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Paper info: Three Narratives on Industrial Markets as Networks and as Social Systems

Title


Three Narratives on Industrial Markets as Networks and as Social Systems

Authors


John Finch
University of Glasgow
United Kingdom
John Finch

Place of Publication


The paper was published at the 20th IMP-conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2004.

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Abstract


I propose three explanations of industrial markets as social systems. Industrial marketingresearchers have long recognised the question of bounds to markets and marketing activities,drawing on focal firms and also industrial markets as embedded social systems. This in effecthighlights at least five units of analysis: individual, firm, relationship, network and(sometimes implicitly) environment. Luhmann proposes a general theory of social systemsthat are distinct from environments and have on-going properties in communications throughautopoiesis. However, Luhmann sees markets, in general and abstract senses, as neutralboundary or horizon conditions, captured in the mass or generalised symbolic media ofmoney.