Summary articles Strategy and Marketing Theory in the Creative Industries
Contents
Week 1: introduction .............................................................................................................................. 3
Constructing clarity in theories of management and organization, Suddaby (2010) ......................... 3
Getting counted: markets, media, and reality, Kennedy (2008) ......................................................... 6
Ecological approaches to organizations, Baum Shipilov (2006) .......................................................... 9
Effective product service systems: a value-based framework, Kuijken Gemser Wijnberg (2016) ... 13
The death of the artist – and the birth of the creative entrepreneur, Deresiewicz (2015) .............. 16
Week 2: organization or network ........................................................................................................ 18
Latent organizations in the film industry: contracts, rewards and recourses, Ebbers Wijnberg
(2009) ................................................................................................................................................ 18
The network as knowledge: generative rules and the emergence of structure, Kogut (2000) ........ 20
Collaboration and creativity: the small world problem, Uzzi Spiro (2005) ....................................... 22
Organizations and Markets, Simon (1991) ........................................................................................ 25
Week 3: competition or market ........................................................................................................... 28
Awards, success and aesthetic quality in the arts, Ginsburgh (2003) ............................................... 28
Tune in, fade out: music companies and the classification of domestic music products in the
Netherlands, Hitters van der Kamp (2010) ....................................................................................... 30
Competition and the non-profit arts: the lost industrial organization agenda, Seaman (2004) ...... 33
Value chain envy: explaining new entry and vertical integration in popular music, Mol Wijnberg
Caroll (2005) ...................................................................................................................................... 36
Enacting competitive wars: actions, language games, and market consequences, Rindova Becerra
Contrado (2004) ................................................................................................................................ 40
Week 4: strategy or identity ................................................................................................................. 43
Bad for practice: a critique of the transactional cost theory, Ghoshal Moran (1996) ...................... 43
Arriving at a strategic theory of the firm, Phelan Lewin (2000) ........................................................ 46
Strategy as improvisational theatre, Kanter Moss (2002) ................................................................ 50
Influencing the influencers: diversification, semantic strategies, and creativity evaluations, Seong
Godart (2018) .................................................................................................................................... 52
Institutionalizing identity: symbolic isomorphism and organizational names, Glynn Abzug (2002) 55
Week 5: innovation or industry life cycle ............................................................................................ 58
Perfect timing? Dominant category, dominant design, and the window of opportunity for firm
entry, Suarez Grodal Gotsopoulos (2015) ......................................................................................... 58
How nascent occupations construct a mandate: the case of service designers, Fayard Stigliani
Bechky (2017) .................................................................................................................................... 61
, The fuzzy front end of new product development for discontinuous innovation: a theoretical
model, Reid Brentani (2004) ............................................................................................................. 64
Innovation and organization: value and competition in selection systems, Wijnberg (2004) .......... 68
Week 6: recourse or capability............................................................................................................. 72
A recourse-based view of the firm in two environments: the Hollywood film studios from 1936 to
1965, Miller Shamsie (1996).............................................................................................................. 72
In with the old, in with the new: capabilities, strategies, and performance among the Hollywood
studios Shamsie Martin Miller (2009) ............................................................................................... 75
Assessing the dynamic capabilities view: spare change, everyone? Arend Bromiley (2009) ........... 78
From recourses to value and back: competition between and within organizations, Mol Wijnberg
(2011) ................................................................................................................................................ 81
Reconsidering the reputation-performance relationship: a resource-based view, Boyd Bergh
Ketchen (2010) .................................................................................................................................. 85
,Week 1: introduction
Constructing clarity in theories of management and organization, Suddaby (2010)
The purpose of this essay is not to discuss the issues of construct validity, which has received a
considerable amount of attention already. Rather, the issues of construct clarity and its importance
for science will be explored. The intent of the author is to discuss the broader question of what
constitutes a good theory; construct clarity, but also and perhaps more importantly, open the
discussion on that matter, which is largely lacking in management science.
