Guilty by Association: Product-Level Category Stigma and Audience Expectations in the U.S. Craft Beer Industry

While researchers have been increasingly interested in the notion of category stigma, they have largely focused on stigmatized industry categories. Because products serve as a key interface between producers and consumers, we suggest that product categories should play a prominent role in the stigma...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of management Vol. 44; no. 7; pp. 2934 - 2960
Main Authors Barlow, Matthew A., Verhaal, J. Cameron, Hoskins, Jake D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.09.2018
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Audiences
Breweries
Brewing
Consumers
Microbreweries
Penalties
Reputations
Stigma
United States > US
stigma concentration
category stigma
reputation
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Summary:While researchers have been increasingly interested in the notion of category stigma, they have largely focused on stigmatized industry categories. Because products serve as a key interface between producers and consumers, we suggest that product categories should play a prominent role in the stigmatization process. Product category stigma occurs when a product category is seen as violating the expectations of its audience members. We argue that when an organization offers a product from a stigmatized category, it is subject to lower evaluations and higher penalties from the stigmatizing audience, regardless of its true underlying quality. Further, when an organization is perceived as increasing its engagement in a stigmatized category, the lower evaluations transfer to the organization’s other products. Finally, we argue that an organization’s reputation for quality actually amplifies this stigma penalty. We find support for our hypotheses in a sample of online reviews for the U.S. craft brewing industry.
ISSN:0149-2063
1557-1211
DOI:10.1177/0149206316657593