Balancing Act: Learning from Organizing Practices in Cultural Industries

Abstract

The dilemmas experienced by managers in cultural industries are also to be found in a growing number of other industries where knowledge and creativity are key to sustaining competitive advantage. Firms that compete in cultural industries must deal with a combination of ambiguity and dynamism, both of which are intrinsic to goods that serve an aesthetic or expressive rather than a utilitarian purpose. Managers involved with the creation, production, marketing, and distribution of cultural goods must navigate tensions that arise from opposing imperatives that result from these industry characteristics. In this paper we outline five polarities that are shaping organizational practices in cultural industries. First, managers must reconcile expression of artistic values with the economics of mass entertainment. Second, they must seek novelty that differentiates their products without making them fundamentally different in nature from others in the same category. Third, they must analyse and address existing demand while at the same time using their imagination to extend and transform the market. Fourth, they must balance the advantages of vertically integrating diverse activities under one roof against the need to maintain creative vitality through flexible specialization. And finally, they must build creative systems to support and market cultural products but not allow the system to suppress individual inspiration, which is ultimately at the root of creating value in cultural industries.

Game Changer: The Topology of Creativity

“…Like many other cultural fields, the video game industry is one that rewards novelty, especially when it is packaged in terms that are recognizable to consumers and critics (Lampel et al 2000;Hutter 2011). Doubtless, some video games are little more than simple imitations of already existing games.…”

“…In striving for novelty, a creative team risks producing a product that cannot be assimilated to the tastes of critics and consumers. Whether wide or razor thin, the difference between "exciting" and "weird" can be the difference between a hit and a flop (DiMaggio 1997;Lampel, Lant, and Shamsie 2000;Hutter 2011). Novelty is neither sufficient nor necessary for success-for sometimes consumers and critics reward conformity.…”

Creative Leadership: A Multi-Context Conceptualization

“…Their creative thinking and planning abilities play an important role in that process. Directors have to select and recombine various professionals in order to satisfy external demands for novelty in the final product as well as their own needs for creative renewal (Lampel, Lant, & Shamsie, 2000;Menger 1999). Lampel and Shamsie (2003) found that the success of films in the US film industry is directly related to the mobilization and transformation of talent.…”

Misfits, Mavericks and Mainstreams: Drivers of Innovation in Creative Industries

“…Cultural-creative products and services elude mechanistic and systematic evaluation (Caves, 2000;Lampel et al 2000) and call for a complex mixture of formalized knowledge, informal reference, experience, taste and personal judgment because 'markets of singularities could not function' without evaluation by experts (Karpik, 2010, p.46). Evaluation and evaluative practices have over the years received attention from social science scholars in general and in particular in the fields of education and research (e.g.…”