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Categorizing Categorization Research: Review, Integration, and Future Directions

September 2013
Journal of Management Studies 51(1)

September 2013
51(1)

DOI:10.1111/joms.12044

Authors:

Jean-Philippe Vergne

University College London

Tyler Wry

University of Pennsylvania

This paper offers a systematic review of the literature on organizational categories and categorization published in the last 14 years (1999–2012). After identifying a core of roughly 100 papers on categories that appeared in management, organization, and sociology journals, we classified them based on several key dimensions, and analysed a few trends within the categorization literature. Our most surprising finding may be the fact that until recently, there was no mutual recognition of the existence of a distinct ‘literature on categories’ despite the wealth of published material on the topic. After summarizing some core theoretical features of that emergent literature, we propose integrative definitions of its core constructs and suggest several areas of research that could further enrich it in the future.

Self-categorization vs. categorical imperative in categorization researchNote: In Figures 1–5, y-axis displays the number of papers concerned as proportions (calculated from the full sample of 97 papers).

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Comparative use of various explanatory mechanisms in categorization research

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Comparative use of various methods in categorization research

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Categorizing Categorization Research:

Review, Integration, and Future Directions

J.-P. Vergne and Tyler Wry

Ivey Business School, Western University; The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT This paper offers a systematic review of the literature on organizational categories

and categorization published in the last 14 years (1999–2012). After identifying a core of

roughly 100 papers on categories that appeared in management, organization, and sociology

journals, we classiﬁed them based on several key dimensions, and analysed a few trends within

the categorization literature. Our most surprising ﬁnding may be the fact that until recently,

there was no mutual recognition of the existence of a distinct ‘literature on categories’ despite

the wealth of published material on the topic. After summarizing some core theoretical

features of that emergent literature, we propose integrative deﬁnitions of its core constructs

and suggest several areas of research that could further enrich it in the future.

Keywords: categories, categorization, classiﬁcation, review

INTRODUCTION

Over the past two decades, the study of categories has become popular among manage-

ment scholars to the point where it now accounts for a number of highly inﬂuential

papers and a growing base of dedicated scholars. Reﬂecting this, there is mounting

recognition that ‘category studies’ is emerging as a distinct domain of organizational

research. Looking back, the Journal of Management Studies (JMS) played a key role sparking

this trend. Speciﬁcally, Porac et al.’s (1989) classic ‘Competitive groups as cognitive

communities: the case of Scottish knitwear manufacturers’ was the ﬁrst management

study to integrate insights about categorization and remains a highly cited contribution

to category studies (Kaplan, 2011; Porac et al., 2011). The journal has also recently

published a Point–Counterpoint debate aimed at advancing new perspectives that build

on Porac and colleagues’ cognitive psychological approach (Durand and Paolella, 2013;

Glynn and Navis, 2013; Kennedy and Fiss, 2013). However, despite many signs that

category studies is on the rise in management scholarship, much of this research takes

place under the auspices of other organizational theories – rather than as a distinct area

Address for reprints: J.-P. Vergne, Ivey Business School, Western University, 1151 Richmond St, N6A 3K7

London, Ontario, Canada ( jvergne@ivey.ca).

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Journal of Management Studies 51:1 January 2014

doi: 10.1111/joms.12044

of inquiry – and has shifted strongly towards a sociological perspective, thus neglecting

foundational insights from cognitive psychology. We believe that there is much to be

gained through the emergence of a more integrative and focused research programme in

‘category studies’. Thus, on the occasion of JMS ’s 50th anniversary, we analyse the

nature and extent of the fragmentation in the categories literature with the aim of

contributing to the emergence of ‘category studies’ as a distinct – and distinctively

organizational – research domain.[1]

As with many areas of management scholarship, categories research draws heavily on

insights from adjacent disciplines in the social sciences (Corbett et al., 2013). In this

regard, however, ‘category studies’ is somewhat unique in that foundational research is

carried out in both psychology and sociology. As such, there are vibrant research

programmes that examine categories and their consequences at micro and macro levels

of analysis. In the management literature, this is reﬂected in a divide between early

studies that were rooted in cognitive psychology and examined how organizations

categorize themselves (Porac et al., 1989) and more recent efforts that draw on sociology

and theorize categories as components of a ﬁrm’s external environment (Zuckerman,

