Understanding the process of a new product category from birth to maturity in the restaurant market: a knowledge evolution perspective

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims to explore a new restaurant category’s development from birth to maturity, thereby explaining the rationale for category innovation strategies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a qualitative case study analysis of the New Chinese-style Fusion Restaurant category’s development from birth to maturity. Thematic analysis was conducted on data collected from semi-structured interviews and textual information.FindingsA new restaurant category’s maturation is determined by the formation of society’s shared knowledge about the category’s crucial attributes, which is an outcome of market participants’ category-related social practices. The authors develop a novel, four-stage framework for the socialized construction of this shared knowledge: a knowledge creation (KC), knowledge diffusion (KD), knowledge integration (KI) and knowledge structuralization (KS). This knowledge evolution along this KC–KD–KI–KS sequence can holistically describe the category maturation process. This framework can help understand the rationale for a restaurant category’s maturation by analyzing the interrelationships among market participants’ social practices, knowledge-related activities and market development.Research limitations/implicationsThis study explains how market participants’ knowledge-related activities facilitate a new restaurant category’s maturation. This can help restaurant managers cope with increasingly homogeneous competition by applying a category-innovation strategy.Originality/valueThis study extends product categorization research on restaurants by articulating a product category’s maturation process from a knowledge perspective.