Friends, Gifts, and Cliques: Social Proximity and Recognition in Peer-Based Tournament Rituals

Abstract

Two main accounts of the effect of proximity between candidates competing for recognition and members of the evaluating audience in the underlying social structure can be extrapolated from extant literature on peer-based tournament rituals and cultural fields. Following a Bourdieusian tradition, one account-which we label self-reproduction-insists on the catalyzing effect of social proximity in shaping recognition along relational lines. Drawing from recent scholarship on social evaluation, a second account-which we label intellectual distance-suggests that social proximity deters recognition. We probe the influence of different articulations of social proximity (i.e., direct ties, cliquishness and reciprocity) on recognition by studying awarding decisions within the context of the Norwegian advertising industry. Interviews with key informants and econometric results suggest that, while selfreproduction tends to prevail over intellectual distance, these effects co-exist and their relative influence varies across levels of recognition. We gauge the relative saliency of the two accounts by using a mix-method approach. Important implications for research on social evaluation and recognition in peer-based tournament rituals are drawn.

Reflecting glory or deflecting stigma? The interplay between status and social proximity in peer evaluations

“…Recent findings by Aadland, Cattani, and Ferriani [4] imply similar expectations but rely on different interpretations. While providing substantial evidence supporting the general stratifying effect of audience-candidate ties on candidates' recognition, the authors also point to the plausibility of negative returns of social proximity to recognition-particularly at high levels of audience-candidate social proximity.…”

“…Following Aadland et al [4], the dependent variable measures the bestowal of an accolade (honourable mention or award) to projects competing in a given contest month. We coded the dependent variable 0 if a project did not receive any accolade; 1 if a project received an honourable mention; 2 if a project reached 1st place (i.e., won the award).…”

“…We created the adjacency matrices with a 24-month long moving window that we updated monthly. Because our unit of analysis is the project, for each project we created the variable social ties by counting only the number of jurors with direct ties to project members [4]. We also looked at the impact of having mediated (i.e., indirect) ties to jury members on the likelihood of being rewarded by calculating the median geodesic distance between the project and jury members.…”

“…For instance, when the project and jury members work for the same firm or jury members are involved in projects under evaluation, the jury member in question has to exit the jury room when the project in question is evaluated. Accordingly, we generated an indicator variable that is equal to 1 if one or more project members had a colleague in the jury or a juror was a member of the project, and 0 otherwise [4,33].…”

“…Extensive evidence across cultural fields as diverse as academic publishing [1], wine tasting [2], film industry [3], advertising [4], and screenwriting agencies [5] reveals the role of status as a key driver of evaluation and choice. Prevailing explanations for the positive association between status and evaluative outcomes posit that status serves as a source of information about actors' unobserved quality.…”