A brief history of 'customers,' or the gradual standardization of markets and organizations

Abstract

This article focuses on the history of the 'actor-customer' and his/her place in the functioning of organizations and markets. Big business first 'invented' the customer in order to better control a global marketplace where fluctuation was too strong; lawmakers then created a rights-endowed consumer to protect citizens from potential abuses by commercial enterprise. This hybridization of business and law was quickly followed by standardization, which, working to reconcile the interests of business, the state, and consumers, ended up giving final customers a 'consumerist' voice. The new requirements pertaining to product 'quality' and 'traceability' have had the effect of subordinating the industrial customer to the consumer customer, and they are transforming relations between organization and marketplace. © 2005 Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.