1999). In recent years, management scholars have shown considerable interest in the

sociological approach and its utility for understanding an organization’s external envi-

ronment. For instance, studies in strategy (Durand et al., 2007), organizational ecology

(Hsu and Hannan, 2005), neo-institutionalism (Lounsbury and Rao, 2004), and collec-

tive organizational identity (Glynn, 2008) have all been enriched through the integration

of sociological perspectives on categories. On the one hand, this has been incredibly

useful for building interest in category studies and for conveying the power of categories

as a lens for viewing organizational phenomenon. At the same time, though, there has

been minimal integration of micro and macro approaches and the dispersion of studies

across research domains has contributed to the proliferation of terms that are used to

represent similar concepts. Thus, even while different research streams conceptualize

categories in similar ways (see Negro et al., 2010), the literature is characterized by a

series of weakly integrated research conversations anchored in the theoretical legacies of

different base disciplines.

Based on this, our paper focuses on two goals. (1) We aim to identify points of

intersection among the various streams of category studies within the management

literature. In particular, we note that this work has become dominated by sociological

perspectives associated with the categorical imperative. As such, there are no big onto-

logical ﬁssures that stand in the way of an inclusive and cohesive research conversation

around categories among organization theorists (Negro et al., 2010). Rather, what is

needed is a common lexicon that can help to facilitate the generation of additive

knowledge organized directly around categories – rather than the extant management

theories that they are typically used to support. (2) We see a great deal of potential latent

in the divide between psychological and sociological approaches to category studies.

Although there has been minimal integration among these perspectives – and the ﬁeld

has converged fairly dramatically around the latter – they provide organizational schol-

ars with wide-ranging insights about categories and categorization at both the micro and

macro levels. Thus, rather than trying to extend a macro approach to contexts that it is

ill-equipped to address (see Wry et al., 2013), category studies offer natural points of

Categorizing Categorization Research 57

intersection between micro and macro. As such, we envision exciting possibilities to draw

on insights from cognitive psychology to enrich understandings about macro-level cat-

egory effects. In this way, a research programme that bridges psychological and socio-

logical approaches may facilitate the development of ‘indigenous’ organizational theory

as a composite of fragments from other ﬁelds (Corbett et al., 2013).

With this in mind, our paper is oriented around three themes, each aimed at contrib-

uting to the coherence required for the emergence of a distinctive – and distinctively

organizational – research conversation around category studies.

First, to understand the evolution of the relatively recent literature on category studies,

we conduct a systematic review of research published on the topic since 1999. In doing

so, we aim to identify common assumptions and complementary insights among studies

that draw on different theoretical perspectives and that use categories to advance distinct

research agendas.

Second, based on our review, we classify the core publications of categorization

research along several dimensions of interest, such as level of analysis, type of dependent

variable studied, and type of mechanism used to explain the phenomena of interest. This

helps us to summarize existing work and propose integrative deﬁnitions of core con-

structs, such as ‘organizational category’, ‘organizational audience’, ‘category strad-

dling’, and ‘category emergence’. The purpose of this exercise is to provide a state of the

art for categories research, a common lexicon that bridges the various streams of

management research that are currently utilizing categories.

Third, we suggest that the literature on organizational categories would be enhanced

through a more programmatic integration of insights from cognitive psychology and

economic sociology. Linking back to our lexicon, we argue that overlooked insights from

cognitive psychology may hold the key to unlocking novel understandings about the

relationship between organizations and categories. In this regard, our aim is to extend

and formalize an integrative research agenda that helps to crystallize an organizational

perspective on categories. The paper thus ends with a research agenda and discusses

some methodological guidelines that could be used in future works that advance the

organizational categories perspective.

