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