Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 7-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Increasing Returns and Social Contagion in Cultural Industries

Increasing Returns and Social Contagion in Cultural Industries A formal definition of cultural industries is developed following four distinct features of cultural goods: (a) oversupply, (b) quality uncertainty, (c) network effects and (d) demand reversal. Drawing on economic and socio‐psychological notions of ‘network’, increasing returns and social contagion effects are distinguished. Increasing returns may govern the adoption of standards when choices are binary, social contagion explains the diffusion of cultural goods when choices are multiple. Together, the four structural features delineating cultural industries account for curious competitive dynamics prevalent in cultural markets, such as the notorious 10 : 90 proportionality (under which 10% of cultural goods account for 90% of the market), causal ambiguity about the reasons for success, and the formation of fashions. Six managerial recommendations are advanced, focusing on a criticial circulation point triggering self‐sustaining diffusion patterns. Finally ‘project‐based enterprises’ and ‘network forms of governance’ are identified as the organizational forms most suited to the dynamics of the cultural markets. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png British Journal of Management Wiley

Increasing Returns and Social Contagion in Cultural Industries

Download PDF
12 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/increasing-returns-and-social-contagion-in-cultural-industries-G9SrgvMK9W

References (15)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
British Academy of Management 1999
ISSN
1045-3172
eISSN
1467-8551
DOI
10.1111/1467-8551.10.s1.6
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

A formal definition of cultural industries is developed following four distinct features of cultural goods: (a) oversupply, (b) quality uncertainty, (c) network effects and (d) demand reversal. Drawing on economic and socio‐psychological notions of ‘network’, increasing returns and social contagion effects are distinguished. Increasing returns may govern the adoption of standards when choices are binary, social contagion explains the diffusion of cultural goods when choices are multiple. Together, the four structural features delineating cultural industries account for curious competitive dynamics prevalent in cultural markets, such as the notorious 10 : 90 proportionality (under which 10% of cultural goods account for 90% of the market), causal ambiguity about the reasons for success, and the formation of fashions. Six managerial recommendations are advanced, focusing on a criticial circulation point triggering self‐sustaining diffusion patterns. Finally ‘project‐based enterprises’ and ‘network forms of governance’ are identified as the organizational forms most suited to the dynamics of the cultural markets.

Journal

British Journal of Management – Wiley

Published: Sep 1, 1999

There are no references for this article.