Taking stock of shaping strategies: From firms driving markets for business performance to diverse actors shaping systems for sustainability

Digitalization, globalization, and environmental awareness make the operating environments inherently systemic, complex, and volatile. Hence, research on shaping strategies, i.e., agentic efforts to influence how the operating environment evolves, is gaining increased attention both in marketing and strategic management. The special issue focusing on “Using shaping-strategies to thrive in the age of disruption” aims to take stock of, digest and reduce what is known about shaping strategies, and highlight gaps impeding progress in our understanding. Before summarizing the papers in the special issue, we first explore a set of questions by a cross-fertilization of literatures, namely: (1) what is being shaped, (2) why are shaping strategies pursued, (3) when is shaping done, (4) who is the shaper, (5) how is the shaping done, and (6) what are its consequences? For each of these questions, we explore what is known from extant research and simultaneously generate a research agenda as a foundation for future research directions.