Categorization bases and their influence on product category knowledge structures

Abstract This study examines the relationship between categorization bases and the persistent use of specific categories in the motorcycle industry. Categorization bases are distinguished from one another and classified based on their distance from embodied experience. The relationship between the different classes that emerge and the number of years that specific category labels remain part of the market conversation is subsequently explored. The fundamental proposition is that categorization bases that are close to embodied experience, such as perceptible properties and affordances, will give rise to shorter‐lived categories relative to categorization bases that are further removed from embodied experience, such as historical criteria and scientific authority. Market stories from published sources are content analyzed and coded, and used as sources of industry categories. Analysis reveals that four categorization bases—usage scripts, scientific authority, experiential wholes, and affordances—are associated with greater category persistence in the motorcycle market when used as the primary basis for categorization, whereas perceptible properties, metaphorical creations, and historical criteria were associated with lower‐persistence categories. The results were not perfectly aligned with a strict distance‐from‐embodied‐experience argument, and their implications for future research and theory are discussed. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.