1,721,052 research outputs found
The Socio-Cognitive Bases of Reward Allocation: The Interplay between Status and Social in Peer-Base
No full textAtypicality: Toward An Integrative Framework In Organizational And Market Settings
Full text linkResearch in management and organizational studies has emphasized the importance and the double-edged nature of (a)typicality. Organizational objects that are atypical within a context - in terms of features, characteristics, or behaviors- tend to generate skepticism and encourage rejection by eliciting confusion among relevant audiences, including investors, employees, customers, and partners. However, atypicality is also often cited as a vital source of competitive advantage, as atypical actors and products can attract significant attention, innovate, and even promote structural change in a field. While research aimed at reconciling this inconsistency has accumulated rapidly, this literature has remained fragmentary and scattered across several disciplines, resulting in mixed views, conceptualizations, and perspectives. In this article, we systematically reviewed 129 papers to advance a conceptual model that helps to establish a comprehensive organizational perspective on atypicality. We a) identify three perspectives on atypicality: cognitive, normative, and innovative, b) develop an integrative framework that elaborates on the sources, consequences, and boundary conditions of atypicality, and c) highlight avenues for future studies on this topic. We hope that this review on atypicality will encourage and inform future scholarship in this fascinating domain and elucidate novel opportunities for unleashing the generative potential of this important construct
A multi-indicator approach for tracking field emergence: The rise of Bologna Nanotech
No full textThe emergence of organizational fields has attracted increasing academic interest over the last decade but only a few studies have probed into their initial phases. This article introduce a simple methodological approach to address this shortcoming in the context of the emergence of a nanotechnology field in Bologna, Italy. Whereas previous studies have been based on well-established regional success stories, the Bologna nanotech case provides us with an opportunity to map in real time the early stages of field emergence. Using an original multi-indicator approach, this study explores questions of regional standing, spatial agglomeration and institutional legitimation. It also shows how multi-indicator approaches can be developed from existing databases, using customized search techniques, and how the insights from multi-indicator measurement can be used to provide guidelines for research and innovation policy
Performance gains and losses from network centrality in cluster located firms: a longitudinal study
Full text linkThis paper develops and tests theoretically derived arguments on the performance trade-offs that arise when firms located inside geographical clusters broaden their cluster networks and increase their centrality. Using three-year longitudinal data gathered on a sample of 89 small media firms located in a geographical cluster of Northern Italy, we model growth in revenues and in employees as a function of their centrality in different types of networks. We find an inverted U-shaped effect of centrality across all types of networks. We also find strong evidence of negative interactivity between network types in predicting sales and employee growth. This result not only concurs with the view that centrality brings tangible and intangible benefits, but also provides empirical support for the contention that centrality fosters dispositions and disturbances that undermine performance
Friends, Cliques and Gifts: Social Proximity and Recognition in Peer-Based Tournament Rituals
Full text linkTwo 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 self-reproduction 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
Trajectories of Consecration: Signature Style and the Pace of Category Spanning
Full text linkConsecration represents the most definitive form of legitimation in every cultural field. Complementing previous research focused on individual, contextual, and structural conditions underpinning consecration, this paper takes a sequence analytical perspective and explores whether diverse creative trajectories are more frequently associated with consecration. We introduce the notion of signature style and the pace of category spanning as key features for consecration. We argue that a consecrated signature style is just as likely to result from a producer’s adherence to a specific style over time or from a consistent (and fast-paced) category-spanning creative trajectory. The resulting identity will be specialist in the first case, eclectic in the second. We analyze the stylistic trajectories of 863 electronic music artists and find robust support to our hypothesis. The analysis is corroborated by further exploratory findings that identify intriguing questions for future research. By examining the organization of creative journeys in the career of cultural producers, this paper emphasizes the importance of considering the unfolding and rhythm of creativity over time. This temporal perspective sheds new light on the dynamics of distinctiveness and consecration in cultural fields
Deconstructing the outsider puzzle: The legitimation journey of novelty
Full text linkThe proposition that outsiders often are crucial carriers of novelty into an established institutional field has received wide empirical support. But an equally compelling proposition points to the following puzzle: the very same conditions that enhance outsiders' ability to make novel contributions also hinder their ability to carry them out. We seek to address this puzzle by examining the contextual circumstances that affect the legitimation of novelty originating from a noncertified outsider that challenged the status quo in an established institutional field. Our research case material is John Harrison's introduction of a new mechanical method for measuring longitude at sea-the marine chronometer- which challenged the dominant astronomical approach.We find that whether an outsider's new offer gains or is denied legitimacy is influenced by (1) the outsider's agency to further a new offer, (2) the existence of multiple audiences with different dispositions toward this offer, and (3) the occurrence of an exogenous jolt that helps create a more receptive social space. We organize these insights into a multilevel conceptual framework that builds on previouswork but attributes a more decisive role to the interplay between endogenous and exogenous variables in shaping a field's shifting receptiveness to novelty. The framework exposes the interdependencies between the micro-, meso-, and macro-level processes that jointly affect an outsider's efforts to introduce novelty into an existing field
From the Margins to the Core of Haute Couture: The Entrepreneurial Journey of Coco Chanel
Get PDFWe trace the history of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s entrepreneurial journey as a fashion designer from her early years as an outsider (early 1900s) to her rise to success and consecration as an icon within the French haute couture field (early 1930s)—a field controlled by powerful insiders. Our study sheds light on the social forces and historical circumstances underlying an outsider’s journey from the margins of an established field to its core. Drawing on unique historical material, we develop a novel process view that highlights the shifting influence of forces operating at different levels in the accumulation, deployment, and conversion of various forms of capital (i.e., human, social, economic, and symbolic) that outsiders need to promote their ideas. In particular, our multilevel perspective accounts simultaneously for the individual’s efforts to push forward these ideas (micro-level), as well as the audience dynamics (meso-level) and exogenous forces (macro-level) that shape their recognition. Chanel’s historical case analysis also affords a window into one of the first female entrepreneurs with global impact in business history, with the added challenge of establishing herself in what at the time was a male-dominated and mature field
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