This study examines innovators’ efforts to conceptualize and communicate their novel work through categorization. Specifically, we view category formation as a controversial process of meaning making, which we theorize through the concept of “politics of meaning” and operationalize through a social semiotics approach. By analyzing the labeling controversies underlying a new culinary style publicized as “molecular gastronomy”, we find that innovators’ efforts at categorization unfold along four consecutive stages: experimenting with a new style, communicating the new style, contesting the dominant label, and legitimating the category meaning. Our study suggests that a new category’s dominant label can substantially deviate from the innovators’ intended denotations, yet nonetheless bring that category forward by triggering public negotiations around its meaning, which lead to categorical deepening and legitimation. By putting forward a “politics of meaning” view on categorizing innovation, this work advances our understanding of the connection between labeling and category formation in the context of innovation.

The great German theorist Niklas Luhmann argued long ago that meaning is the central construct of sociology. We agree, but our scheme of stochastic processes-evolved over many years as identity and control-argues for switchings of intercalated bits of social network and interpretive domain (i.e., netdom switchings) as the core of meaning processes. We thus challenge Luhmann's central claim that modern society's subsystems are based on communicative self-closure. We assert that there is refuting evidence from sociolinguistics, from how languages are put together and how languages' indexical and reflexive devices (e.g., metapragmatics, heteroglossia, genres) are used in social action. Communication is about managing indexicalities, which entail great ambiguity and openness as they are anchored in myriad netdom switchings across social times and spreads. In contrast, Luhmann's concept of communication revolves around binary codes governed recursively and algorithmically within systems in efforts to reduce complexity from the environment. We conclude that systems closure does not solve the problem of uncertainty in social life. In fact, lack of uncertainty is itself a problem. Order is necessary, but order at the edge of chaos.

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RESUMENEste artículo examina el modo en que la teoría de sistemas organizados de Luhmann puede servir para ampliar nuestra comprensión de los límites organizacionales. Revisamos, de manera sistemática, cuatro componentes de la obra de Luhmann: i) su distinción básica entre organización y entorno, ii) la apertura y clausura del funcionamiento de la organización, iii) el papel de las comunicaciones y decisiones en la identificación de los límites de las organizaciones y, finalmente, iv) el énfasis que pone Luhmann sobre la coordinación en la construcción de los límites organizacionales. Discutimos los puntos más destacados tanto de divergencia como de correspondencia entre el trabajo de Luhmann y otros enfoques teóricos competidores para entender las organizaciones. Para concluir, se discuten contribuciones potenciales de la teoría luhmanianna para análisis, tanto empíricos como teóricos, de las organizaciones contemporáneas.PALABRAS CLAVE: Organizaciones; Límites organizacionales; Teoría sistémica; Redes sociales; Niklas Luhmann ABSTRACT This article examines how Luhmann's theory of organized systems can be used to expand our understanding of organizational boundaries. In a systematic way, we examine four central components of Luhmann's work: i) its basic distinction between organization and environment, ii) the openness and closeness of the organizations' functioning, iii) the role of communications and decisions in identifying the limits of organizations and, lastly, iv) Luhmann's emphasis on coordination in the construction of organizational boundaries. We discuss the salient points of both divergence and correspondence between Luhmann's work and contending theoretical approaches to organizations. Potential contributions of Luhmann´s theory to analyses of contemporary organizations, both empirical and theoretical, are discussed.

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