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Article: Sources of durability and change in market classifications: a study of the reconstitution of product categories in the American mutual fund industry, 1944-1985 *.
- Article from:
- Social Forces
- Article date:
- March 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 University of North Carolina Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Categorization is an ubiquitous process that involves lumping similar things into distinct clusters, rendering them cognizable, and creating shared understandings (Carruthers & Stinchcombe 1999; Douglas 1986; Zerubavel 1997). For instance, we categorize countries into democracies and dictatorships, food into proteins and carbohydrates, and financial assets into liquid assets such as stocks and bonds and illiquid assets like real estate and venture capital (Lamont & Thevenot 2000). Such categorization simplifies thought by delimiting how we allocate attention (Simon 1947), enabling us to process vast amounts of information more quickly and with ...