Conceptual spaces and the consequences of category spanning

Kovács, B.; Hannan, M.T.

Abstract

A general finding in economic and organizational sociology shows that objects that span categories lose appeal to audiences. This paper argues that the negative consequences of crossing boundaries are more severe when the categories spanned are distant and have high contrast. Available empirical strategies do not incorporate information on the distances among categories. Here we introduce novel measures of distance in conceptual space and derive measures for typicality, category contrast, and categorical niche width. Using the proposed measurement approach, we test our theory using data on online reviews of books and restaurants.

Citation

Kovács, B., & Hannan, M. (2015). Conceptual spaces and the consequences of category spanning. Sociological Science, 2, 252-286. https://doi.org/10.15195/v2.a13

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 24, 2014
• Online Publication Date: May 13, 2015
• Publication Date: May 13, 2015
• Deposit Date: Jul 20, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 29, 2015
• Journal: Sociological Science
• Print ISSN: 2330-6696
• Publisher: Society for Sociological Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2
• Pages: 252-286
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.15195/v2.a13
• Keywords: Category spanning, Similarity, Conceptual space, Online ratings, Restaurants, Books.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1402219