A Theory of Crowds in Time and Space: Explaining the Cognitive Foundations of a New Market

The ubiquity of digitally intermediated interactions is changing the ways in which social interaction creates the cognitive and institutional underpinnings of new markets. Logics that define markets used to be localized, but they now emerge from crowds that span – and persist – across time and space. This article builds a theory of how crowds emerge and evolve in a way that influences the emergence of shared logics and helps explain why some markets are viable while others are not. What is revealed is that a crowd has a hidden niche structure that determines the fate of a new market.