City Research Online

Abstract

Purpose
This paper aims to examine how hybrid forums can be operationalised as a qualitative research method for engaging with concern-work in mission-driven market contexts. It responds to a gap in existing scholarship by shifting attention from conceptual accounts of hybrid forums to their practical design, facilitation and analysis as an interventionist research methodology.

Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts an interventionist qualitative research design based on a series of hybrid forums convened with non-profit arts organisations navigating tensions between mission-driven commitments and data-driven practices. The forums were organised as iterative, scenario-based workshops involving heterogeneous organisational actors and sector intermediaries. Data were generated through recorded discussions, workshop artefacts and reflexive observations, and analysed iteratively using multi-layered coding supported by NVivo to trace how controversies developed across forums over time.

Findings
The findings show that hybrid forums function as sites of relational concern-work, where concerns emerge, layer and evolve through interaction rather than appearing as fixed problems. The forums enabled the articulation of intertwined economic, ethical and organisational tensions, particularly around data practices and organisational capacity. Scenario-based engagement also supported the articulation of prospective market imaginaries, revealing experiences of constrained agency in which data illuminated possible futures without guaranteeing action.

Originality/value
This paper advances hybrid forums as an interventionist methodological approach for qualitative marketing research. It contributes to concerned markets scholarship by empirically demonstrating how concern-work unfolds in practice and by capturing the anticipatory and processual dimensions of market-making often inaccessible through conventional qualitative methods.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2026, Lucy Costelloe, Annmarie Ryan and Niamh NicGhabhann-Coleman. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/
Publisher Keywords:	Performativity, Participatory methods, Concerned markets
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity School of Communication & Creativity > Department of Media, Culture & Creative Industries
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

Export

Downloads