Elsevier

Poetics

Volume 39, Issue 4, August 2011, Pages 247-265
Poetics

Gatekeeper search and selection strategies: Relational and network governance in a cultural market

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2011.05.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Gatekeepers play a critical role in determining what creative products eventually reach audiences. Although they have been discussed in the literature on cultural production, they have rarely been studied systematically. In particular, we know little about how gatekeepers use their social networks to manage search and selection processes in markets characterized by excess supply, demand uncertainty, and shifting and socially defined evaluation criteria. In this article, we present the results of a study of nightclub talent buyers in Boston, MA who act as gatekeepers by selecting bands to perform at their clubs. Using social network and cultural domain analysis, we show that search strategies and social networks vary across culturally defined market niches for local rock bands. In a market niche featuring bands playing original music, gatekeepers maintain arm's length relations with many bands but are embedded in dense information sharing networks with each other. In contrast, in a market niche containing bands playing familiar popular tunes (“covers”), gatekeepers maintain close ties with a small number of bands but have arm's length relations with each other. We explain these findings using theories of relational and network governance.

Highlights

► Gatekeeeper search and selection strategies vary according to market niches defined by the novelty of the creative products being presented to audiences. ► In innovative niches presenting new songs played by emerging bands, gatekeepers have close ties to their competitors and arm's length relations with artists. ► In mass market niches presenting familiar songs played by cover bands, gatekeepers have arm's length relations with their competitors and close ties with a small number of artists. ► Network governance theory explains these findings by showing how ties among competitors serve both governance and cultural functions in markets presenting innovative new artists that have yet to demonstrate mass market appeal.

Section snippets

Pacey Foster is an assistant professor in the management department at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His research interests include social networks, cultural intermediaries and creative industries. His most recent work focuses on regional competitive dynamics in the film, television and electronic games industries. He received his Ph.D. in organization studies from the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

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    Pacey Foster is an assistant professor in the management department at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His research interests include social networks, cultural intermediaries and creative industries. His most recent work focuses on regional competitive dynamics in the film, television and electronic games industries. He received his Ph.D. in organization studies from the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

    Stephen P. Borgatti is the Paul Chellgren Chair of management at the Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. His research interests include social networks and knowledge management. His work has appeared in Science, Social Networks and a variety of management journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review and Organization Science. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematical Social Science from the University of California, Irvine.

    Candace Jones is an associate professor of management in the Organization Studies Department at Boston College. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Utah. Her current research focuses on institutional logics and the influence of semantic, social and symbolic networks on cultural understandings and institutional change in creative industries and creative professionals. She has published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Journal of Organizational Behavior and Management Learning, as well as numerous book chapters. She has co-edited special issues for Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Organizational Behavior and Research in the Sociology of Organizations.

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