The literature on market category formation provides insufficient insights into how entrepreneurs address the need for collective legitimation of a market category while simultaneously managing tensions between heterogeneous practices. Through a study of the Autism@Work market category, this article shows that covert prototype differentiation constitutes a distinct construct that explains how entrepreneurs in heterogeneous market categories can strengthen category legitimacy while supporting the practices that they perceive as appropriate, without triggering conflicts related to category heterogeneity. The article also provides insights into how market category legitimacy is perceived by entrepreneurs and the antecedents and implications of such perceptions.

关于市场类别形成的文献不足以提供有关企业家如何解决市场类别的集体合法性同时管理异类实践之间紧张关系的见解。通过对自闭症@工作市场类别的研究，本文表明隐秘的原型差异构成了一个独特的结构，解释了异类市场类别中的企业家如何在支持他们认为适当的实践的同时，在不引发与类别相关的冲突的情况下，增强类别的合法性。异质性。本文还提供了有关企业家如何看待市场类别合法性的见解，以及这些见解的前因和含义。