The Process of Category Development: A Relational View
Steven Kahl, Christopher B. Bingham · Academy of Management Proceedings · 2013
Categories are a central concept in organizational research. While a growing research exists on category development, it generally overlooks the role of relational structure. In this paper, we address this gap through an inductive study of category development for manufacturing software from its origins in 1954 until 1988. We unpack category development into two key processes (formation and evolution) and find that both rely critically on the overlooked role of relations. First, we find that category formation relates to a process of unitization where relations between features form cohesive groups that become the basis of a new category. Second, we find that subsequent category evolution relates to a process of association where more centrally located categories develop more than isolated categories. At a higher level, our study has important implications for organizational theory.