In this way, Al’s practice of talking with me of what he had done represents reflecting and sense making – connecting what has happened with why he needs to do ‘big business’ next. Thus, in the dialogue we see the entanglement of reflecting practices (this is what we have done and why), with sense making practices (we did this because we had been winning big business), and framing practices (Al describes this change as the ‘new business strategy’). This is important to Al as, as Weick (1985: 128) comments, ‘words induce stable connections, establish stable entities to which people can orient’. Having this stable frame can support Al in working out what he needs to do next. In this way, Al now has a stable frame for action until further market sensing practice breaks this sense and overflows to become part of the creation of alternative frames.

Rather than seeing market sensing as a staged process (see Figure 1), the data suggest that dialogue entangles different, specific market sensing practices (such as representing market information with sharing market information), as well as differently purposed practice bundles (sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting practices) in moments of situated market sensing (see Figure 3). The analysis provides us with a much more nuanced understand of the types and ways in which market sensing practices are performed and entangled through their performance.

Figure 3.

The entanglement of market sensing practices through dialogue.

Similarly, while drawing significantly on the sense making literature, breaking down the concept of sense making and complementing it with framing theory provides a more applied and nuanced conceptualization of sense making in a market sensing context.

Market frames can be understood as managers’ theories of what markets are and how they work. What we see here is a manager developing his theory about the way a market works. Marketing theory suggests that such market frames are performative (Araujo, 2007; Callon, 1998; Pickering, 1995). That is, as managers encounter different market frames, they affect what managers do. The claim here is that managers’ dialogues help to create market frames, describing the market and how it works – this is part of market sensing practice (Day, 2002). Once these market frames exist and travel they have performative powers and may begin to shape a market accordingly (Callon, 1998; Fiss and Hirsch, 2005). However, neither Callon (1998) nor Araujo (2007) discusses the role of discourse or dialogue in understanding how markets are shaped. They instead suggest a practice-based approach to the study of markets – neither ruling in or out dialogue or discourse. In contrast Shotter (2000: 1), talks of the ‘flow of speech entwined activity’ within which we conduct our practice. The intention here is not to claim that discourse or dialogue alone is what makes a market, rather that the understanding, theories and market frames that emerged through dialogue are performative when represented persuasively in specific contexts (Doganova and Eyquem-Renault, 2009). This is concordant with the notion that market frames exist in discourse and that such market frames emerge, are contested or adopted as everyday practice comes to accept them as sensible accounts of what a market is (Anand and Peterson, 2000; Ansari et al., 2010).

There is a caveat to these claims, however. That is the claim that dialogue might be understood as central to the market sensing process purely because the data analysed here are themselves dialogue. Thus, we turn now to the theory of dialogue, and specifically to the notion of dialogue in action research to better understand what might be happening here.

Situated dialogic action research in market sensing

How might situated dialogic action research influence market sensing practice? Al and I have different backgrounds but in our talk we do not consciously concern ourselves with our own abilities, tendencies or capabilities, though this does shape our dialogue (Searle, 1992). I try to explore Al’s assumptions and existing frames he brings to our market sensing dialogue.

Different perspectives on understanding dialogues have been identified in the literature. Shotter (2010) discusses the complementarities of Bakhtinian ‘internal’ dialogue and Wittgensteinian ‘external’ dialogue by suggesting that dialogue happens both within us and between us. These seem helpful in understanding how ideas emerge from dialogue.

Internal dialogue is concerned with the dialogue that goes on between ourselves and others but that effects our construction of meaning within us (Bakhtin, 1981). Bakhtin (1981) argues that as we internalize the utterances of others they enter our subconscious and become part of our own self-meaning. My talk becomes Al’s talk; Al’s talk becomes mine. Our background means that when Al talks about the ‘oil market’ I know that he refers to the industrial services that support rigs and drilling, not a market town where I might buy a bottle of olive oil for my kitchen. Even though the detail is not specified, we have some sort of shared meaning. Similarly as Al engages with the new technical language of ‘oil and gas’ through books and his talk with the various ‘oil tycoons’, at least some of this new language seems to have become his – it has been internalized (Bakhtin, 1981).

The notion of internalities helps us see how an actor might be able to join the conversation of the market – and then contribute to constructing it through dialogue and action. However, my dialogue with Al is, on occasions, fraught with tensions and misunderstandings. Al as researching-practitioner and me (as practising-researcher) sometimes have common language but our different backgrounds induce different meaning. We are aware of this and try to explore it. When I’m not sure that Al and I have the same meaning, I seek clarification – ‘This is a major change right?’, ‘She’s good then?’, or when Al tells me stories that suggest he might have a different meaning from his colleagues, I ask him questions: ‘Why? What do they call it then?’, ‘So how did that conversation start?’. Sometimes my questions seem to break the sense that Al has made. However, our non-sense making dialogue seems just as valuable as our sense making dialogue – this is where new ideas emerge – ‘the wacky book’ for example. This shifts the focus to the dialogue between us.