CATEGORIZING CATEGORIES RESEARCH (1999–2012)

Origins of the Literature and Core Assumptions

Categorization is a ubiquitous process that plays out across a wide variety of contexts. For

instance, movies are categorized into genres (Hsu, 2006a), patents into technology classes

(Wry and Lounsbury, 2013), mutual funds into high and low risk (Lounsbury and Rao,

2004), and listed corporations into industries (Zuckerman, 1999). While the boundaries

between categories cannot always be neatly drawn (Wittgenstein, 2010), categories

nonetheless play a key role in imposing coherence on the social world by partitioning

items into groups. As such, they are shaped by perceptions and in return shape cognition,

thereby helping individuals to quickly and efﬁciently process vast amounts of information

(Douglas, 1986; Zerubavel, 1996). Further, by enabling commensuration, categories

provide an anchor for making judgments about value and worth. Some categories are

J.-P. Vergne and T. Wry58

systematically privileged over others (Lakoff, 1987) and the meaning systems embedded

within categories facilitate the stratiﬁcation of their members based on certain attributes

(Rosch and Lloyd, 1978). Based on these properties, researchers in the social sciences

have cultivated research programmes dedicated to studying the micro-cognitive mecha-

nisms behind category perceptions and categorization processes as well as the macro-

social implications that these have for actors and organizations.

This line of research underlies several important assumptions that are shared among

category scholars. First, categories embody behavioural expectations shaped at the

interface between producers and audiences. These two groups of actors have limited

attentional and cognitive resources, and they can make mistakes as they formulate

judgments (Baum and Lant, 2003; Porac et al., 1995). As well, producers and audiences

are conceived of as agentic, that is, what they do and how they interact can modify the

structure of the categories in which their cognition is embedded (Rao et al., 2005). In

terms of intellectual heritage, this means that category studies depart both from the

rational ‘efﬁcient-market’ perspective and from a neo-institutionalist view which sees

institutions as stable patterns that mostly constrain agency to produce increasing

amounts of organizational homogeneity (Zuckerman, 1999). In addition, by redeﬁning

an industry as a category of organizations that resemble each other and compete to some

extent, category studies question the implicit assumptions of research streams that see

competitive patterns as the result of an exogenously-given industry structure (e.g., see the

Porac and Thomas (1990) critique of Porter’s 1980 classic book). Thus, it is against those

three inﬂuential research traditions that the categories literature must be assessed.

In psychology, scholars have made considerable efforts to understand the micro-

foundations of categorization, examining both the properties of categories and the

cognitive processes through which actors perceive them. While by no means an exhaus-

tive list, research has examined the internal attribute structure of various categories

(Rosch and Lloyd, 1978), the arrangement of categories into hierarchies that classify

items into more or less inclusive groups (Rosch, 1999), variation in the schemes that

different actors use to categorize the same objects ( Johnson and Mervis, 1997), the

varying bases for constructing categories (Spalding and Murphy, 1996), and the ways in

which individuals comprehend items that mix elements from multiple categories (Cohen

and Murphy, 1984; Hampton, 1988). By comparison, sociologists have tended to be

more concerned with the consequences that categories have once they are formed and

their meanings widely shared. Again, while not an exhaustive list, studies in this milieu

have focused on the meaning systems embedded within categories and category systems,

particularly as they relate to role conformity, collective identity dynamics, social sanc-

tioning, and the evaluation of category members by external audiences (DiMaggio, 1991;

Douglas, 1986; Mohr and Duquenne, 1997). Cognate research in economic sociology

has focused on the ways in which categories partition ﬁelds and markets, and thus

provide the infrastructure necessary for economic exchange (Pachucki and Breiger,

2010; White, 2002).

Drawing on these base literatures, management scholars have used categories as a lens

for understanding a wide range of organizational phenomenon. Anchored by early work

published by Porac and colleagues (Porac and Thomas, 1990; Porac et al., 1989, 1995),

the cognitive psychological perspective has proven especially fruitful for understanding

Categorizing Categorization Research 59

how strategists conceive of the external environment and their ﬁrm’s position therein.

Indeed, evidence suggests that competitive dynamics within industries are structured

through the mental models of organizational managers (McNamara et al., 2002; Porac

et al., 1989). On the macro-side, organization theorists starting with Ezra Zuckerman

(1999) have theorized categories as a feature of the external environment, and focused on

their disciplining functions. For instance, studies have examined how categories shape

the allocation of attention among various organizations (Zuckerman, 1999; Zuckerman

and Kim, 2003) as well as their role in facilitating comparisons among the ﬁrms and

products that comprise different categories (Hsu and Hannan, 2005; Phillips and

Zuckerman, 2001; Rao et al., 2005). In particular, this work has emphasized the organi-

zational ‘imperative’ of ﬁtting into a speciﬁc category as a precursor to acquiring both

social approval and material resources (Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001; Zuckerman, 1999).

