Concertation is a process that allows firms (particularly small and medium-sized enterprises) to effectively cooperate in developing dominant product designs and styles. Concertation is centered on the activities of trade shows that provide a platform for collective action by providing the participating actors with commercial and promotional benefits. Like standard-setting committees, these collective marketing events may be understood as commercialization networks that, especially in the context of fragmented industries, are able to mobilize and coordinate a great number of competing firms’ individual innovative efforts towards common trajectories. Specifically, we present the case of Première Vision, Europe’s leading clothing fabric trade show. After a background description of the key features of innovation processes in the clothing textile industry, we describe Première Vision and analyze the concertation process, as well as the key actors involved in each of its phases. We conclude by discussing the contextual characteristics that make concertation processes possible and highlight our contributions to the literature on innovation and standard affirmation.

In this paper, we critically review literature on trade shows developed in industrial marketing (IM) and economic geography (EG), aiming to contribute to the ongoing conversation between these disciplines and showing that they can learn from each other. In IM, trade shows are conceived as promotional instruments, whereas in EG these events are seen as temporary clusters through which firms can escape the liabilities of embeddedness and interact with, and learn from, distant actors. EG literature has integrated insights from IM that have provided a means to go beyond earlier formulations that downplayed market-based learning processes at these events. IM has in fact far under-theorized space and conceived exhibitors as individual agents, neglecting the fact that many of these events are collective marketing platforms that industry agglomerations or geographical clusters can use to affirm their presence in international markets. Based on our analysis, we propose research directions that can benefit individual exhibitors as well as geographically-based business networks. The analysis addresses the boundaries and limitations of disciplinary analyses and strongly suggests transdisciplinary encounters and engagements in IM and EG research.

Using the example of fabric trade shows in Italy, this chapter explores the connection between temporary and permanent clusters, explaining how industrial districts have given rise to specific nearby import shows or export shows directly related to the specialization of the regional industry. The chapter also describes how the evolution of and competition among trade shows have led to variation in the development and survival of specific events. This has created dynamic geographies of trade show development and has had an important impact on the visibility of national industries. It is suggested suggest that active trade show organizers have played an important role in overcoming the structural constraints of trade shows by intervening in knowledge control and dissemination mechanisms.

The chapter presents an analysis of three international trade shows in the area of lighting technology across different countries in North America and Europe. Although these events are bound together in the context of ongoing discussions about product and market developments in the respective industry/technology field, they do not represent ideal-type cyclical clusters as they attract different exhibitor and visitor groups that participate in these events for different purposes. The trade shows create temporary spaces where loosely connected knowing communities meet and contribute to the evolution and reproduction of their industry/technology field. Although these events cannot be viewed as field-configuring events that channel technological developments in a discontinuous, predefined manner, they are important building blocks in the reproduction of the lighting technology field.

This chapter introduces a knowledge-based trade show typology that builds upon an analysis of the degree of internationalization of attendees and exhibitors. This allows us to distinguish four main types of trade shows#amp;#x2014;namely, import shows, export shows, national/regional shows, and hub shows#amp;#x2014;as well as their distinct interaction and learning patterns. The chapter also highlights the role of trade show organizers, which can be driven by various interests when planning an event. In addition to determining the quantity, origin, and variety of products and players at the trade show, organizers can adopt numerous strategies to control or promote knowledge exchange among the participants, both collectively and individually. The goal of such strategies is to use knowledge exchange to strengthen the position of trade shows in the competition with other events organized by different associations and in different territories.

This book presents a radically innovative view on trade shows as knowledge-rich places, where firms learn through observation and interaction with other economic actors, and as enablers, rather than mere consequences, of globalization. Traditionally seen as marketing tools, trade shows are conceptualised as temporary clusters that facilitate the creation and diffusion of knowledge across geographical distances, even in the age of social media. The book is organized in four parts. Part I lays out the conceptual foundations of the knowledge-based perspective, from the early development of trade fairs to modern-day events. Part II analyses specific global developments, focussing on the trade show ecologies of Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region. Part III investigates differences in the nature of knowledge generation practices across international hub shows, exports shows, and import shows in different industries, and investigates competition between such events. Part IV discusses the implications of a knowledge-based conceptualisation of trade shows. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in economic geography, management, marketing, organization studies, political science, and sociology. It also has practical implications for trade show organisers on how to make their events more competitive through knowledge-based strategies; for industry associations and cities, on how to use these events for collective/place marketing purposes; and for policy makers, on how to use trade shows for export promotion and innovation policies.

This chapter provides a historical overview of the development of trade fairs since the Middle Ages and the ways in which these events have changed. It includes a discussion of shifts in the sets of exhibitors and visitors or buyers since then, as well as shifts in the nature of inter-firm interaction and the greater importance attached to knowledge flows. The chapter illustrates how trade shows have developed from periodic markets and commodity fairs for trading products to sample fairs and knowledge-based events in which knowledge exchange, innovation and creativity, and the construction of networks have become increasingly important. This is demonstrated through an examination of the changing roles of visitors (including atypical visitors) and exhibitors, which lead to the development of a specific knowledge-based view of trade shows.

Trade shows and other temporary clusters have recently emerged as key sites of theoretical relevance for scholars who are interested in the spatial consequences of interactive learning. Recent research has viewed these events as relational spaces in which countless actors interact and learn spontaneously without a central actor governing the process. In the case of permanent clusters, however, studies have started to unpack the practices through which key actors, such as entrepreneurial and professional associations, stimulate learning and interaction. In this article, we hold that these central subjects also have an important role in activating the benefits of colocalization with regard to temporary clusters. In an empirical study of the European Union clothing fabric trade shows between 1986 and 2006, we identified four types of practices through which trade show organizers shape learning and interaction at their events. Contrary to current views, our study found that exchanges of knowledge at these events do not always occur at the global level. Instead, the geographic scale of the processes of exchanging and acquiring knowledge in temporary clusters is socially and politically constructed at several levels-from the merely local to the truly global. We also found that organizers of trade shows facilitate vertical relationships between exhibitors and typical visitors (i.e., buyers), whereas other knowledge flows are neglected or even hindered. We conclude this article by highlighting the theoretical implications of our study for the literature on the spatial consequences of interaction and innovation.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate business visitor behaviour at trade shows and to propose a complementary view based on the experiential perspective in marketing.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports an ethnographic study conducted in the context of ten international trade shows in the textile‐apparel industry in Europe.FindingsThe study sheds light on the nature of the experience provided by trade show exhibitors and organisers and on visitors' lived experiences. Trade shows immerse industrial buyers in a physical and cognitive experience that requires their active participation. Under such circumstances, industrial marketers who employ experiential marketing techniques are likely to increase their trade show performances.Originality/valueThe paper adopts a new perspective that sees business visitor behaviour from an experiential standpoint and discusses the managerial implications that highlight the interplay of exhibitors and trade show organisers in designing and setting valuable experiences for visitors.