Donor Darlings and Orphans: Category spanning in humanitarian projects

Organizations are evaluated with respect to the social codes that define the industry category to which they belong. Organizations that span categories are at a disadvantage in terms of the attention they receive from the audience, and consequently their overall performance decreases. Whether to span categories in products or services is an internal decision. This internal decision can also be supposed to be dependent on audience evaluation criteria: thus, decision makers should be reluctant to initiate projects that would span categories. However, previous studies did not focus on the distinction between specialists and generalists. Although we know that specialists that engage in category spanning are penalized, there is a lack of studies describing the consequences for generalists that decide to add additional categories to their portfolio of services. Another factor that has been overlooked in previous studies is the urgency of demand for the product or service. Although economists have found that an ...