Review Methodology

To formally assess the integration of categories insights into the management literature,

we began by constructing a sampling frame designed to capture the full population of

relevant studies. Several deﬁnitions for ‘organizational category’ have been proposed by

scholars and, even though they overlap to a large extent (Negro et al., 2010), they are still

different enough for the boundaries of category studies in the management literature to

be fuzzy. Acknowledging the existence of a variety of approaches to the notion of

‘organizational category’, we thus relied on an iterative approach that resulted in the

identiﬁcation of 97 papers that form the core of this literature stream over the last 14

years. We chose 1999 as the start of our observation window because it coincides with the

publication of two seminal pieces: Zuckerman (1999), which is seen by many as the origin

of the sociological view on industry categories, and Rosa et al. (1999), which crystallized

scholarly interest around the socio-cognitive dynamics of product categories.[2]

After a naïve search in Thomson Reuter’s Web of Science (WOS) database using

‘categor*’ as a keyword, we skimmed through the titles and abstracts of the papers

published in more than 150 journals. We found that all the papers using categories as the

primary level of analysis were published in the second half of the 1990s and later.

Looking at these articles, it was clear that many bore the imprint of Porac and colleagues’

early work (Porac and Thomas, 1990; Porac et al., 1989, 1995) and focused on the

self-categorization of organizations into strategic groups. Starting at the turn of the

millennium, another stream of papers began to appear, anchored by Zuckerman’s (1999)

sociological view of categories as carriers of the cultural infrastructure that audiences use

to understand and evaluate organizations.

To identify journals that publish categorization research, we searched for all papers

that cited both Porac et al. (1989) and Zuckerman (1999). Our ﬁnal list of journals

included the 20 which published the most papers citing these two seminal works, as well

as all of the journals in the Financial Times 45 list, resulting in a ﬁnal sample of 52

journals. To identify core papers in the organizational categories literature, we searched

each journal from 1999 to 2012 using two ﬁlters. First, we searched for ‘categor*’or

‘organizational form*’ in the title, keywords, and abstract ﬁelds of the WOS database.[3] At

this stage, we excluded papers that used these terms without reference to the theoretical

J.-P. Vergne and T. Wry60

concept of ‘organizational category’ (e.g., quotes like: ‘We also ﬁnd that the greater the

range of upper echelon afﬁliations across the categories of upstream, horizontal, and

downstream afﬁliations, the more . . .’ were excluded). Second, from the remaining

articles, we excluded those that did not substantially address (at least one of) the following

concepts: audience*, collection*, group*, evaluat*, classif *, critic*, producer*, member*,

cluster*, code*, identit*, boundar*.[4] This yielded a ﬁnal sample of 97 papers comprising

the core organizational categories literature published between 1999 and 2012.

We read each of the 97 papers in full, systematically analysing their main charac-

teristics: research methods, dependent variables of interest, explanatory mechanisms,

theories drawn upon, and the type of category examined. The Appendix at the end of

the paper details the codes that we assigned to each paper. This Appendix is meant to

be a simpliﬁed representation of the evolution of categorization research over the last

14 years. Papers are presented in chronological order but the list can be searched

through easily using seven criteria: author name, method, dependent variable,

explanatory mechanism, audience type, category type, and complementary theoretical

perspectives.

Surveying the Scholarly Landscape

Theoretical fragmentation and a shifting worldview. The overriding ﬁnding of our review is that

the research on organizational categories is fragmented. Reﬂecting the division of cat-

egory studies among social sciences disciplines, the organizational literature shows evi-

dence of a divide between studies that draw on cognitive psychology and focus on

organizational self-categorization (Porac et al., 1989), versus those that are oriented in

sociology and the categorization of organizations by (usually) external audiences (Hsu

and Hannan, 2005; Zuckerman, 1999). Figure 1 displays this divide. In recent years,

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

0.30

0.35

0.40

0.45

0.50

1997-2001 2002-2006 2007-2012

Categorical Imperave Self-Categorizaon Both

Figure 1. Self-categorization vs. categorical imperative in categorization research

Note: In Figures 1–5, y-axis displays the number of papers concerned as proportions (calculated from the full

sample of 97 papers).

