Empty Categories and Industry Emergence: The Rise and Fall of Japanese Ji-biru
Abstract
We examine the construction of “empty categories” – that is, categories created prior to the existence of producers and consumers – and their implications for industry emergence. Drawing on the case of the ji-biru category among Japanese microbreweries, we exemplify how external actors – including governments, the media, consultants, and other entities – frequently create empty categories that are “legitimate yet not legitimated” (Vergne & Wry, 2014). We show how such empty categories generate lower entry barriers, resulting in higher founding rates and significant innovation. We highlight how empty categories impede evolutionary forces by inhibiting shared understandings of what constitutes a legitimate category member.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Kazuyo Morita, Reiko Takita, Elin Matsumae, and Hiroko Hashimoto for their excellent research assistance, and special issue editors Henrich Greve and Marc-David Seidel for their valuable feedback and advice. We would also like to thank Eric Zhao and Matthew Lee, participants of the INSEAD-ASQ-OMT Conference on Entrepreneurship, members of the EGOS sub-theme on “Constructing Categories: Meaning and Framing in Organizational Fields,” as well as seminar participants at the Stockholm School of Economics and Hitotsubashi University for constructive feedback and helpful suggestions.
Citation
Edman, J. and Ahmadjian, C.L. (2017), "Empty Categories and Industry Emergence: The Rise and Fall of Japanese
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited