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# A New Take on the Categorical Imperative: Gatekeeping, Boundary Maintenance, and Evaluation Penalties in Science

## Details

**Authors** Riccardo Fini, Julien Jourdan, Markus Perkmann, Laura Toschi

**Year** 2023

**Publisher** Organization Science

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Business & Management

**Secondary disciplines** Sociology

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.1610) 
10.1287/orsc.2022.1610

## In authors' words

### Abstract

Extant theory suggests that candidates with an unfocused identity, those spanning different categories, suffer from a valuation penalty because evaluators are confused by their profile and concerned they lack the required skills. We argue that unfocused candidates may be penalized for another reason; they threaten established social boundaries. This happens in contexts where evaluators act as gatekeepers for social entities, such as professions. We test how the penalty applied to unfocused candidates varies in an academic accreditation process, a setting where evaluators decide on admitting candidates to an academic discipline and where candidates' prior performance is observable. We find using data on the 2012 national scientific qualification in Italian academia that the valuation penalty applied to unfocused (multidisciplinary) candidates was most pronounced for the most high-performing candidates. High-performing yet ill-fitting candidates threaten the distinctiveness and knowledge domain of the discipline and are hence penalized by evaluators. High-performing multidisciplinary candidates suffered the greatest penalty in small and distinctive academic disciplines and when accreditors were highly typical members of their discipline. Our theory and findings suggest that the categorical imperative may be driven not only by cognitive or capability considerations as typically argued in the literature but also, by attempts to maintain social boundaries.

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To test whether category-spanning ('unfocused') candidates are penalized in professional gatekeeping because they threaten social and disciplinary boundaries, beyond confusion-based explanations.

### Who or what was studied (sample)

The full population of candidates and evaluator panels in Italy's 2012 National Scientific Qualification academic accreditation process.

### How they did it (methods)

Quantitative archival study using regression models predicting accreditation outcomes as a function of candidates' disciplinary focus, prior performance, discipline size and distinctiveness, and evaluators' typicality.

### What they found (results)

In Italy's 2012 national academic accreditation process, multidisciplinary candidates were penalized most heavily precisely when they were highest-performing, with the penalty largest in small, highly distinctive disciplines and when evaluators were highly typical members of their own field.

## Commentary

### In short

Evaluators actively defend a discipline's categorical boundary by penalizing high-performing candidates whose profile blurs what counts as belonging to that discipline, showing a boundary functioning as a socially enforced structure rather than only a cognitive one.

**Patterns it shows** D

**Added** 2026-09-22

**How to cite this** Riccardo Fini, Julien Jourdan, Markus Perkmann, Laura Toschi (2023). A New Take on the Categorical Imperative: Gatekeeping, Boundary Maintenance, and Evaluation Penalties in Science. Organization Science.