Categorizing Categorization Research 61

there has been a trend towards examining organizational self-categorization from a

sociological perspective – as indicated in the ‘both’ line in Figure 1 – with studies arguing

that legitimacy is predicated on an organization conveying an identity that ﬁts within an

established category (e.g., Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001; Navis and Glynn, 2011; Wry

et al., 2011). However, studies that take a cognitive psychological view to ‘self-

categorization’ can be distinguished from ‘categorical imperative’ studies based on their

conceptualization of category dynamics, boundaries, and identities, as well as in their

approach to contestation, and the importance of labels. Table I contrasts the two per-

spectives in more detail.

In this regard, studies adopting a psychological perspective to self-categorization take

the view that organizations with common attributes see themselves as cohabitants within

the same category. Sparked to a considerable extent by Porac and colleagues’ early work

(Porac and Thomas, 1990; Porac et al., 1989, 1995) this view was responsible for much

of the early integration of categories insights into the management literature. The

majority of this work focused on how the category structure of an industry, and the

associated cognitive maps used by managers, affect competitive dynamics. This work is

commonly associated with the literature on competitive groups in strategic management

(e.g., McNamara et al., 2002; Reger and Huff, 1993).

Looking at these studies, it is interesting to note that while they opened the door for

management scholars to draw on the broad categories literature in cognitive psychology,

this integration was ad hoc and selective. For example, Porac and colleagues (Porac and

Table I. Self-categorization vs. categorical imperative

Self-categorization (SC) Categorical imperative (CI)

Category dynamics Emphasis on the ability of

organizations to construe/create

categories and act upon that basis

Emphasis on the ability of external

audiences to impose constraints or

sanctions on category members (e.g.,

organizations)

Category boundaries In ﬂux, fuzzy, and ambiguous Deﬁned clearly by external audiences

but can change over time or differ

across audiences

Inter-organizational

identity dynamics

Managerial attention and cognition,

and organizational rivalry shape

categories

Other

Shepherd (2010) R M (CL): Organizational context and

rules of the classifying organization

affect the classiﬁcation system

World bank (O): Countries

seeking loans

Classiﬁcation

systems

Staber (2010) R CP, I (CL, L): the role of imitation and

its relationship to social interaction

in managerial identiﬁcation with

the cluster (MS)

Other orgs (O): Textile mills

cluster in SW

Germany (Location

cluster)

SIT; imitation

Tan and

Roberts (2010)

R, N AR (CL): assessments of similarity

between new and existing

technologies; (CS): heightened

ambiguity leads to more

examiner-added citations (AE)

Patent

examiner

(P): Technologies

seeking patents

SoM; SN

Categorizing Categorization Research 87

APPENDIX Continued

Author (year) Method DV Explanatory mechanisms Critic/audience Category: Product

(P)/Org (O)

Theoretical lens

Kim and Jensen

(2011)

R AR (AE, CL): order in which the

products or product features that

determine their market identities

are offered

season ticket

holder; critics

(P/O): Opera SoM

King et al.

(2011)

N I (L, CL): Identity based groupings;

(MS): Identity realization

School board (O): Arizona charter

schools

SoM; OI; SM

Negro et al.

(2011)

R S (CL): members of the endangered

catg become partial defectors and

category straddlers (CS); (MS, L):

their history challenges identity of

non-defectors and inhibits further

change

Other orgs (P): Barolo and

Barbaresco wines

‘traditionalism’ and

‘modernism’

SoM; grade of

membership

Perretti (2011) C CB, I (MS, CL): construction and

interplay of different identities

leading to hybridity as a pop level

process; (L): actor status

Audience

(generic)

(P): US feature ﬁlm

industry – ﬁlm

genres; (O): project

orgs

SoM

Phillips (2011) R, N AR (AE, CL): difﬁcult-to-categorize

outputs appealing when associated

with a source (city) high in

disconnectedness

Audience

(generic)

(P/O): Midwest

music recordings by

cities

social structure

of creativity

Smith (2011) R, N AR (MS): Typicality of identity; (L):

nonconformance

Investors (O): hedge fund

companies

SoM; OI

Waguespack

and Sorenson

(2011)

R AR (MS): distribution by high status

actors leads to more lenient classf

(AE) compared to independent/

peripheral distribution (MS)

Censor (P): movies that are

certiﬁed in the U.S.

