Marketplace Inclusion as a Continuum: The Role of Spatial,Institutional,and Digital Conditions

This commentary conceptualizes marketplace inclusion as a continuum rather than a binary state (Bennett, Hill, and Oleksiuk 2013), offering direct policy relevance and a more actionable basis for intervention. We operationalize this continuum through four interrelated pillars—recognition, access, fair treatment, and equitable participation (Henderson and Williams 2013; Nickerson, Bharadwaj, and Rodríguez-Vilá 2023). While grounded in prior literature, we extend these pillars as diagnostic markers by recognizing that they combine in heterogeneous and sometimes partial ways, shaping varying degrees of participation and influence along the continuum. We further suggest that shifts in spatial, institutional, and digital technological conditions reconfigure these pillars, thereby facilitating or constraining movement along the marketplace inclusion continuum.

The Marketplace Inclusion Continuum

Understanding how these forces reconfigure actors’ positions along the continuum first requires clarity on how the pillars themselves relate to one another, as inclusion unfolds iteratively rather than sequentially.

The pillars are analytically distinct: Recognition establishes legitimacy of market participants, access enables the obtainment of goods and services, fair treatment ensures respectful and transparent interactions and consistent standards, and equitable participation grants influence over outcomes. Yet they are mutually reinforcing. Recognition often precedes access, but when recognition is symbolic or superficial, it may only yield nominal access, which does not necessarily translate into meaningful fair treatment or equitable participation. Thus, movement along the marketplace inclusion continuum depends not only on the presence of the pillars, but also on whether they are enacted together in substantive rather than symbolic ways.

For example, a consumer may be formally recognized and able to access a product, but if interactions remain dismissive or inequitable, or their input does not influence outcomes, their inclusion remains limited. Improvements in one pillar can spill over to others. Enhancing fair treatment, for example, can make recognition feel substantive and enable more meaningful participation. Conversely, erosion in one pillar can undermine the rest.

Spatial, Institutional, and Digital Forces Shaping Actors’ Position Along the Marketplace Inclusion Continuum

We argue that spatial, institutional, and digital technological conditions determine actors’ positions along the marketplace inclusion continuum.

Spatial Dimension: Geographic and Structural Configurations

Space is not merely the physical setting of marketplace activity but an active force that shapes actors’ positions along the marketplace inclusion continuum, operating through multiple and overlapping configurations, including segregated and integrated neighborhoods, gated and informal communities, and physically or digitally mediated markets (Castilhos 2024). The urban–rural axis offers a particularly visible illustration, reflecting differences that shape actors’ positions along the marketplace inclusion continuum (Cattaneo et al. 2022).

Urban areas often benefit from denser infrastructure, service proximity, and formal consumer protections, strengthening access and fair treatment. Yet urban environments are not uniformly inclusive. Underserved neighborhoods frequently face majority-centered offerings and algorithmic marginalization, which can constrain recognition and equitable participation of informal workers, microsuppliers, and marginalized consumers, even when access appears robust (Bennett, Hill, and Oleksiuk 2013).

Conversely, rural contexts, characterized by geographic distance and sparse networks, may constrain access. However, locally embedded provision and community networks can sustain recognition and participation, sometimes compensating for limited formal infrastructure (Cattaneo et al. 2022). These contrasts demonstrate that not all pillars are equally sensitive to spatial configurations. Recognition and participation in urban contexts, and access in rural ones, are the most vulnerable and likely to shift first, while others remain relatively stable.

Institutional Dimension: Governance and Marketplace Inclusion

While spatial conditions shape inclusion through material access and relational mechanisms (e.g., access to resources, network connectivity, and visibility within marketplaces), institutions influence it through legitimacy, structuring who is recognized, how participation is permitted, and what protections are guaranteed (Jensen, Tickamyer, and Slack 2019). Institutions therefore do not merely enable or constrain marketplace activity but actively constitute the terms on which actors move along the continuum. While analytically distinct, spatial and institutional conditions are empirically inseparable, with each shaping and reinforcing the other in ways that jointly determine an actor's position along the continuum.

Formal institutions, including licensing, certification, property rights, and regulatory enforcement, typically advance recognition and access, enabling actors to be acknowledged and to engage in regulated markets (Saatcioglu and Ozanne 2013). However, actors excluded from formal systems are particularly vulnerable in terms of fair treatment and equitable participation, as institutional neglect reduces both respectful engagement and influence over outcomes.

Informal institutions, often mischaracterized as symptoms of underdevelopment, are better understood as adaptive responses that emerge where formal systems withhold recognition and access (Sutter et al. 2013). In some cases, these informal arrangements (e.g., community-based credit, informal supplier networks, and locally embedded trading systems) can activate recognition and equitable participation, though they rarely provide full access or robust fair treatment.

These patterns illustrate a configurational logic in which, when formal institutions withhold recognition and access, informal arrangements may activate participation. Nevertheless, full access and fair treatment remain structurally out of reach. The more productive policy question is therefore not how to draw more actors into formal systems but which institutional arrangements, formal or informal, most effectively advance their position along the continuum.

Digital Technology: A Configurational Force in Marketplace Inclusion Dynamics

Beyond spatial and institutional conditions, digital technology operates as a configurational force, shaping how those conditions advance or reverse actors’ positions along the marketplace inclusion continuum.

With respect to spatial conditions, digital technology modulates how geographic configurations advance or reverse actors’ positions along the continuum. By reducing reliance on physical proximity, digital tools can extend access and recognition beyond geographic boundaries, enabling actors in spatially marginalized contexts to participate in otherwise unreachable markets. Yet where connectivity infrastructure is absent or unevenly distributed, digital tools can equally deepen spatial disadvantage. Evidence from China illustrates this dynamic: Although aggregate digital disparities declined, the urban–rural gap widened, demonstrating that technological expansion can simultaneously advance inclusion for some while reversing it for others (Loo and Wang 2017).

Digital technology equally modulates the effects of institutional conditions. Where formal institutions are strong, digital platforms reinforce their reach through reputation systems, algorithmic visibility, and transaction verification (Tanriverdi and Akinyemi 2025). In informal institutions, digital technology can partially compensate for institutional voids, enabling informal actors to achieve recognition and access that formal institutions withhold.

However, when institutional capacity is weak and digital systems substitute for human judgment, inclusion may erode through fair treatment and meaningful participation, even where access appears to expand. In such settings, algorithmic opacity and concentrated platform control can compound existing inequalities, pushing already marginalized actors further toward the exclusion end of the continuum. These examples demonstrate that the effect of digital technology on actors’ positions along the continuum depends on the surrounding spatial and institutional conditions.

Conclusion

This commentary reframes marketplace inclusion as a continuum shaped by spatial, institutional, and digital technological conditions. Rather than asking whether actors are included or excluded, policymakers and marketers should ask which pillars are most constrained, and which conditions, if addressed, would most effectively advance actors’ positions toward the end of the continuum. Inclusion is not a destination but a dynamic and context-dependent process, and the framework offered here provides the diagnostic tools to navigate it.