Transforming Creative Potential in Project Networks: How TV Movies Are Produced under Network-Based Control

Project networks have been identified as dynamic, yet relatively stable organizational forms in project-based creative industries. They materialize in longer-term actor relationships which are actualized by and institutionalized through particular projects. This article examines how project networks transform creative potential for and beyond particular projects. The transformation process is enabled and constrained by the dialectic of network-based control which refers to the capacity of actors to reproduce relational power and autonomy within actor constellations in project networks. This study is empirically based on a qualitative analysis of two projects launched from project networks of two major German TV production companies. Theoretically, the study draws on concepts from structuration theory.

[1]  Christopher Barnatt,et al.  Beyond Networks and Hierarchies: Latent Organizations in the U.K. Television Industry , 2000 .

[2]  R. Faulkner.  Dilemmas in Commercial Work , 1976 .

[3]  Pernille Eskerod,et al.  The Human Resource Allocation Process when Organising by Projects , 1998 .

[4]  Michel Grossetti,et al.  Markets from Networks. Socioeconomic Models of Production , 2003 .

[5]  Robert K. Kazanjian,et al.  Multilevel Theorizing about Creativity in Organizations: A Sensemaking Perspective , 1999 .

[6]  Stephen J. Jaros.  Labor Process Theory , 2000 .

[7]  David Knights,et al.  Labour process theory , 1990 .

[8]  Kevin Ward,et al.  Dilemmas in the management of temporary work agency staff , 2001 .

[9]  M. Storper,et al.  Flexible Specialization and Regional Industrial Agglomerations: The Case of the U.S. Motion Picture Industry , 1987 .

[10]  M. Mumford.  Managing Creative People: Strategies and Tactics for Innovation , 2000 .

[11]  Rolf A. Lundin,et al.  Conceptualizing a Projectified Society Discussion of an Eco-Institutional Approach to a Theory on Temporary Organisations , 1998 .

[12]  Organizations , 1992, Restoration & Management Notes.

[13]  J. Sydow,et al.  Project Networks and Changing Industry Practices Collaborative Content Production in the German Television Industry , 2001 .

[14]  W. Powell,et al.  The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields , 1983 .

[15]  Jörg Sydow,et al.  Projektnetzwerke: Management von (mehr als) temporären Systemen , 1999 .

[16]  A. Kellerman,et al.  The Constitution of Society : Outline of the Theory of Structuration , 2015 .

[17]  K. Eisenhardt.  Building theories from case study research , 1989, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[18]  C. Ford.  A Theory of Individual Creative Action in Multiple Social Domains , 1996 .

[19]  Robert R. Faulkner,et al.  Role as Resource in the Hollywood Film Industry , 1991, American Journal of Sociology.

[20]  P. Hirsch.  Processing Fads and Fashions: An Organization-Set Analysis of Cultural Industry Systems , 1972, American Journal of Sociology.

[21]  D. Hodgson,et al.  Making Projects Critical , 2006 .

[22]  Peter F. Drucker,et al.  The Coming of the New Organization , 2001 .

[23]  Gernot Grabher.  Cool Projects, Boring Institutions: Temporary Collaboration in Social Context , 2002 .

[24]  C. Shalley,et al.  The Social Side of Creativity: A Static and Dynamic Social Network Perspective , 2003 .

[25]  R. Goodman,et al.  Some Management Issues in Temporary Systems: A Study of Professional Development and Manpower--The Theater Case. , 1976 .

[26]  Gernot Grabher.  Temporary Architectures of Learning: Knowledge Governance in Project Ecologies , 2004 .

[27]  Graham Drake,et al.  ‘This place gives me space’: place and creativity in the creative industries , 2003 .

[28]  Steven B. Andrews,et al.  Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition , 1995, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[29]  Andrew L. Friedman,et al.  Industry and Labour: Class Struggle at Work and Monopoly Capitalism , 1980 .

[30]  Roderick M. Kramer,et al.  Swift trust and temporary groups. , 1996 .

[31]  Margaret Henry,et al.  Toward a Theory of , 2005 .

[32]  Denise M. Rousseau,et al.  The Boundaryless Career: A New Employment Principle for a New Organizational Era , 2001 .

[33]  A. Langley.  Strategies for Theorizing from Process Data , 1999 .

[34]  P. Adler,et al.  Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept , 2002 .

[35]  Andrew Hargadon,et al.  Special Issue: Knowledge, Knowing, and Organizations: Action and Possibility: Reconciling Dual Perspectives of Knowledge in Organizations , 2002, Organ. Sci..

[36]  Richard Saundry.  The Limits of Flexibility: the Case of UK Television , 1998 .

[37]  M. Arthur,et al.  Paradox in Project-Based Enterprise: The Case of Film Making , 1998 .

[38]  Ricky W. Griffin,et al.  Toward a Theory of Organizational Creativity , 1993 .

[39]  J. Atkinson,et al.  Flexibility, uncertainty and manpower management , 1985 .

[40]  S. Boorman,et al.  Social Structure from Multiple Networks. I. Blockmodels of Roles and Positions , 1976, American Journal of Sociology.

[41]  R. E. Miles,et al.  Organizations: New Concepts for New Forms , 1986 .

[42]  Thomas B. Lawrence,et al.  Understanding Cultural Industries , 2002 .

[43]  M. Malone.  The Virtual Corporation , 1993 .

[44]  Bernard Cova,et al.  Rituals in managing extrabusiness relationships in international project marketing: a conceptual framework , 2000 .

[45]  M. Mumford,et al.  Leading creative people: Orchestrating expertise and relationships , 2002 .

[46]  H. Willmott,et al.  NETWORKING AS KNOWLEDGE WORK: A STUDY OF STRATEGIC INTERORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY* , 1993 .

[47]  S. Boorman,et al.  Social structure from multiple networks: I , 1976 .

[48]  Amjad Hadjikhani,et al.  Project marketing and the management of discontinuity , 1996 .

[49]  Stephan Manning,et al.  Managing Project Networks as Dynamic Organizational Forms: Learning from the TV Movie Industry , 2005 .