SoM; Halo;

Prototypicality

Wry et al. (2011) T CP (L): legitimacy when members

articulate a clear deﬁning collective

identity story (MS) that identiﬁes

the purpose and core practices

(CL)

Audience

(generic)

(O): Entrepreneurial

ﬁrms with nascent

collective identity

Benner and

Tripsas (2012)

R M (MS): with others ﬁrms from prior

industry; (L): pressures from other

participants of prior industry

competitors in

prior industry

(P/O): Firm in the

nascent Digital

Cameras category

PE; IT; CG; TC

Fiol and

Romanelli

(2012)

T CE, CP (L, MS, CL): Collective identity

emergence

External

audience

(O): Collective

identity of

entrepreneurs

IT; PE; OI; SM

Hsu et al. (2012) CA, R M (AE): evaluative schema clarity;

(MS, CL) producer social position

Wine critics (P): Wine SoM

Jones et al.

(2012)

CA, N CE (CL, MS): catg theorization; (CL,

Cm): ﬁghts over logics

Generic

audience

(P): ‘modern

architecture’ catg

SoM; IT

Negro and

Leung (2012)

I, R AR (CS): blind and no-blind tasting;

(CL): implicit schema of wine

taster; (AE): quality inference based

on identity

Wine taster (P/O): Barolo and

Barbaresco wines

SoM

Pachucki (2012) I, Oth AR (CL, AE): implicit status

hierarchies and classiﬁcation biases

in cognition; Museum Quality

evaluation/classiﬁcation

museum

professionals

(O): Museums Socio-cognitive

assessment

Pontikes (2012) R AR (AE): ambiguity of labels for

market-takers and -makers, appeal;

(MS): Identity claims; (CS): label

spanning

Consumers,

VCs

(O): U.S. software

ﬁrms

SoM; PE; classf

Vergne (2012) C, CA,

AR (CS): straddling multiple categories

dilutes stakeholder attention (AE)

to membership in stigmatized catg

(L)

defence

journalists

(O): global arms

producers

SoM; IT;

stigmatization

J.-P. Vergne and T. Wry88

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Generating, Grading, and Ghosting: How Organizing Experts Shapes Expertise

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2024
J MANAGE STUD

Pedro Monteiro

Experts increasingly refine their expertise into specialties as they labour in and around organizations. Yet, previous research assumes that experts are organized in the workplace in ways that passively accommodate or mirror pre-existing specialties and focuses on organizational structures that codify the content of experts' knowledge as an encroachment. Drawing on a qualitative field study in an aeronautical organization's engineering unit, this paper examines the organizational structures that chart the area of experts' knowledge, i.e., their specialties. The findings show that organizational structures are generative, defining the contours of existing expertise and catalysing the formation of new ones (generating). However, organizational structures also encode criteria that implicitly rank some forms of expertise over others, thereby reinforcing status hierarchies (grading), and misalignment across organizational structures renders some forms of expertise invisible (ghosting). By showing the active role of organizational structures in shaping expertise rather than simply housing it, this paper contributes to our understanding of expertise development as well as status dynamics and access to resources among experts. Further, the paper reveals how misalignments across multiple organizational structures may impact the management of knowledge and human capital.

