Actual and Perceptual Effects of Category Spanning

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Negro, Giacomo; Leung, Ming D.
• 署名单位: Emory University; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1120.0764
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 684-696
• 关键词: ORGANIZATION THEORY; organizational ecology; MARKET CATEGORIES

摘要

Literature to date has demonstrated that producers and products spanning multiple categories have inferior market performance. However, two related but distinct explanations exist as to the source of such a discount. One explanation suggests that actual skills are degraded when producers attempt to engage across diverse categories. Another explanation involves perceptual fit to category representations held by an audience as the cause. These two explanations tend to be confounded in archival studies because external observers, responsible for the evaluation of market performance, are often aware of both the identity of producers and the underlying characteristics of their products. This leaves researchers unable to empirically separate effects. We present an analysis conducted in a setting in which it was possible to distinguish the two mechanisms critics' ratings of the same wines through blind and nonblind tastings. The findings indicate that after controlling for the value of ratings assigned blindly, the wines made by wineries spanning styles continue to receive lower ratings in the nonblind situation.