I want to break free! On the general importance, cognitive mechanisms, and field strategies behind category avoidance

我想挣脱束缚！

• 批准号: 421554614
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Oliver Alexy
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Department of Business Administration
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/421554614?language=en
• 关键词: want; break; free; general; importance

People categorize (things, other people, and firms) in order to simplify complex information and cope with their environment. Yet, this also implies that people expect that things can be categorized. As stated in Zuckerman’s categorical imperative, when firms cannot be seen as clearly belonging to one industry (because they engage in unrelated activities), they receive less money and support on the capital market. Other researchers found similar effects for restaurants spanning different cuisines or movie actors spanning different genres.At the same time, innovation always means doing new things or recombining old ones in a new way. Hence, innovators will often need to battle the categorical imperative to attain competitive advantage – for example, Uber can only reap its full potential when it is not categorized as a taxi company.In this project, I thus want to take a closer look at how economic actors may strategically avoid being categorized for as long as possible or necessary. To do so, I propose three subprojects.First, I will ensure that the categorial imperative (and the punishment it may bring) still applies in this day and age to see whether it is actually a worthwhile effort to think about how to avoid being categorized in the first place. To this end, I will replicate a study from the movie industry from the beginning of this century and look at whether the effect of the categorical imperative may have waned since. For example, we know that millennials are more tolerant of hopping between different kind of project work themselves – potentially, they may also be more tolerant of others doing so.Second, I want to study some of the mechanisms that may allow category avoidance strategies may work. In a large-scale study in the movie industry, I will look at the effects of movie actors that are clearly assigned to a category (such as Jennifer Aniston to "rom-coms") joining the cast of a movie in a different genre. I expect that the degree of punishment will vary conditional on just how much a specific person needs categorization to simplify complex information, and how much information they are aware of more generally. On one hand, I expect that the general public (captured by the box office), will only punish category avoidance of actors they know. On the other hand, movie critics should also know how less-known actors should be categorized. At the same time, movie critics may appreciate tasteful and well-executed divergence efforts (such as when Charlize Theron received the Oscar for best actress for her role in "Monster").Finally, using public records (e.g. newspaper articles, court documents) and supported by interviews, I will enquire how category avoidance is done in the field. Looking in particular at Uber (and/or other global shared economy firms), I want to scrutinize their efforts and the surrounding environmental conditions which lead to their category avoidance efforts being successful in some, but not in all case.

人们对（事物、他人和公司）进行分类是为了简化复杂的信息并科普环境。然而，这也意味着人们期望事物可以被分类。正如朱克曼的绝对命令所述，当企业不能被视为明确属于一个行业时（因为它们从事不相关的活动），它们在资本市场上获得的资金和支持就更少。其他研究人员发现，不同菜系的餐馆或不同类型的电影演员也有类似的效果。同时，创新总是意味着做新的事情或以新的方式重组旧的东西。因此，创新者往往需要与绝对必要性作斗争，以获得竞争优势--例如，优步只有在不被归类为出租车公司时才能充分发挥其潜力。因此，在本项目中，我想更仔细地研究经济行为体如何在战略上尽可能长时间地避免被归类。为此，我提出了三个子项目：第一，我将确保范畴命令（以及它可能带来的惩罚）在当今时代仍然适用，看看首先考虑如何避免被归类是否真的是一个值得的努力。为此，我将复制一项世纪初对电影业的研究，看看定言命令的效果是否已经减弱。例如，我们知道千禧一代对自己在不同类型的项目工作之间跳来跳去更宽容-潜在地，他们也可能对其他人这样做更宽容。第二，我想研究一些可能允许类别回避策略起作用的机制。在一个大规模的研究中，我将研究电影演员的影响，这些演员被明确地分配到一个类别（比如詹妮弗·安妮斯顿到“浪漫喜剧”），加入一部不同类型的电影。我认为，惩罚的程度将取决于一个特定的人有多需要分类来简化复杂的信息，以及他们知道多少更普遍的信息。一方面，我希望公众（被票房捕获），只会惩罚他们认识的演员的类别回避。另一方面，电影评论家也应该知道如何对不太知名的演员进行分类。与此同时，电影评论家可能会欣赏有品位和执行良好的分歧努力（例如Charlene Theron因在“Monster”中的角色获得奥斯卡最佳女演员奖）。最后，使用公共记录（例如报纸文章，法庭文件）并通过采访得到支持，我将询问该领域如何进行类别回避。特别是Uber（和/或其他全球共享经济公司），我想仔细研究他们的努力和周围的环境条件，这些条件导致他们的类别避免努力在某些情况下取得成功，但不是在所有情况下。