→ This article is about construct clarity; what makes a good theory and provides practical guidelines
to do so based on the need to fulfill four criteria: 1) a definition of the construct, indicating the
essential characteristics and properties, 2) a scope definition in terms of time, space (e.g.
micro/macro-viewpoint) and value (i.e. from which perspective the construct is understood by:
organizations, individual, society as a whole), 3) semantic (relating to language) relationship that
entails the meaning of the definition and the coherence of reasoning, and 4) coherence.
Why do we need this you ask? Well, it is necessary for understanding and testing theory. It is also
good for practice: to make and execute your own plans and to defend your own and defeat other’s
proposals.
Theory
Constructs are conceptual abstractions of phenomena that cannot be directly observed. Constructs
are not reducible to specific observations but, rather, are abstract statements of categories of
observations. Clear constructs are simply robust categories that distill phenomena into sharp
distinctions that are comprehensible to a community of researchers, examples are animals, minerals,
vegetables, liquids etc.
→ Constructs are at the core of developing a theory, they are not the theories per se but rather the
building blocks that construct a strong one.
Construct clarity comprises 4 basic elements:
1. Definitions
The Skillful use of language to accurately abstract empirical phenomena into robust conceptual
generalizations: translating abstract concepts into crispy defined theoretical constructs, using terms
that the reader can understand. A good definition should:
- Effectively capture the essential properties and characteristics of the concepts under
considerations
- Avoid circularity, tautology, or redundancy.
- Be parsimonious: it should try to capture as concisely as possible the essential characteristics
of a phenomenon or concept.
- Use names used in common speech and try to strip it from the extraneous meaning that has
become attached to it by frequent use.
- Offering a contextually specific and clear description of the term (not too broad or too
narrow).
- Have illustrative examples.
, Definition life-cycle Approach: 1) acknowledge complexity, 2) catalog current definitions, 3) offer
new definition of the term, purposely broad, 4) calibrate by trimming away what was accounted by
previous theories, 5) and introduce the salient attributes, reflecting relevance, urgency, power,
legitimacy.
2. Scope conditions
In contrast to the physical sciences, few constructs in organization theory have universal application.
Rather, organizational constructs tend to be highly sensitive to and contingent on contextual
conditions, which need to be mentioned. You need to be careful in borrowing definitions from other
disciplines as it assumes universality, which can easily be contracted. Science is about producing
theories which are hard to falsify; assuming universality, means ignoring the unique features of a
definition which contribute to its scope definition. This is why specifying boundary conditions is
important, there are three categories:
- Time: temporality, organizational constructs are subject to constraints of time because
organizational phenomena tend to be temporal, and as a result, changes in time may affect
the expression of any construct.
- Space: level of analysis dependence (e.g. micro, macro, mid-economics).
- Values: refer to scope conditions of a theoretical construct that arise as a result of the
assumptions or world view of the researcher. Try to explicate any hidden assumptions that
you bring to the table.
3. Semantic relationships
Constructs exist only in referential relationship, either explicit or implicit, with other constructs and
with the phenomena they are designed to represent. Constructs, thus, are the outcome of a
semantic network of conceptual connections to other prior constructs. Part of the task in
demonstrating construct clarity, thus, is to draw out these relationships in a fashion that the reader
can understand. Describing the historical relationships between the proposed new construct and
the prior historical constructs on which it was built is a critical component of the literature review.
4. Coherence
The definition, scope and relationship should all make sense (no fucking shit), it must all cohere or
hang together in a logically consistent manner. The umbrella construct must retain an overall
coherence or consistency that is more than the sum of its foundational parts. This is also described as
internal coherence of the umbrella construct: a “latent model” and the summated elements as an
“aggregate model”.
→ Coherence is a somewhat intuitive assessment of whether the various attributes of a
phenomenon are adequately contained within a construct. Usually done through coherent
explanation.
Why do we need construct clarity?
1. Facilitates communication between scholars: providing a common language. It avoids the
proliferation of different terms and labels for similar phenomena leading to confusion. Clear
constructs can and should also extend the scope of knowledge beyond the academic
community to include practitioners. An effective construct, thus, navigates a narrow path
between definitional accuracy and communicable generality.
