A Spanner in the Works: Category-Spanning Entrants and Audience Valuation of Incumbents

Rory M. McDonald () and Ryan T. Allen ()
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Rory M. McDonald: Technology and Operations Management, Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts 02163
Ryan T. Allen: Technology and Operations Management, Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts 02163

Strategy Science, 2022, vol. 7, issue 3, 190-209

Abstract: Previous work has examined how audiences evaluate category-spanning organizations, but little is known about how their entrance affects evaluations of other, proximate organizations. We posit that the emergence of category-spanning entrants signals the advent of an altered future state—and seeds doubt about incumbents’ prospects in a reordered industry-categorization scheme. We test this hypothesis by treating announcements of funding for startups as an information shock to investors evaluating incumbent financial service providers between 2010 and 2017—a period marked by atypical category combinations at FinTech startups. We find that announcements by startups that embodied unusual combinations of categories resulted in lower cumulative average returns for incumbents, both in absolute terms and in comparison with typical startups. Our theory and results contribute to research on categorization in markets and to theories of disruptive innovation and industry evolution.

Keywords: emerging industries; industry dynamics; organization and management theory; technology strategy; entrepreneurship; technology and innovation management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orstsc:v:7:y:2022:i:3:p:190-209

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