Making Meaning: Interpretive Diversity and Market Learning - A Model and Propositions

A major task for organizations is to make interpretations. Despite, however, the growing concern of the business and academic community over organizational weaknesses in interpreting and acting upon the contemporary market information tsunami, the process of interpretation has not yet been explicitly addressed in the marketing literature. To this end, this article identifies interpretation of information as the central phenomenon of the market learning process and explicates its nature. The authors address the issue of collective interpretation by introducing the concept of interpretive diversity and modelling four interpretive modes. These modes are then linked through formal propositions to the key market learning processes of information acquisition and marketing action. The implications for marketing thought and practice are discussed.