Boundedly rational consumers rely on their social environment as a source of information. Drawing upon psychological theories about social comparison processes, we hypothesize that social reference groups underlie market segments. New reference groups can emerge from social comparison processes,...

Around 1940 Schumpeter draws on an analysis of the U.S. footwear industry as an exemplar case to formulate his famous hypothesis about the positive relation between market concentration and innovative activity. Starting in the 1970s the value chain of U.S. footwear producers disintegrates,...