The Coevolution of Technologies and Categories During Industry Emergence

Scholars have long studied technology evolution. More recently, organizational theorists have begun to explore the role of categories and their associated labels in industry dynamics. Yet little is known about how technological designs and categories coevolve. We build on these two bodies of literat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Academy of Management review 2015-07, Vol.40 (3), p.423-445
Main Authors: Grodal, Stine, Gotsopoulos, Aleksios, Suarez, Fernando F
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Convergence
Design
Industry
Management science
Organization theory
Organizational behaviour
Stakeholder
Studies
Technology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Scholars have long studied technology evolution. More recently, organizational theorists have begun to explore the role of categories and their associated labels in industry dynamics. Yet little is known about how technological designs and categories coevolve. We build on these two bodies of literature to develop an integrative model of how industries emerge and evolve. We propose that the evolution of both technological designs and categories follows a similar pattern, characterized by an early period of divergence followed by a period of convergence, and we identify the mechanisms that account for this coevolutionary process. We add to the literature on technological evolution by explicating the mechanisms through which designs evolve and identifying how different stakeholders' categorical understandings shape design competition. Our model also augments the categorization literature by detailing categorical evolution as a contested process of category creation and selection, which, in turn, is influenced by the designs that the categories are trying to group. Our model creates a much needed bridge between two bodies of literature that, while addressing similar topics, have evolved largely separately.
ISSN:0363-7425
1930-3807
DOI:10.5465/amr.2013.0359