Market-creation collaborating tasks, interorganizational tension and conflict, and methodological considerations

Markets underlie all business and management activity. Yet, it is a peculiar omission that large parts of the business and management literature contain so little discussion of the central institution of business and management – the market. Where research examines the corporate strategies of firms, it has almost always researched markets that exist, particularly from a ‘market entry’ perspective. In this article, we argue that when markets do not exist, a different set of theoretical questions to the traditional studies is required. The article is structured in three parts. The first part of the article stresses the importance of the social collaborating role in market creation, illustrating that this is a phenomenon that demands more academic attention. The second part examines material level of the interorganizational social tasks that partially help construct markets and the cognitive level task-associated tension and conflict arising from market making practice. The final part outlines several considerations and challenges in researching the market-making behaviour and interorganizational collaborations and maps out a research design that could advance our understanding of this important topic. Key words: Strategic collaboration, interorganizational tasks, tension and conflict