Research on market shaping stresses the malleability of markets and the agency of companies and public organizations in moulding the market to serve both private and collective goals (Hawa, Baker, & Plewa, 2020). Market shaping can be performed intentionally by a company or a collective of companies and other actors, and it is driven by a vision of a future market (Flaig, Kindström, & OKosson, 2021a). This vision is of particular importance when new markets or networks are formed (Möller & Svahn, 200ti), innovations or sustainable practices are introduced (Storbacka, Nenonen, Peters, et al., 2022), or socioeconomic crises disrupt the established markets (Beninger & Francis, 2021). Nevertheless, the concept of market-shaping vision has remained underexplored in this literature.

The objective of this paper is to elaborate the concept of market-shaping vision on the basis of extant research knowledge. We conduct a systematic literature review on the use of the concept in business literature, analyzing its various origins, functions and types. Our conceptual analysis is based on 77 articles published on market-shaping visions in a variety scholarly marketing, management, strategy and organization journals. Our preliminary results show that market-shaping visions can originate from an identified opportunity, an actor’s dissatisfaction with a market issue, or from pure idealism. Moreover, visions have three functions. Firstly, they create and disseminate new mental models in the form of market images. Secondly, they are means of communication while orchestrating. actors and activities towards a new network configuration, or when engaging actors to strategic initiatives. Thirdly, visions can direct actions towards the envisioned market also more broadly. Drawing from the literature review, we develop a typology of visions, based on two differentiating dimensions: perceived distance to the future and degree of required market change. By providing a more granular understanding of the market vision concept, this study contributes to the market-shaping literature, especially to the shaping of business markets that depend on networks of business relationships.