Perspectives on new venture legitimation: A review and research agenda

Thesis

Full-text available

Apr 2024

Iikka Meriläinen

New venture legitimation has become an increasingly active topic of scholarly inquiry over the last two decades. Considering the lack of an up-to-date, wide-spectrum review on the issue, an integrative literature review is conducted to take stock of the current empirical and conceptual knowledge. The present study continues the work started by Überbacher (2014), and the classification developed in that review is now used to review scholarly output until February 2024. The present study reviews 245 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1985 and February 2024 on new venture legitimation. The articles are classified with the perspective typology developed by Überbacher (2014). Shifts in the structure and substance of the literature are analyzed by comparing periods 1985–2012 and 2013–2/2024, which is in alignment with the cutoff year of Überbacher’s review. The findings illustrate a formidable, continuing expansion of the scholarly new venture legitimation literature. Most of the growth has stemmed from the burgeoning of empirical work, particularly over the last two decades. The most common type of study has been qualitative research with institutional theory as the theoretical framework. On the other hand, novel contributions based on organizational ecology have diminished. There has been only moderate activity in the conceptual proceedings on new venture legitimation, particularly towards the end of the period reviewed. Based on the review, an updated research agenda is proposed. The avenues identified as potential for further inquiry are 1) developing a unified legitimation strategy framework, 2) reaching consensus on legitimacy thresholds, 3) conceptualizing liabilities on a general level, 4) theorizing performative new venture legitimation, 5) explicating the metaphysical foundations of organizational legitimacy, and 6) aiming at more interdisciplinary legitimacy research. These six research streams align with understudied aspects of new venture legitimation identified by the present study.

Legitimacy deficits in the private higher education sector: categories in evaluating Russian universities

Article

Apr 2024

Interdependent Formation of Symbolic and Regulatory Boundaries: The Discursive Contestation Around the Home-Sharing Category

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2024
J MANAGE

The formation of boundaries between established and emergent categories is a complex social process. Therein, our understanding of how symbolic boundaries translate into regulatory boundaries is underdeveloped. Extant research either treats laws and regulations for categories as given or assumes a seamless translation of a symbolic into a regulatory boundary. This sidelines that market participants actively contest and shape boundaries between categories. To address this lacuna, we open the black box of how symbolic boundaries are translated into regulatory boundaries. We adopt a discursive perspective and conduct a longitudinal study of the contestation around the categories of home sharing and short-term rental in Europe. Our analysis shows how symbolic and regulatory boundaries are formed in a causal sequential process, driven by shifts in the field positioning of market actors and in the discursive accounts they mobilize. We develop a theoretical model of the discursive foundation of category boundary formation. At the heart of our theorization are discursive accounts and how shifting coalitions of market participants mobilize them to shape the evolving symbolic and regulatory boundaries between an emergent and an established category. We contribute to category research by unearthing the interdependent formation of symbolic and regulatory boundaries and the role of discursive accounts in these processes.

The Double-Edged Sword of Exemplar Similarity

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2024
ORGAN SCI

We investigate how a firm’s positioning relative to category exemplars shapes security analysts’ evaluations. Using a two-stage model of evaluation (initial screening and subsequent assessment), we propose that exemplar similarity enhances a firm’s recognizability and legitimacy, increasing the likelihood that it passes the initial screening stage and attracts analyst coverage. However, exemplar similarity may also prompt unfavorable comparisons with exemplar firms, leading to lower analyst recommendations in the assessment stage. We further argue that category coherence, distinctiveness, and exemplar typicality influence the impact of exemplar similarity on firm evaluation. Leveraging natural language processing (NLP) techniques to analyze a sample of 7,603 U.S. public firms from 1997 to 2022, we find robust support for our predictions. By highlighting the intricate role of strategic positioning vis-à-vis category exemplars in shaping audience evaluations, our findings have important implications for research on positioning relative to category exemplars, category viability, optimal distinctiveness, and security analysts. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16855 .

Comes the Southern Revolution: The Reframing of Chinese Shan-zhai Toward Identity Change

Article

May 2024

Following the literature on entrepreneurial framing and identity change, we examined how Chinese shan-zhai phone entrepreneurs have drawn on their cultural resources to reframe their businesses to claim new identities and gain legitimacy over time. Through qualitative procedures, we found that a staged process of collective identity development underlies this entrepreneurial process, consisting of building (a) niche-market identity via pragmatic reframing, (b) socio-political identity via nationalistic reframing, and finally (c) professional identity via comprehensive reframing. There has also been a clear change in the sources of legitimacy from the indigenous market through the wider Chinese society to the more globally defined industry. Our central contribution is a processual model of identity change through cultural reframing specifically focused on how informal entrepreneurs grow into formalization and global competition.

