Towards a System Thinking of Markets: An Integration of Relational Ties and Exchange Institutions Within the Channel-Transvection Domain

This research study looks to explore how and why marketing ties and exchange services emerge, persist, and fail in embedded relationships between prime producers and marketing institutions within the agricultural market systems in the African regions. The study is motivated by the ongoing movement of marketing scholarship towards a systems thinking of the market which allows researchers to look beyond the restrictive view of dyadic exchange. Despite the progress made in conceptual development towards the recognition of network constellations and institutional context where markets develop, the extant research agenda has been too abstract. Using illustrative cases of agri-marketing initiatives in Africa, the study argues that a contextually elaborated channel-transvection framework that integrates perspectives from internal network theoretical mechanisms is relevant to explain how well a marketing system operates to create efficiencies for actors involved. We contribute to the scholarly conversation of bringing the soul back to marketing, by reiterating the position of marketing theoreticians and highlighting how exchange is at the heart of marketing. Conceptually, the study demonstrates the relevance of exchange at the core of the agri-marketing process, by mapping exchange as a pivotal micro mechanism that connects linkage activities within a macro channel-transvection activity.