Trade shows and the creation of market and industry

This study addresses the question of the constitution of markets in advanced societies.Specifically, the article studies the role of the traveling trade show in creatingthe real time computing market, which is part of the US electronics sector, duringthe mid-1990’s. Real time computing products assist the transfer, storage and processingof digital signals in real time and support many of the internet applicationswe use today.By applying ethnographic methods,we explore the general question ofhow economic actors cope with uncertainty in the phase of market-making and atthe cutting edge of technology. The paper makes two contributions to the existingliterature. First, it shows that the attempt to organize a trade show in real timecomputing was triggered by the uncertainty experienced by sellers regarding theidentity of prospective buyers and about the exact use to which they would put theemergent technology which is offered for sale. Secondly, we trace the history of anemergent market.We claim that trade shows for innovative products are importantvenues at which markets coalesce.The identification and ordering of market actors,the institutionalization of a distinct business culture and the social networks developedamong market actors and across the subsidiary markets provided the basicsocial infrastructure for what later became known as the real time computingindustry.M2007-0244:1-PKEuropean Research Council ERC-2010- StG 263699-CEVVR 2009–195