Theories within organizational and economic sociology that center on market categories
often equate taken-for-grantedness with increased constraint on category members' …

To gain attention and build support for new categories, market entrepreneurs often define a
new category through its contrast with related, established offerings. Existing research has …

Research across disciplines presumes that market categories will have strong boundaries.
Categories without well-defined boundaries typically are not useful and so are expected to …

The popularity of research into categories has grown in recent decades and shows no sign
of abating. This introductory article takes stock of the research into two facets of …

Recent theory and research have reconceptualized categories in markets and in other
settings as part of the languages developed to characterize roles in a producer-audience …

This article examines the effects of market specialization on economic and social outcomes.
Integrating two perspectives, we explore why products that span multiple categories suffer …

Consumers, producers, critics, and other market agents rely on socially constructed
categories like'craft'beers, houseware'collectibles', and'thriller'films for their understanding of …

This paper reviews several streams of research on market category formation. Most past
research has largely focused on established category systems and the antecedents and …

Categorization pervades economic life; products, services, firms and industries are
continuously being classified by rivals, clients, experts and critics. A stream of research …

abstract We advocate for more tolerance in the manner we collectively address categories
and categorization in our research. Drawing on the prototype view, organizational scholars …