Faculty of Management Research Workshop; Stine Grodal, Boston University

BIG, BEIGE AND BULKY: AESTHETIC SHIFTS IN THE HEARING AID INDUSTRY (1945-2015)

STINE GRODAL, BOSTON UNIVERSITY

Aesthetics play an important role in the success of technology products. Scholars have theorized about how the aesthetics of technology products shift over the course of the technology lifecycle. Yet, due to limited empirical evidence the literature remains inconclusive about how aesthetic shifts occur. Some scholars posit that aesthetics follow a reverse pattern of the technology lifecycle and that industries witness minimal aesthetic novelty during the era of ferment, but that producers introduce aesthetic novelty when the technology matures. Others suggest the opposite dynamic. We extend knowledge of aesthetic shifts through an inductive examination of technological and aesthetic innovations in the hearing aid industry over the 70-year period 1945-2015.
We identify that aesthetic innovation tends to occur within the confinement of a dominant aesthetic—that is a constellation of aesthetic elements, present in most products within a given time period. We find that the aesthetics innovations that eventually generate a new dominant aesthetic tend to be launched early during the technology life cycle in the era of ferment. As a central driver of aesthetic shifts within industries, we find that categorical aspirations— actors aiming for the product to take on the meaning of other categories—are a core driver of aesthetic innovation.
Over the course of the technology lifecycle producers begin to question the dominant aesthetics and begin to draw analogies to other categories. Through analogies to other categories, producers form aspirations to have their products attain the same meanings as the categories aspired to. However, these new categorical aspirations do not immediately spur aesthetic innovations challenging the dominant aesthetic—rather they remain latent. The latent categorical aspirations do not lead to experimentation with a new aesthetic manifestation until a new era of technological ferment jolts the existing dominant aesthetic. As technological designs destabilize, it frees up producers to experiment with the accumulated latent categorical aspirations. After a period of aesthetic experimentation, the industry settles into a new dominant aesthetic manifestation, which undergoes minor aesthetic elaborations as the technology matures.
 

Stine Grodal is an Associate Professor at Boston University Questrom School of Business. She received her PhD from Stanford University. Her work has received numerous awards and has been published across a variety of journals among others Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review and Organization Science. Her research focuses on the emergence and evolution of markets, industries and organizational fields with a specific focus on the role categories and their associated labels play in this process. In particular her work explores the strategic actions that market participants take to shape and exploit categorical structures.

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