Search results

Scholars have primarily focused on how language represents categories. We move beyond this conception to develop a discursive perspective of market categorization focused on how categories are constructed through communicative exchanges. The discursive perspective points to three under-researched mechanisms of category evolution: (1) the interaction between market participants, (2) the power dynamics among market participants and within the discourse, and (3) the cultural and material context in which categories are constructed. In this theoretical paper, we discuss how each of these mechanisms shed light on different phases of category evolution and the methods that could be used to study them.

Purpose – The broader aim of this research is twofold. First, we aim to better understand how the business computer was conceptualized and used within U.S. industry. Second, this research investigates the role of social factors such as relational structure, institutional entrepreneurs, and position in the formation of conceptualizations of new technologies.

Design/methodological/approach – This paper is theoretically motivated in the sense that it responds to the lack of attention to the failure of institutional entrepreneurs to change belief systems. Through detailed archival, network, and descriptive statistical analysis, the paper shows how the failed institutional entrepreneur fits conventional explanations for success. The paper then analyzes two matched cases, comparing the insurance industry's rejection of the institutional entrepreneur with manufacturing's acceptance, in order to identify what is missing in current explanations of institutional entrepreneurs.

Findings – Our analysis reveals that the role of the audience structure in interpreting the institutional entrepreneur's message influences the change outcome. In our case, the institutional entrepreneur's view of the computer as a brain that supported decision-oriented applications did not fit with views of the insurance groups who had centralized authority over interpreting the computer. Because manufacturing had less centralized control in its discourse around the computer, there were fewer constraints on assimilation, allowing the entrepreneur's views to resonate with some of the occupational groups.

Research limitations/implications – This paper develops a theoretical approach to institutional entrepreneurship that situates the entrepreneurial efforts of individual actors within a system characterized by the structure of its audience and subject to distinct historical macro-structural processes that present significant obstacles to the realization of their entrepreneurial projects.

Market participants form conceptualizations of the products exchanged within product markets. Strategy scholars have begun to investigate how these product conceptual systems influence firm strategic behavior. Much of this work characterize these concepts as categories and theorize that the strategic implications derive from the potential penalties of not fitting into a category. This view has limitations in that it does not fully address the other cognitive tasks that concepts perform as well as other system-level characteristics of the conceptual systems. This chapter addresses these limitations by framing the use of concepts as part of the interpretive processes that enable market exchange. It develops a system-view of product concepts and then shows how the structure of the product categorical system influences the interpretation of product concepts. It introduces new mechanisms centered on cognitive processing that influence strategic action within product markets.

Purpose – This chapter is intended to identify the actual and potential linkages between history and strategy research.

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on examples from research at the intersection of history and strategy, we identify research topics that have received attention from a historical-strategy lens, and those that are thus far understudied. We then place the studies that appear in this volume into their relevant context.

Findings – The chapter outlines benefits that the strategy field can gain from a greater emphasis on history, and that the history field can gain from a greater use of strategic insights.

Originality/value – The chapter sets the context for the studies in this volume, and provides a lens for evaluating the benefits of historical-strategy research.

Purpose – This study is intended to extend scholarship on the management of organizations by examining the long-term performance of orphaned products.

Design/methodology/approach – This study uses the historical context of the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression to examine the long-run appeal (performance) of orphaned products – products from start-ups that fail soon after production. I use this setting to determine how factors within the purview of management, as well as the role of changing tastes, affect the appeal of music from short-lived start-ups founded in 1929 and 1933.

Findings/originality/value – I find that while the evolution of tastes has a substantial effect beyond the control of a firm's managers, a start-up's decision-makers were able to positively influence the long-run appeal of music when they (a) recorded tunes with new artists and (b) were able to create an early big hit with the tune. These results demonstrate how and why, even with cultural producers in one of the greatest economic disasters in U.S. history, managerial decisions were meaningful for product performance. Finally, I show that the effect of being a start-up on the long-run appeal of a tune is time-varying such that being a start-up in 1929 or 1933 does not harm a tune's appeal until after World War II. These final analyses point to further ways in which strategy, history, and sociology might combine to further scholarship on the management of organizations.