Journal article
Meating Expectations: Category Legitimation and Transmutation
Organization science (Providence, R.I.)
24 Apr 2025
Abstract
This study investigates how market actors legitimize new categories that challenge the foundational understandings of established ones while simultaneously seeking to compete in the same market space. We analyze the development of the U.S. plant-based meat category from 2012 to 2019, focusing on how plant-based meat producers positioned their products as legitimate competitors within the meat category despite their nonanimal origins. We identify three key legitimation strategies used by entrepreneurs: reconfiguring the category basis by reframing the core attributes of meat from animal origin to shared biochemical components; creating experiential congruence by replicating the sensory qualities and social practices associated with traditional meat; and instilling value superiority by emphasizing health, environmental, and ethical benefits along with forward-thinking innovation. Our observations also lead us to theorize what we term category transmutation—a construct for understanding how the successful legitimation of a new category might reshape the meaning and boundaries of an existing one. We envision category transmutation as a process through which an existing category evolves to incorporate both traditional and new subcategories, thereby vertically modifying the category structure. This study advances our understanding of category dynamics and extends the role of cultural entrepreneurship beyond gaining legitimacy to reshaping category systems and market structures, with the potential to drive positive societal changes.
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Details
- Title
- Meating Expectations: Category Legitimation and Transmutation
- Creators
- Eunice Y. Rhee - Seattle UniversityJade Y. Lo - Drexel UniversityRodolphe Durand - HEC Paris
- Publication Details
- Organization science (Providence, R.I.)
- Publisher
- INFORMS; CATONSVILLE
- Number of pages
- 29
- Grant note
- Centre for Business Ethics at Seattle University
The authors acknowledge valuable feedback from Peer Fiss, Paul Gouvard, Michael Lounsbury, and Jean-Franc,ois Soublie`re as well as helpful comments that were received during the Academy of Management Meetings, the University of Edinburgh Paper Development Workshop, the McGill-Cornell Institutions and Entrepreneurship Conference, the European Group for Organizational Studies Colloquium, the West Coast Research Symposium and seminars at the University of Lugano, Rutgers Business School, Seoul National University, and National Taiwan University. The first author thank the Centre for Business Ethics at Seattle University for their support.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Management
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001476932000001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-105020031837
- Other Identifier
- 991022052310004721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Management