Shaping Markets, Shifting Burdens: Collective Opportunism and Asymmetrical Market-Shaping

Abstract

Recent years have seen growing interest in market-shaping – the intentional efforts of firms, consumers, governments, and nonprofits to transform, disrupt, or maintain market systems. However, the ‘dark side’ of market shaping – its strategic use to entrench power and shift burdens onto others – remains underexplored. This paper examines the historical case of U.S. beverage container production (1950–1990) using institutional work as a theoretical lens. Analyzing actions taken by container and beverage manufacturers, industry associations, activists, media, and government, we find industry actors collaboratively sustained dominance by simultaneously making and breaking institutions, with little regard for broader environmental and societal consequences. These shaping efforts were systemic, evolving, and increasingly channeled through specialized, strategically focused industry associations. In contrast, opposing actors lacked comparable coordination and influence. We contribute to market-shaping literature and extend critical macromarketing debates by foregrounding asymmetrical shaping and the urgent need to evaluate such strategies through normative frameworks that consider ecological and social limits.