From Categorical Imperative to Learning by Categories: Cost Accounting and New Categorical Practices in American Manufacturing, 1900–1930

Abstract

Organizational scholars increasingly appreciate the role of categories as bases of order or ''cognitive infrastructures'' in markets. Yet they construe categories as disciplinary devices. They understand category formation, implementation, and revision as the purview of professionals. And they tie those processes to notions of institutional development that sharply distinguish settled from unsettled or disordered eras. We challenge these conceptions through a historical study of how manufacturers, associations, and cost accountants broke from the disciplinary functions of accounting categories underlying mass production to create new categorical schemes devoted to learning, innovation, and improvement. Reformers reconfigured the uses of categories in markets, mobilizing classifications to spark reflection, experimentation, and

Category Stretching: Reorienting Research on Categories in Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Organization Theory

“…As ‘cognitive infrastructures’ of markets (Schneiberg and Berk, 2010, p. 257), categories not only enable but also constrain organizations' actions. The term is derived from the original Greek word katègorein – which means to accuse publicly (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 297) – and most available research has considered categories as functioning according to a disciplining logic (Hannan, 2010).…”

Beyond categorization: New directions for theory development about entrepreneurial internationalization

“…This tendency is referred to as the categorical imperative (Schneiberg & Berk, 2010;Zuckerman, 1999). The categorical imperative may result in entities outside known categories being overlooked, which can obscure recognition of the anomalies that trigger the definition of new categories.…”

Emergence of Market Orders: Audience Interaction and Vanguard Influence

“…A diverse set of audience roles are particularly important for creating and disseminating labels and categories in markets, including critics (Shrum, 1991;Glynn and Lounsbury, 2005), producers (Carroll and Swaminathan, 2000;Jones et al, 2012), activists (Rao, Monin, and Durand, 2003;Weber et al, 2008), enthusiasts (Kovacs and Hannan, 2010;Fiol and Romanelli, 2012), and highly engaged consumers and users of products (Rosa and Spanjol, 2005;Schneiberg and Berk 2010;Bingham and Kahl, 2013).…”

“…Therefore, we recognize that a consensus is not final, even if regularly taken for granted. Sensemaking happens all the time in markets, and sometimes leads to changes in labels and category schemata (Schneiberg and Berk, 2010).…”

“…Market categories help buyers and sellers negotiate exchange. As "cognitive infrastructures," they provide simplifying frameworks that help sensemaking and joint problem solving (Zuckerman, 1999;Hsu, 2006;Hsu et al, 2009;Schneiberg and Berk, 2010).…”