External dialogue refers to the contextual nature of our talk (Beech, 2008; Shotter, 2010; Wittgenstein, 1953). Shotter (2010) describes external dialogue as the moments of action, language and materiality within which ‘utterance’ takes place. Thus meaning is derived from the way a word is used in a specific context (Wittgenstein, 1953). Beech (2008: 53) highlights the important distinction between text (the word or language used) and context (how and where the word or utterance is made). Drawing on Wittgenstein, Beech (2008) explains, ‘when we create and use meaning there is “something coupled … which would otherwise run idle” (Wittgenstein 1958: 139) and these coupling dialogues become personal’. Dialogue allows us to see connections between aspects of context that we have not seen before – I talk to Al of the links between the ‘aviation and oil and gas’ markets that I could not have know without our dialogue. Such insight or meaning can provide guidance for action, for what might or should happen next. This is where we find moments in co-producing knowledge (cf. Shapiro et al., 2007).

Conclusions and implications

This paper set out to explore how situated dialogic action research can help managers make sense of new and emerging markets and work out what to do next. As such the research makes three key contributions. First, the paper contributes to the market sensing literature by building on Day’s (2002) work, identifying four distinct bundles of practices performed by managers as they make sense of markets: sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting. Findings contrast with existing literature in two ways: (1) by showing how market sense emerges in the moment and (2) by bundling different types of market sensing practice to help unpack moments of market sense.

Moments of market sense: The micro-level data presented here suggest that generative moments of situated sense making and framing occur. This contrasts with Day’s (2002) process model of market sensing (Figure 1). For Day (2002) market sensing is a staged sequence of activities. There is no sequence in market sensing practices model (Figure 3), rather dialogue connects practices: assembling, connecting and intelligently entangling specific market sensing practices into moments of market sense (Anand and Peterson, 2000). The claim here is that the art of management lies in how managers entangle and disentangle different market sensing practices through their talk. The moment of disentanglement is the point that the market frame is made.

Unpacking bundles of market sensing practices: Weick’s (1995) conceptualization of sense making is broad. For example, practices identified by Day (2002) as sensing practices, and by Fiss and Hirsch (2005) as framing practices are included in Weick’s (1995) sense making umbrella. Bundling of market sensing practices into sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting generates insight into purposive actions within markets. This is consistent with the general market sensing capabilities approach found in the marketing literature though the bundles of practices are re-organized here (Day, 1994; Foley and Fahy, 2004). Further, this bundling of specific practices shows how managers might entangle and disentangle market sensing practices to generate new market frames.

The second contribution relates to the conceptualization of framing as part of market sensing. The underlying implication is that ‘markets are not universal, self-contained entities, but rather take on distinct discursive forms and material practices across various social contexts and over time’ (Venkatesh and Peñaloza, 2006: 147). Market frames are socially constructed, through talk and action. The claim here is that competing market frames create tensions and conflicts, which throw out innovative solutions and novel possible future actions as tensions are explored (Anand and Peterson, 2000; Benford, 1993). This has important implications for the artful practice of market sensing. Adopting a practice-based approach to market sensing foregrounds the conceptual complementarities of sense making and framing theory (Fiss and Hirsch, 2005). The data show how, through a combination of sensing, sense making, framing and reflecting practices, multiple explanatory market frames emerge, are contested, or adopted as everyday practice comes to accept them as sensible accounts of what a market is.

The third contribution of this research is methodological – using situated dialogical action research as a market sensing practice. In the market sensing practices model (Figure 3) dialogue is central (Weick et al., 2005). The findings presented here are from a dialogue between Al and myself. Embedded in this dialogue are accounts of other dialogues (with customers, suppliers and colleagues). Each dialogue explores the frames of others (to a greater or lesser extent). This has particular implications for the practice of dialogue in identifying and explicating alternative market frames. Our dialogue works at uncovering the socially construct market sense of others and ourselves and may change the way Al dialogues with others in future as he learns to unearth their assumptions as I do with him. For Day (2002), frames are what organizations use to understand data. However, in a market sensing context, this denies the multiplicity and value of recognizing competing frames: that is, how competitors describe, represent or understand the market. If frames shape action as Snow and Benford (1988) suggest, then noticing and recognizing alterative frames seem central to the entire conceptualization of what market sensing is. Situated dialogic action research seems like an effective way of unearthing and exploring competing market frames. Further, using video diaries to provoke dialogue seems fruitful.

Finally, drawing on Shotter’s (2010) notion of internalities and externalities in dialogue, the data show how Al and I create and understand new possibilities between us. Practising reflexivity enables Al and myself to create new readings of our experiences through our dialogue and creates new possibilities for change in everyday practice (Cunliffe, 2002a). The fact that the dialogue is with me, that I am a researching-practitioner, that Al is not (the emphasis for Al is the other way around), seems to create a space between us that is different from that which Al normally experiences in dialogue with other practitioners. Dialogue changes us both, building our background as we develop a shared sense of features of the emerging market landscape. As we talk my questions become Al’s questions. Al’s questions become mine. Thus situated dialogic market sensing emerges as a mentoring, and reflexive part of market sensing practice (cf. Cunliffe, 2001). Al and I both learn new forms of reflexive talk and practice, developing abilities to learn in complex and non-linear ways. This research takes the first tentative steps in exploring how this happens as situated dialogic market sensing. The use of video to support this type of research is new and further research is needed here. As Heath et al. (2006: 4) explain, entering into truly dialogically structured relations with others ‘is not that easy’. Video seems to offer interesting possibilities in opening, supporting and continuing reflexive dialogue.

Footnotes

Funding

This research was supported by the Advanced Institute of Management, ESRC and EPSRC [RES-331-27-0049].

Notes

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