Explorations into the world of complex adaptive consumption systems and their emergent nature.
Rob Kleine (REK) is Associate Professor of Marketing at Ohio Northern University. His research explores the interplay of consumption and self development.
Rendered as only Morris Holbrook can, Adventures in Complexity: An Essay on Dynamic Open Complex Adaptive Systems, Butterfly Effects, Self-Organizing Order, Coevolution, the Ecological Perspective, Fitness Landscapes, Market Spaces, Emergent Beauty at the Edge of Chaos, and All That Jazz provides a nice primer on key literature of which you should be aware. This article is also available in PDF Format.
Consumption systems are dynamic and emergent. One might say consumption systems evolve and adapt, evolving toward a maximally fit state appropriate for an individual's identity cultivation process. The papers Crutchfield and Schuster have collected in Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Interplay of Selection, Accident, Neutrality, and Function seem to offer considerable value for understanding how CACS's evolve.
It is estimated that more than 90% of products introduced to the market place fail. Employing an ecological metaphor, more than 90% of products introduced to the marketplace become extinct. Newman and Palmer's book Modeling Extinction looks to offer an intriguing angle on product failure.