From Confusion to Fusion: A New Organizational Form and the Evaluation of Category Spanning in an Established Form

We investigate how an overall change in audience preferences for category spanning occurs by examining the role of new organizational forms. We suggest that a new organizational form that emphasizes category spanning in its products can enhance evaluations of category spanners in an established form. By promoting an alternative theory of value, the new form helps disrupt existing evaluative frameworks for the established form and shifts audience preferences toward spanning. Using the rise of gourmet food trucks in the U.S. restaurant industry, we analyze Yelp ratings and find an increase in returns to spanning by brick-and-mortar restaurants with the prevalence of gourmet food trucks in the same metropolitan area. A preregistered vignette experiment in the restaurant context provides additional evidence consistent with our argument. We contribute to research on category dynamics and organizational forms by investigating how outsiders influence audience evaluations of spanning, revealing how a new form can heterogeneously affect organizations within an established form. By employing a mixed methods approach that integrates qualitative, statistical, and experimental techniques, this study also makes a methodological contribution.