The Social Lives of Products: Analyzing Product Demography for Management Theory and Practice

Abstract

Despite the centrality of products in many strategic and managerial theoretical frameworks, little is known systematically about how and why specific products come and go from markets. We argue that narrowing this gap will likely enhance management theory, and we propose that research on product demography—the social lives of products—is a promising way to proceed. For organizing various theoretical ideas used in prior studies, we offer a classification framework. It defines four broad theoretical perspectives on product demography: market rationality, firm rationality, organizational bounded rationality, and institutional rationality. We also outline an approach to product demography that studies empirically the rates of product launch, growth, and withdrawal using stochastic models and data on all products ever appearing in bounded industrial domains. Finally, we discuss the challenges presented by such a fragmented approach to research on product demography and propose a generic research program intended to avoid stagnation.

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the support of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. Helpful comments on an earlier draft came from John de Figueiredo, Sunasir Dutta, Tamar Kreps, Andrew Peterman, and Jim Wade. We also appreciate comments and editorial assistance from Art Brief and Jim Walsh.

Notes

1. It is important to recognize one key difference between human demography and product demography, namely, the almost universal positive value associated with longevity of humans. For products, a firm may at times be better off with shorter product longevities, as we discuss below.

2. In a study of jazz recordings, Phillips (2009) argues that the reverse should be true when there is a premium placed on creativity and the producer is not from the social mainstream. He claims that the audience interprets a recording as more creative when it originates from a socially disconnected place.

3. However, notably spectacular failures do get some play (see Hartley, 2005; Ricks, 2006).

4. We do not intend that the definition of product here be restricted to only tangible outcomes of a firm’s production system. Although it may make measurement more difficult, we think that service providers can also be seen as delivering “products,” to the extent that a fixed bundle of particular services is viewed as discrete entity.

5. However, we certainly think that sorting out the supported ideas would be useful once a stronger evidentiary foundation has been built.

6. Although he does not cite it, Hambrick’s (2007) essay reminds us of Simon’s (1968) earlier call for social science to produce more facts worthy of explanation, rather than theoretical explanations that account for trivial facts.