Emergence in emergency: How actors adapt to service ecosystem disruption

Helen Thompson-Whiteside, Judith Fletcher-Brown, Karen Middleton and Sarah Turnbull

Journal of Business Research, 2023, vol. 162, issue C

Abstract: Marketing scholars are applying the concept of emergence to understand an increasingly unstable world. While what emerges is of interest, the present study enriches conceptualisations of how emergence unfolds through a netnographic study of an online network formed to address the deficiencies of service ecosystems disrupted by Covid-19. We identify how a new network between actors with no prior ties to each other is formed at speed by individuals to integrate unregulated resources, and observe the early emergence of a proto-institution in the form of new practices as actors move quickly to stabilise this network. Initial interactions are prompted by individual vulnerability but sustained by the emergence of a shared conception of vulnerability among surprisingly agentic actors. While these findings stem from a single case of disruption, they suggest that further research which deepens understanding of emergent phenomena in conditions of volatility and uncertainty would be of great value.

Keywords: Emergence; Proto-institution; Resource integration; Vulnerability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296323001583
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:162:y:2023:i:c:s0148296323001583

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113800

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().