Neil Pollock and Neil Williams
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198704928
- eISBN:
- 9780191774027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198704928.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Information Technology, Strategy
Who are the industry analysts who, by providing information about the performance and prospects of various offerings, are key to the current operation of IT markets? Despite their salience, little is ...
More
Who are the industry analysts who, by providing information about the performance and prospects of various offerings, are key to the current operation of IT markets? Despite their salience, little is known about them. The chapter considers how we may assess the influence of analysts. Do they merely describe the evolution of the sector? Do their knowledge outputs accelerate existing trends? Or do they shift or even redirect technology trajectories. The chapter links these interests to an underpinning theoretical concern with how we understand the ‘performativity’ of their expert knowledge. Callon (2007) has suggested that academic economists’ models are performative: aligning market behaviour to the predictions in their models and thus constituting markets. Does this model apply to wider business knowledge? Or should we explain the influence of industry analyst expertise by exploring the multiple interactions through which their knowledge is evaluated and consumed as well as generated?Less
Who are the industry analysts who, by providing information about the performance and prospects of various offerings, are key to the current operation of IT markets? Despite their salience, little is known about them. The chapter considers how we may assess the influence of analysts. Do they merely describe the evolution of the sector? Do their knowledge outputs accelerate existing trends? Or do they shift or even redirect technology trajectories. The chapter links these interests to an underpinning theoretical concern with how we understand the ‘performativity’ of their expert knowledge. Callon (2007) has suggested that academic economists’ models are performative: aligning market behaviour to the predictions in their models and thus constituting markets. Does this model apply to wider business knowledge? Or should we explain the influence of industry analyst expertise by exploring the multiple interactions through which their knowledge is evaluated and consumed as well as generated?
Neil Pollock and Robin Williams
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198704928
- eISBN:
- 9780191774027
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198704928.001.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Information Technology, Strategy
This book explores the emergence of a new class of expert—the industry analyst—whose advice has enormous impacts across IT markets. In just over 30 years, Gartner Inc. has emerged as market leader ...
More
This book explores the emergence of a new class of expert—the industry analyst—whose advice has enormous impacts across IT markets. In just over 30 years, Gartner Inc. has emerged as market leader with 40 per cent of the revenue of this $4.4 billion industry. Gideon Gartner in establishing the firm that bears his name created a distinctive model for offering and trading advisory services that could primarily help technology adopters facing difficult procurement decisions. The book will provide detailed empirical focus on Gartner’s innovations which include novel approaches to generating, validating, and defending their pronouncements about the digital futures (‘IT predictions’), their differential assessments of the capabilities and prospects of vendors in the market (through its signature product the ‘Magic Quadrant’), and its potent naming interventions (‘product classifications’). These assessments, though much criticised, are all highly influential, having reshaped understandings and actions within emerging and current technology fields. Drawing on recent debates within science and technology studies, economic sociology, accounting, marketing and organisation studies, the book examines the extent to which industry analysts’ advice is ‘performative’: framing understandings within sectors and pushing or ‘nudging’ innovation pathways or technology procurement choices in particular directions. The book argues that what may be at stake is less the performativity of knowledge and more how knowledge is performed.Less
This book explores the emergence of a new class of expert—the industry analyst—whose advice has enormous impacts across IT markets. In just over 30 years, Gartner Inc. has emerged as market leader with 40 per cent of the revenue of this $4.4 billion industry. Gideon Gartner in establishing the firm that bears his name created a distinctive model for offering and trading advisory services that could primarily help technology adopters facing difficult procurement decisions. The book will provide detailed empirical focus on Gartner’s innovations which include novel approaches to generating, validating, and defending their pronouncements about the digital futures (‘IT predictions’), their differential assessments of the capabilities and prospects of vendors in the market (through its signature product the ‘Magic Quadrant’), and its potent naming interventions (‘product classifications’). These assessments, though much criticised, are all highly influential, having reshaped understandings and actions within emerging and current technology fields. Drawing on recent debates within science and technology studies, economic sociology, accounting, marketing and organisation studies, the book examines the extent to which industry analysts’ advice is ‘performative’: framing understandings within sectors and pushing or ‘nudging’ innovation pathways or technology procurement choices in particular directions. The book argues that what may be at stake is less the performativity of knowledge and more how knowledge is performed.
