Research on categories in the sociology of organizations

Negro, Giacomo; Koçak, Özgecan; Hsu, Greta

doi:10.1108/s0733-558x(2010)0000031003

Cited by 162 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 89 publications

(131 reference statements)

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“…Empirical progress on issues of spanning has been rapid (Hannan, 2010;Negro et al, 2010b). This is due partly to the proliferation of archives and websites that assign categorical memberships to objects and also provide audience reactions.…”

Section: A New Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 Category-spanning objects have patterns of feature values that fit more than one genre (or other social concept) and, sometimes, their producers claim membership in more than one genre at one time or over time in a sequence of affiliations. Sociological studies show that conceptual boundaries do prove consequential in diverse domains: combining genres generally generates some form of direct or indirect devaluation (for reviews, see Hannan (2010) and Negro et al (2010b)). …”

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confidence: 99%

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Conceptual Spaces and the Consequences of Category Spanning

Kovács¹,

Hannan²

2015

SocScience

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A general finding in economic and organizational sociology shows that objects that span categories lose appeal to audiences. This paper argues that the negative consequences of crossing boundaries are more severe when the categories spanned are distant and have high contrast. Available empirical strategies do not incorporate information on the distances among categories. Here we introduce novel measures of distance in conceptual space and derive measures for typicality, category contrast, and categorical niche width. Using the proposed measurement approach, we test our theory using data on online reviews of books and restaurants.

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Section: A New Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual Spaces and the Consequences of Category Spanning

Kovács¹,

Hannan²

2015

SocScience

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“…Identity can play a central role in establishing organizational legitimacy (see Navis & Glynn, 2011), yet communicating a hybrid identity is particularly challenging. Research on social categorization has shown that organizations spanning multiple categories are less easily understood by audiences (Negro, Kocak, & Hsu, 2010). For example, Zuckerman (1999Zuckerman ( , 2000 finds that firms that do not fit into a given business category receive less attention from analysts, which affects their share price.…”

Section: Organizational Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing Social-Business Tensions: A Review and Research Agenda for Social Enterprises

Gonin

Besharov

Smith

2013

AMPROC

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In a world filled with poverty, environmental degradation, and moral injustice, social enterprises offer a ray of hope. These organizations seek to achieve social missions through business ventures. Yet social missions and business ventures are associated with divergent goals, values, norms, and identities. Attending to them simultaneously creates tensions, competing demands, and ethical dilemmas. Effectively understanding social enterprises therefore depends on insight into the nature and management of these tensions. While existing research recognizes tensions between social missions and business ventures, we lack any systematic analysis. Our paper addresses this issue. We first categorize the types of tensions that arise between social missions and business ventures, emphasizing their prevalence and variety. We then explore how four different organizational theories offer insight into these tensions, and we develop an agenda for future research. We end by arguing that a focus on social-business tensions not only expands insight into social enterprises, but also provides an opportunity for research on social enterprises to inform traditional organizational theories. Taken together, our analysis of tensions in social enterprises integrates and seeks to energize research on this expanding phenomenon. Michael GoninUniversity of Zurich and University of Lausanne Marya L. BesharovCornell University ABSTRACT: In a world filled with poverty, environmental degradation, and moral injustice, social enterprises offer a ray of hope. These organizations seek to achieve social missions through business ventures. Yet social missions and business ventures are associated with divergent goals, values, norms, and identities. Attending to them simultaneously creates tensions, competing demands, and ethical dilemmas. Effectively understanding social enterprises therefore depends on insight into the nature and management of these tensions. While existing research recognizes tensions between social missions and business ventures, we lack any systematic analysis. Our paper addresses this issue. We first categorize the types of tensions that arise between social missions and business ventures, emphasizing their prevalence and variety. We then explore how four different organizational theories offer insight into these tensions, and we develop an agenda for future research. We end by arguing that a focus on social-business tensions not only expands insight into social enterprises, but also provides an opportunity for research on social enterprises to inform traditional organizational theories. Taken together, our analysis of tensions in social enterprises integrates and seeks to energize research on this expanding phenomenon.

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“…In studies of markets, sociologists now conceptualize the dynamics of the interface of producers and audiences in these terms (Zuckerman, 1999). Work on institutional fields, organizational forms, product classification systems, and social movements have been enriched by attention to categorical dynamics (for reviews, see DiMaggio (1997); Benford and Snow (2000); Hannan (2010) ;Negro, Koçak, and Hsu (2010)). This line of work shows that category boundaries are construed and controlled by the perceptions of audience members and that category-based processes have significant impact on market outcomes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Category Signaling and Reputation

Negro

Hannan

Fassiotto

2015

Organization Science

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Publisher's copyright statement:Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Abstract. We propose that category membership can operate as a collective market signal for quality when low-quality producers face higher costs of gaining membership. The strength of membership as a collective signal increases with the sharpness of the category boundary, or contrast. Our empirical study focuses on biodynamic and organic viticulture in Alsace.

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Research on categories in the sociology of organizations

Cited by 162 publications

References 89 publications

Conceptual Spaces and the Consequences of Category Spanning

Conceptual Spaces and the Consequences of Category Spanning

Managing Social-Business Tensions: A Review and Research Agenda for Social Enterprises

Category Signaling and Reputation

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