Introducing New Ideas—The Dangers of Mixing Foie Gras and Arugula

分类边界构成了所有行业的思想故障线，但特别是在音乐，食品，葡萄酒和艺术等文化产业中。与流派或类别相关的创新者在分类范围时，他们的受众被他们的观众被视为不认真的风险。

Consider for example,Bob Dylan, who was idolized by his fans as a prototypical acoustic music performer. His efforts to experiment with fully charged electric music earned him flak—and even shouts of “Judas” from the audience. It’s a classic example, says ProfessorHayagreeva Rao，分类边界与创新之间的紧张。

But categorical boundaries are hardly ever that impenetrable, says Rao, which should in fact give courage to managers who want to innovate. Authenticity, he says, has two sides: On the one hand, it means conforming to a genre, but on the other, it implies originality. The trick is to balance both.

Rao, professor of organizational behavior, and his co-researchers,Rodolphe Durand的HEC管理学院in Paris andPhilippe Monin的EM Lyon, observed how categorical boundaries can be blurred over time by studying one of the most categorically constricted industries in the world—the French haute cuisine restaurant business. They chose that area for study, Rao says, “because people in fact think more about food than about biotech.”

Here the worlds of haughty, old-fashioned “classical” cuisine (rich sauces and game) and upstart “nouvelle” cuisine (herbs and fresh vegetables) had not a snowcone’s chance in Hades of ever coming together, based as they are upon deep ideological difference. And yet, Rao discovered, the boundaries between those two diametrically opposed categories eroded as chefs began to borrow and exchange ingredients and techniques across categories.

RAO和他的公司初步采访了世界级的古典和Nouvelle厨师，食品批评者，烹饪科学专家，以及米其林指南的令人担忧的检查员，其授予美食场所的星星可以制造或打破自我和职业。然后，研究人员在1970年至1997年期间组装了法国所有精英厨师的数据库，并提出了两个问题：当界限被思想充电和真实性很重要时，如何借款？违反界限的影响是什么？

Rao解释了动态。“大多数边界断路器都是高位厨师，当高位人开始突破时，其他人开始模仿他。这就是分类边界如何削弱，“他说。由于真实性意味着符合性和原创性，高级厨师比其他人更多的余地，并且可以更原始。他们不需要遵守所有这些类型的所有约定。

RAO和他的合作伙伴测量了厨师借用各类烹饪方法的程度，并分析了它是否导致其餐馆的米其林评级升级或降级。在这个刚性的分类气氛中，他们发现了，爆发并经常在纪律借贷的第一个厨师受到建立的惩罚 - 他们在米其林指南中解雇了。然而，随着越来越多的厨师加入大交换，这种效果随着时间的推移而减少。到20世纪80年代后期，几乎每个值得他或她的盐的厨师都从竞争对手营地带来了一些东西 - 以及古典和Nouvelle美食的世界开始合并。

Critics, Rao says, whose opinions originally went a long way toward determining the fate of chefs who dared to mix classical sauces with nouvelle-inspired herbs, or fish with meat dishes, became mere observers as the categorical ground began to shift beneath their feet and new boundaries had to be drawn. “Innovation corresponds with the weakening of the power of critics over time,” Rao says.

Rao’s study has numerous implications for business. One is that there is a strong link between innovation and authenticity. Dewar’s found that out the hard way when it tried to gain new market share by positioning Scotch as a beverage that could be mixed into fruity drinks. “Scotch aficionados were outraged,” says Rao, and “Dewar’s had to backtrack.”

Another implication is that diversification should not be thought of purely in technological terms but also in terms of its cultural dimensions. In the late 1980s, when pharmaceutical companies in Germany wanted to branch into biotechnology, German anti-biotechnology activists issued an outcry about the dangers of genetic engineering. Amidst reminders of Nazi abuses in the area of eugenics, public pressure was so great that the large German pharma firms could not commercialize their biotech knowledge and expertise. It was an example, says Rao, of an industry failing to take cultural and ideological factors into account when contemplating diversification that straddled categorical boundaries.

第三种含义是创新可以溶解现有的边界。“共同基金经理人不断地推出新的投资组合混合，使得他们迫使批评者如Morningstarto create new categories,” Rao says. “They have a better opportunity to become best in class in a new category versus an old one.”

最后,Rao说,研究表明“early bird can get the worm—but can also be killed,” meaning serious negative financial and personal consequences can hit early boundary busters. “When categories are rigid, people may not understand what you’re doing when you cross them.”

In many cases, says Rao, categories sit on ideological fault lines. In the Italian wine industry, for example, a battle is ensuing between entrepreneurs who are turning winemaking into a chemistry business and those who want to retain the old, slower way of production that reflects an entire traditional way of life. “What managers need to realize is that a lot of times they’re operating in cultural space,” says Rao. “If they don’t come up with new ways of doing things that take this into account, their businesses can sometimes be hit hard.”