Credit and Classification: The Impact of Industry Boundaries in Nineteenth-Century America
研究了美国早期工业分类体系（邓氏公司信用评级）中多重类别成员身份（混合性）的处理方式，发现分类系统未固化时混合性不成问题，但制度化后跨行业行为会受惩罚。
In this article, we examine how issues of multi-category membership (hybridity) were handled during the evolution of one of the first general systems of industrial classification in the United States, the credit rating schema of R. G. Dun and Company. Drawing on a repeated cross-sectional study of credit evaluations during the postbellum period (1870–1900), our empirical analyses suggest that organizational membership in multiple categories need not be problematic when classification systems themselves are emergent or in flux and when organizations avoid rare combinations or identities involving ambiguous components. As Dun's schema became institutionalized, boundaries between industries were more clearly defined and boundary violations became subject to increased attention and penalty by credit reporters. Our perspective highlights the utility of an evolutionary perspective and tests its implications for the salience of distinct mechanisms of hybridity.