Book Description

"In this thesis, I investigate the market conditions and structures that hinder and promote firm innovations that result in market transformations, and the strategies that could be used to encourage market shifts towards more equity across SES. In doing this study, I analyze and deconstruct components of market infrastructure, and decision-making structures from firms, consumers and government. I adopt a system dynamics (SD) approach that allows for theory development into generalized statements. These statements are verified by data and policy insights. To motivate the study, I first conduct an empirical investigation set in the food market, which has faced increasing pressure over the past few decades to become more healthful. My research on consumer acceptance of healthful product innovations across SES is in two food categories: yogurts and cereals (Chapter 1). With this, I confirm that consumers respond to economics (pricing), convenience, differentiation and health factors when deciding on foods, and firms vary their strategies across SES regions.Next, I develop a framework of market structure and decision-making and a computational model to investigate market transformations. This framework builds on the empirical study from Chapter 1 by focusing on meso-level interactions among food producers, consumers, and non-producers in this environment. I draw upon extant research on the interactions between for-profit firms, consumers, and other actors in the market that constrain and promote market transformation to provide a logical and internally consistent dynamic framework to analyze market change. In this model, I hypothesize on causal links concerning social exposure and contagion of consumer behavior. I identify three mechanisms shaping market structure: (a) the development of firm capabilities (requiring for-profit actor investments), (b) the building of consumer consideration (through attention and exposure), and (c) the development of built complementary systems and institutions of the market. These three mechanisms serve as inertial forces that constrain market behavior, but they also serve as the means by which solutions to introducing equitable change occur. This model and the analysis provide a thorough framework to explain the differences in food consumption across SES observed in the empirical study in Chapter 1 (the second chapter after the introduction). I then conduct additional tests on sensitivity of market conditions that may differ across contexts in a submodel to support a discussion on model generalization across different contexts. In addition, I address future research and implications to research in market transformation (Chapter 3).Contributions from this thesis can be summarized in three parts. First, I produce a dynamic model that serves as a rigorous framework within which to analyze market-level forces that determine market structure. This model considers actions and decision-making structures from multiple actors. Second, I use this framework both to demonstrate why market actions are not enough to form purposeful market change across SES and to show the utility of multi-actor policy solutions to overcome the identified market barriers. Single-actor strategies typically target only one of the three recognized market mechanisms, while multi-actor, coordinated strategies overcome barriers through two or three of these mechanisms. Third, this framework and model contribute to research in market transformation in multiple lines of management literature, including addressing social issues, firm and individual collective action and innovation. This thesis accomplishes this goal through an inherent advantage of the SD approach because it takes a whole systems view, not favoring one actor over another." --