Big Gains in Digital Ecosystem Niches: How Facilitators Emerge and Develop into an Organizational Category

Article

Apr 2024
INFORM MANAGE-AMSTER

Categorizing construction waste: Closing the gap between European waste regulation and management practices

Article

Apr 2024

Cognitive Economy and Product Categorization

Article

Feb 2024

In mediated markets, the categorization of products by mediators is critical to efficient interaction between producers and consumers. As organizational research tends to focus on the consequences of categorization rather than its antecedents, however, we know relatively little about why mediators assign one category label or another to a product. In this study, we argue that two informational properties of labels, specificity and distinctiveness, determine the outcomes of mediators’ categorization decisions. Our analysis of product categorization decisions made by members of an online music community, 2000–2020, supports this argument. We find that a label’s odds of being assigned to a product increase (a) if this label encodes information that is neither too similar nor too different from that which is encoded by a superordinate label, that is, it has moderate specificity; and (b) if it encodes information that differs as much as possible from that which is encoded by horizontally related labels, that is, it has maximal distinctiveness. These findings persist after controlling for other possible determinants of mediators’ categorization decisions, including producers’ claims to labels, products’ typicality, and mediators’ expertise. Funding: M. Piazzai received funding from the Community of Madrid [EPUC3M12, VPRICIT] and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [RYC2021-032325-I]. M. Liu received funding from Durham University Business School. Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.15751 .

Identifying Essential Content in the Introduction to Adapted Physical Education Class

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2024

Logics of Organization Theory: Audiences, Codes, and Ecologies

Book

Dec 2012

Sociocognitive Dynamics in a Product Market

Article

Oct 1999
J MARKETING

In this article, the authors explore the origins and evolution of product markets from a sociocognitive perspective. Product markets are defined as socially constructed knowledge structures (i.e., product conceptual systems) that are shared among producers and consumers—sharing that enables consumers and producers to interact in the market. The fundamental thesis is that product markets are neither imposed nor orchestrated by producers or consumers but evolve from producer–consumer interaction feedback effects. Starting as unstable, incomplete, and disjointed conceptual systems held by market actors—which is revealed by the cacophony of uses, claims, and product standards that characterize emerging product markets—product markets become coherent as a result of consumers and producers making sense of each other's behaviors. The authors further argue that the sensemaking process is revealed in the stories that consumers and producers tell each other in published media, such as industry newspapers and consumer magazines, which the authors use as data sources. Specific hypotheses pertaining to the use of product category labels in published sources and the acceptability of different product category members throughout the development process are tested for the minivan market between 1982 and 1988. The findings suggest that category stabilization causes significant differences between consumers and producers in how they use product category labels for emerging and preexisting categories. The findings also show that, as stabilization occurs around a category prototype, the acceptability of particular models changes without any physical changes to the models.

Managerial Identification of Competitors

Article

Jul 1999
J MARKETING

Despite extensive academic research on how to identify competitors objectively, marketers know relatively little about how managers identify competitors in practice. The authors bring together diffuse literature in this area and propose a cognitive framework for managerial identification of competitors. They report the results of two studies that examine the attributes managers use in deciding who their competitors are.

More than a Metaphor: Assessing the Historical Legacy of Resource Dependence and its Contemporary Promise as a Theory of Environmental Complexity

Article

Jun 2013

Mimicry and the Market: Adoption of a New Organizational Form

Article

Feb 2002

Institutionalizing Identity: Symbolic Isomorphism and Organizational Names

Article

Feb 2002

Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind

Article

Oct 1990

EVALUATIVE SCHEMAS AND THE ATTENTION OF CRITICS IN THE U.S. FILM INDUSTRY.

Article

Aug 2005

G. Hsu

This article explores the role critics play in the differential legitimation of market categories. Prior research suggests that a critic's ability to establish himself as an expert of the market is based on the appeal to a rationalized and defensible system of standards for evaluating products. In this paper, I argue that this creates a fundamental bias in the allocation of critical attention. Because of their need to establish and justify their status as non-partisan experts, critics will demonstrate a tendency to favor arenas in which they have developed clear and structured schemas for evaluation. As a result, producers within such categories will receive disproportionately greater critical attention. I test and find support for this hypothesis within the context of the U.S. feature film industry. The implications of this bias in terms of producer legitimacy are discussed.

The Influence of Prior Industry Affiliation on Framing in Nascent Industries: The Evolution of Digital Cameras

Article

Jan 2010

Category Stretching: Reorienting Research on Categories in Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Organization Theory

Article

Jan 2011

Categorizing Categorization Research: Review, Integration, and Future Directions

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