On the sociocognitive dynamics between categories and product models in mature markets

This research tests the interrelationship between product category structure and marketed product models in a mature industry. It focuses on the motorcycle industry between 1990 and 1996. Market stories from published sources for each year are content analyzed to trace the emergence, growth, and disappearance of product categories, and to ascertain the association between the evolving category structure and product model longevity. The results suggest that the number of product models that are associated with product categories influences the creation and elimination of categories and subcategories. Results also suggest that product model longevity is influenced by the strength of models' conceptual association with categories and by the number of categories to which product models are associated.