Innovation comes not only from firms; consumers can also innovate and shape markets. The paper explores how consumers innovate new boardsports that are similar, yet not quite identical (surfing, kite surfing, wind surfing, stand-up-paddling). Conceptually, the paper proposes ‘market bifurcations’ to describe how a singular, seemingly cohesive consumer practice breaks down, splintering into several local variations, which can then catalyze the formation of new markets

Diaz Ruiz, C., & Makkar, M. (2021). Market bifurcations in boardsports: How consumers shape markets through boundary work. Journal of Business Research. 122(January), 38-50

Feral Segmentation is the phenomenon in which cultural intermediaries coin, designate, and validate consumer categories in the public domain, unsolicited, without the direct involvement of professional marketers, outside managerial control, and without mobilizing the prescribed marketing techniques. This type of segmentation is "feral" because it escapes the prescriptions from marketing textbooks. Empirically, the paper investigates "lumbersexual consumers" who dress like lumberjacks but act like metrosexuals.

Diaz Ruiz, C., & Kjellberg, H. (2020). Feral segmentation: How cultural intermediaries perform market segmentation in the wild. Marketing Theory. 20(4) 429–457.

Firms spend large amounts of resources to scan the market to react to the changing environment, yet they are often blindsided when innovation emerges, why is that? This paper shows the "blindspots" of two market-scanning frameworks frequently used by managers in their strategy development processes. the blindspots make firms slow to react to market-shaping acts.

Diaz Ruiz, C., Baker, J., Mason, K., Tierney, K. (2020). Market-scanning and market-shaping: Why are firms blindsided by market-shaping acts? Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing. 35(9), 1389-1401.

This paper investigates the dynamics of ephemerality within consumer tribes. It uses "assemblage Theory" to conceptualize consumption as hybrid assemblages of people, things, and ideas. Insights are drawn from a three-year ethnography of salsa dancers.

Diaz Ruiz, C., Peñaloza, L., & Holmqvist, J. (2020). Assembling tribes: An assemblage thinking approach to the dynamics of ephemerality within consumer tribes. European Journal of Marketing. 54(5), 999-1024.

This paper published in the Journal of Business Research investigated the consumers’ experience of luxury. The study theorizes “moments of luxury,” which we define through hedonic escapism. Consumption experiences become luxurious as consumers forge an unconventional form of exclusivity that builds upon aesthetic and exclusivity to achieve temporally brief, hedonic escapes from everyday life.

Holmqvist, J., Diaz Ruiz, C., & Peñaloza, L. (2020) Moments of luxury: Hedonic escapism as a luxury experience. Journal of Business Research. 116(August), 503-513.

This paper conceptualizes the notion of actionable marketing knowledge by investigating how market researchers produce and justify actionable recommendations for their clients. The investigation studies the production of managerial recommendations in market research. The article makes a case for approaching knowledge as applied instead of an accumulation of descriptive facts.

Diaz Ruiz, C., & Holmlund, M. (2017). Actionable marketing knowledge: A close reading of representation, knowledge and action in market research. Industrial Marketing Management, 66, 172-180.

The paper shows that the form in which the market is represented influences marketing strategy. A product differentiation strategy is more likely to be adopted when market representations are indicative and stable; this contrasts to a service focus strategy, which is more likely to be chosen when market representations are destabilizing and dynamic.

Diaz Ruiz, C. A., & Kowalkowski, C. (2014). Market representations in industrial marketing: Could representations influence strategy?. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(6), 1026-1034.

This paper takes a qualitative in-depth approach to understand how market researchers describe markets to their clients. It investigates market research “as practice,” which means studying it 'as is,' rather than 'ought to be.' The investigation shows that market researchers think creatively about their client's markets.

Diaz Ruiz, C. A. (2013). Assembling market representations. Marketing Theory, 13(3), 245-261.

The publication proposes a literature review of the market studies field and it got published because it won first place in the doctoral colloquium of the British Academy of Marketing (2012). This manuscript identifies the hidden assumptions and simplifications that marketing academics, sociologists, and economists use when describing markets.

Diaz Ruiz, C. (2012). Theories of markets: Insights from marketing and the sociology of markets. The Marketing Review, 12(1), 61-77.