From Stor Stark to IPA: Market Driving Through the Requalification of Beer in Sweden from 1990-2020

Sammanfattning: Research has begun to chart market driving strategies whose effectiveness depends on different types of market conditions. Strategies include the introduction of disruptive offerings or controlling markets through social influence in the absence of new technology. This study introduces a new dimension of market driving: how actors can alter the market conditions themselves by altering the perception of an existing product. The authors apply the concept of requalification to explore the processes by which the qualities of a product and their respective values can be altered. The study further aims to understand how small firms lacking the resources of large incumbents can succeed in driving a market without disruptive innovation, using the market-as-a-system perspective to highlight the role of actors other than the focal firm. The authors conducted 17 in-depth interviews with different types of market actors in the Swedish beer market to explore how actors have contributed to the requalification of beer from 1990 to 2020. The findings demonstrate how, through a combination of market driving and market driven behaviour, market actors can collectively alter the value uncertainty and value complexity of a product market through the processes of material development, social reclassification, objectification of characteristics, and integration.