Multiple versions of markets: Multiplicity and performativity in market practice

Recent research efforts in economic sociology have attended to the performativity of economic sciences, that is, to the import of various economic theories on economic reality. Hitherto, these efforts have been limited to idiosyncratic market situations such as financial and auction markets. Moreover, the efforts have largely focused on the performativity of economics and financial economics (narrowly defined). This paper argues for the need to broaden the discussion on performativity to take into account multiple theoretical influences and for the importance of studying performativity in more mundane markets. The paper contributes to this endeavor by developing a practice-based framework that deals with the multiple theoretical influences that can be expected to take part in the shaping of markets. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.