Nexus Work: Brokerage on Creative Projects

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lingo, Elizabeth Long; O'Mahony, Siobhan
• 署名单位: Vanderbilt University; Boston University
• 刊物名称: ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-8392
• DOI: 10.2189/asqu.2010.55.1.47
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 47-81
• 关键词: EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY; ORGANIZATIONS; INNOVATION; networks; entrepreneurship; TRANSFORMATION; collaboration; AUTHENTICITY; communities; KNOWLEDGE

摘要

This study examined how brokers on creative projects integrate the ideas of others. We use the term nexus work to refer to brokerage requiring synthesis or integration, rather than just communication or transference of ideas. With an ethnographic investigation of 23 independent music producers in the Nashville country music industry, we examined how producers in the brokerage role fostered the integration of others' contributions throughout four phases of the creative process. We discovered that ambiguity was an inherent part of the collective creative process and identified three types: (1) an ambiguous quality metric (What makes a hit or constitutes success?); (2) ambiguous occupational jurisdictions (Whose claim of expertise entitles them to control the process?); and (3) an ambiguous transformation process (How should the work be done?). We show when each type of ambiguity became acute in the creative process and identify the practices producers used to leverage their brokerage role depending on the type of ambiguity confronted. In doing so, producers moved between two ideal conceptions of brokerage-as strategic actors extracting advantage from their position and as relational experts connecting others to foster creativity and innovation-to foster a collective creative outcome.(circle)