New Frontiers in Categories Research: The Role of Social Practice, Context, and Materiality

Abstract

Research interests in categories and categorization has grown significantly in recent years, but only in recent years have researchers begun to pay closer attention to social context and social process, and particularly to the social practices through which categories, in particularly categories of innovative products, or new phenomena are enacted and made concrete. The current symposium takes on this challenge by addressing several questions at the frontier of categories research: (1) how do categories interact with core organizational processes and how does the meaning of categories interacts with other organization constructs such as routines, identity, and structure through organizational practices, (2) how are categories anchored in market, professional practices or embodied in cultural and material practices, (3) how are categories instantiated in communicative practices and discourse, (4) how are organizational actors and their actions constraint by categories and how may these actors escape or decouple from the reach of categories and categorization. Category Dimensions and Category Coherence Presenter: Stine Grodal; Northeastern U. Presenter: Miyoung Chang; Boston U. Questrom School of Business What does contact tracing really mean? How governments and citizens contest the meaning of contact t Presenter: Semi Min; New York U. The Interplay of Language, Materiality, and Practices in the Creation of the Plant-based Meat Catego Presenter: Eunice Yunjin Rhee; Seattle U. An Inhabited View of Categorization Presenter: Enlan Wang; U. of Southern California Presenter: Peer Fiss; U. of Southern California