Normative uncertainty and middle-status innovation in the US daily newspaper industry

Kim, Bo Kyung

doi:10.1177/1476127019832795

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(132 reference statements)

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“…Middle‐status conformity theory argues that due to their insecure membership, middle‐status actors are often penalized most when their behavior deviates from social norms (Durand & Kremp, 2016; Phillips & Zuckerman, 2001). In contrast, our paper focuses on how the ambiguity of middle‐status firms can provide rewards and not penalties to these firms, as audiences are most likely to change their perceptions of middle‐status firms based on the surrounding context (see also Kim, 2020; Prato, Kypraios, Ertug, & Lee, 2019). As external audiences often have a low consensus regarding where middle‐status actors are positioned in a status hierarchy (cf.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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To be in Vogue: How mere proximity to high‐status neighbors affects aspirational pricing in the U.S. fashion industry

Kim

2021

Strategic Management Journal

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Research summary This article examines how proximity to high‐status neighbors enables lower‐status firms to engage in aspirational pricing. While prior studies have focused on associations based on bilateral agreements, we argue that mere spatial proximity to other high‐status firms creates perceived associations, which positively affects the focal firm's aspirational pricing. Furthermore, middle‐status firms are most likely to engage in aspirational pricing because they are sufficiently similar to high‐status neighbors to expect assimilation, not contrast, effects. Our multi‐method approach based on panel data from the U.S. Vogue magazine and an experiment provides converging evidence for our arguments. Being somewhat randomly featured near the advertisements of prominent high‐status firms in Vogue positively impacts the subsequent average listed price of the focal firm's products, especially for middle‐status firms. Managerial summary High‐status firms tend to form relationships with other high‐status counterparts, making it difficult for lower‐status firms to ascend the status hierarchy and access status‐based benefits. This study shows that lower‐status firms may be able to obtain status‐based benefits, namely the ability to set higher prices for their products, by merely being proximate to other high‐status firms. Our analyses using data from Vogue magazine and online experiment show that having advertisements appear proximate to those of high‐status fashion firms enables the focal firm, especially middle‐status ones, to raise the prices of their products. As advertisement locations are somewhat random in that firms do not have control over determining their adjacent ads, our study highlights that lucky locations can sometimes be beneficial to disadvantage lower‐status firms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We argue that middle status can also be an opportunity by focusing on status‐based advantages through perceived associations rather than behavioral constraints (cf. Kim, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

To be in Vogue: How mere proximity to high‐status neighbors affects aspirational pricing in the U.S. fashion industry

Kim

2021

Strategic Management Journal

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“…Innovation exposes adopters to excessive risks and costs, including adjustment and transaction expenses (Bigelow et al., 2019), loss of original advantages (Christensen et al., 2018), and uncertainty (Kim, 2020). Potential adopters lie at different points along a lazy S‐shaped or sigmoidal curve of adoption growth (Bejan & Lorente, 2011; Shimogawa et al., 2012; Shinohara & Okuda, 2009; Yuri & Federico, 2012).…”

Section: Innovation Diffusion As Creative Destructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Destructive creation, creative destruction, and the paradox of innovation science

2022

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Innovation or the creation and diffusion of new material, social and cultural things in society has been widely studied in sociology and across the social sciences, with investigations sufficiently diverse and dispersed to make them unnavigable. This complexity results from innovation's importance for society, but also the fundamental paradox underlying innovation science: When innovation becomes predictable, it ceases to be an engine of novelty and change. Here we review innovation studies and show that innovations emerge from contexts of discord and disorder, breaches in the structure of prior success, through a process we term destructive creation. This often leads to a complementary process of creative destruction whereby local structures protect and channel the diffusion of successful innovations, rendering alternatives obsolete. We find that social scientists naturally focus far more on how social and cultural contexts influence material innovations than the converse. We highlight computational tools that open new possibilities for the analysis of novel content and context in interaction, and show how this brings us empirically toward the broader range of possibilities that complex systems and science studies have theorized—and science fiction has imagined—the social, cultural and material structures of innovation conditioning each other's change through cycles of disruption and development.

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“…Innovation exposes adopters to excessive risks and costs, including adjustment and transaction expenses (Bigelow et al, 2019), loss of original advantages (Christensen et al, 2018), and uncertainty (Kim, 2020). Potential adopters lie at different points along a lazy S-shaped or sigmoidal curve of adoption growth (Bejan & Lorente, 2011;Shinohara & Okuda 2009;Shimogawa et al, 2012;Yuri & Federico, 2012).…”

Section: Innovation Adoptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Destructive creation, creative destruction, and the paradox of innovation science

Cao¹,

Chen²,

Evans³

2022

Preprint

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Innovation or the creation and diffusion of new material, social and cultural things in society has been widely studied in sociology and across the social sciences, with investigations sufficiently diverse and dispersed to make them unnavigable. This complexity results from innovation’s importance for society, but also the fundamental paradox underlying innovation science: When innovation becomes predictable, it ceases to be an engine of novelty and change. Here we review innovation studies and show that innovations emerge from contexts of discord and disorder, breaches in the structure of prior success, through a process we term destructive creation. This often leads to a complementary process of creative destruction whereby local structures protect and channel the diffusion of successful innovations, rendering alternatives obsolete. We find that social scientists naturally focus far more on how social and cultural contexts influence material innovations than the converse. We highlight computational tools that open new possibilities for the analysis of novel content and context in interaction, and show how this brings us empirically toward the broader range of possibilities that complex systems and science studies have theorized—and science fiction has imagined—the social, cultural and material structures of innovation conditioning each other’s change through cycles of disruption and development.

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Normative uncertainty and middle-status innovation in the US daily newspaper industry

Cited by 14 publications

References 61 publications

To be in Vogue: How mere proximity to high‐status neighbors affects aspirational pricing in the U.S. fashion industry

To be in Vogue: How mere proximity to high‐status neighbors affects aspirational pricing in the U.S. fashion industry

Destructive creation, creative destruction, and the paradox of innovation science

Destructive creation, creative destruction, and the paradox of innovation science

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