Shaping Global Markets

Course Director: Suvi Nenonen

This course offers students conceptual tools and skills for thinking strategically about markets and market shaping in a global context. Discipline-wise, the course is rooted in strategic marketing.

The course introduces students to contemporary strategic marketing: instead of merely analyzing ever-changing markets and adjusting to them, companies can also act strategically to trigger changes in their markets. Success in shaping markets can bring forth business benefits such as sales growth, improved profitability, and faster commercialization of new innovations. In addition to these more traditional objectives, market shaping is increasingly pursued for improved sustainability outcomes.

The course starts with unpicking and linking two central strategic marketing concepts: market strategies and marketing strategies. After this, we will review key frameworks for understanding and influencing markets. In addition to examining commercial companies as market-shapers, the course also illuminates how various other players – competitors, providers of complementary products and services, governments, and consumers – influence markets.

The course provides a general understanding of strategic marketing, which is relevant for most general management positions. The more specific skills related to conducting market analyses and designing market-shaping strategies are particularly helpful for students pursuing a career in management consulting, product management, or marketing management.

Practically, the course combines several pedagogical approaches with the aim of catering for different learning styles. Learning will be facilitated by a combination of lectures, group discussions, seminar presentations by the students, interactive workshops, as well as an applied project.

Course Administrator: Tina.Bengtsson@hhs.se

To successfully complete the course, students need to demonstrate:

1. Knowledge and understanding of the core concepts of strategic marketing and market shaping
2. An ability to select and apply relevant concepts and frameworks to analyze and propose solutions to market-shaping issues facing an organization
3. An ability to analyze and evaluate the market-shaping strategy of an organization

General entry requirements

There is no textbook for the course. Instead, the course literature comprises of selected academic articles. The tentative article list (subject to changes) is as follows:

**Theme #1 Introduction & market strategies **

• Gavetti, G., & Porac, J. (2018). On the origin of great strategies. Strategy Science, 3(1), 352-365.
• Varadarajan, R. (2015). Strategic marketing, marketing strategy and market strategy. AMS Review, 5, 78-90.

Theme #2 Markets as shapeable systems

• Rindova, V., & Courtney, H. (2020). To shape or adapt: Knowledge problems, epistemologies, and strategic postures under Knightian uncertainty. Academy of Management Review, 45(4), 787-807.
• Vargo, S. L., Peters, L., Kjellberg, H., Koskela-Huotari, K., Nenonen, S., Polese, F., Sarno, D., & Vaughan, C. (2023). Emergence in marketing: an institutional and ecosystem framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 51(1), 2-22.

Theme #3 Market-shaping strategies

• Patvardhan, S., & Ramachandran, J. (2020). Shaping the future: Strategy making as artificial evolution. Organization Science, 31(3), 671-697.
• Schepis, D., Modest, S. D., Purchase, S., & Mani, S. (2026). Market shaping visioning and competing frames: Influencing the future of clean hydrogen. Industrial Marketing Management, 136, 240-251

Theme #4 Demand-side shaping

• Dolbec, P. Y., Arsel, Z., & Aboelenien, A. (2022). A practice perspective on market evolution: How craft and commercial coffee firms expand practices and develop markets. Journal of Marketing, 86(6), 50-69.
• Gollnhofer, J. F., Weijo, H. A., & Schouten, J. W. (2019). Consumer movements and value regimes: Fighting food waste in Germany by building alternative object pathways. Journal of Consumer Research, 46(3), 460–482.

Theme #5 Supply-side shaping

• Lee, B. H., Struben, J., & Bingham, C. B. (2018). Collective action and market formation: An integrative framework. Strategic Management Journal, 39(1), 242-266.
• Mountford, N., & Geiger, S. (2024). Public actor roles in market experiments: Innovating digital health markets in New York and Ireland. Journal of Business Research, 183, 114825.

Theme #6 Market-shaping for sustainability

• Atanasova, A., Eckhardt, G. M., & Laamanen, M. (2025). Platform cooperatives in the sharing economy: How market challengers bring change from the margins. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 53(2), 419-438.
• Diaz Ruiz, C. A. (2025). Disinformation and fake news as externalities of digital advertising: a close reading of sociotechnical imaginaries in programmatic advertising. Journal of Marketing Management, 41(9-10), 807-829.

There are three assessment activities:

• Seminar presentation (15%, pair/group activity)
• Project report (25%, group activity)
• Final exam (60%, individual activity, closed book)

To pass the course, the student needs to achieve a grade of 50% or above. Passing each individual examination component is not a requirement. For example, it is theoretically possible to get zero points for the seminar presentation but still pass the course if the overall grade is equal to or above 50%.

Find the course schedule in TimeEdit

Have you been granted educational support because of a documented disability? If so, please contact the course director as soon as possible so that adequate accommodations can be made.

Contact specialneeds@hhs.se if you have questions about being granted educational support or need a copy of your educational support certificate.

For more information, visit the Specific Educational Needs page on the Student Hub (login required).