ABSTRACT
“How do new fields and markets emerge and gain permanence?” This question has been one of the central research topics in management scholarship since the turn of the millennium. The existing literature has explored this question through various approaches, including institutional theory, market categories, socio-technical approaches and actor-network theory, the sociology of expectations, and practice theoretical approaches. However, despite the significance of this phenomenon and the challenges relating to conducting research on emergence in general, there has not yet been an overarching review of the key methodological issues. In this chapter, we identify the key contributions in the study of the emergence of fields and markets, review the common conceptual frameworks and research methods applied in these studies, and discuss the relationship between data-in-use, analytical processes, and conceptual frameworks. The aim of this chapter is to offer insight and guidance to those studying the emergence of fields and markets by laying out the basic premises and challenges. These include timing the fieldwork, choosing appropriate data collection methods, defining the object of research, determining the theoretical framing, conducting data analysis, and structuring the section on findings. We conclude by inviting researchers to engage in real-time data collection methods and also to take account of micro-processes in the emergence of fields and markets.
