Another one bites the dust: Oppositional identity and category convergence in the beer industry

An extensive body of research explores how new market categories emerge, however, much less is known about how market categories evolve over time. To advance our understanding of category dynamics, this inductive field study of the U.S. beer industry examines convergence between oppositional and incumbent market categories. Our findings reveal that incumbents' acquisitions of oppositional category members raised identity tensions, challenging the founding ideology and the distinctiveness of the oppositional market category. Our process model further proposes two theoretical mechanisms'a forced perspective and identity slippage'that lead two opposing categories toward convergence.