The dark side of social relationships – the context of the video game industry

Abstract

Paper’s objectives The paper aims to explore the negative impacts of social relationships (SR) on business activity. As a research context, the video game industry (VGI) and the video game developers’ (VGDs) relationships are analyzed. Design/methods 17 semistructured in-depth interviews and 1 focus group interview with Polish VGDs were conducted. Findings (1) support for five negatives of SR previously discussed in the literature (2) recognition of the four original negatives (i.e., employee turnover, buying up employees, inefficiency/termination of interorganizational cooperation, and confidential information leakage); and (3) recognition of the harmful results of SR as an industry-dependent issue. Originality/value (1) Analyzing the negative consequences of SR for business, which is less frequently considered compared to the positive consequences of these relationships for business; (2) identifying dark sides previously unidentified in the literature; and (3) using the VGI as the research context.