Despite being a source of significant change, there has been little focus on how and why industry analysts constantly launch, adjust and abandon market-defining categories. To address this issue, we investigate the Big Three industry analyst firms and find that they promote categories clients find valuable and adjust or abandon those no longer attracting attention. Bringing together insights from information systems research and category scholarship, we show that industry analysts ensure their expertise is seen as relevant to clients through material and visual processes theorised as category-work, figuring-work, and client-mapping, which together create client-induced categories’. This novel theorisation throws light on the processes market intermediaries use to align categories with client concerns and how incorporating categories in graphical figurations can intensify the cycle of category creation and abandonment. It also enhances understanding of the dynamics surrounding transitory terminologies and opens up new research opportunities for studying IT markets.

尽管是重大变化的源头，但很少有人关注行业分析师如何以及为何不断推出、调整和放弃定义市场的类别。为了解决这个问题，我们调查了三大行业分析公司，发现他们推广客户认为有价值的类别，并调整或放弃那些不再引人注目的类别。我们将信息系统研究和品类研究的见解结合起来，表明行业分析师通过将材料和视觉过程理论化为品类工作、计算工作和客户映射，确保他们的专业知识被视为与客户相关，这些过程共同创造了客户-诱导类别”。这种新颖的理论揭示了市场中介机构用于将类别与客户关注点对齐的过程，以及将类别纳入图形图形如何加剧类别创建和放弃的循环。它还增强了对围绕临时术语的动态的理解，并为研究 IT 市场开辟了新的研究机会。