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A Theory of Crowds in Time and Space: Explaining the Cognitive Foundations of a New Market

ISBN: 978-1-78635-915-5, eISBN: 978-1-78635-914-8

Publication date: 24 March 2017

Abstract

The ubiquity of digitally intermediated interactions is changing the ways in which social interaction creates the cognitive and institutional underpinnings of new markets. Logics that define markets used to be localized, but they now emerge from crowds that span – and persist – across time and space. This article builds a theory of how crowds emerge and evolve in a way that influences the emergence of shared logics and helps explain why some markets are viable while others are not. What is revealed is that a crowd has a hidden niche structure that determines the fate of a new market.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

I have greatly benefited from the feedback and guidance of the two editors. I am also grateful to Philip Anderson and Rolf Hoefer for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript. All errors are my own.

Citation

Seong, S. (2017), "A Theory of Crowds in Time and Space: Explaining the Cognitive Foundations of a New Market", Emergence (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 50), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 223-252. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20170000050007

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited