Cutting the apron strings: Establishing optimal distinctiveness from mentors in creative industries

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Demetry, Daphne Ann; Doern, Rachel
• 署名单位: McGill University; University of London; Goldsmiths University London
• 刊物名称: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0143-2095
• DOI: 10.1002/smj.70003
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: creative industries; mentor-prot & eacute; g & eacute; Relationships; OPTIMAL DISTINCTIVENESS; QUALITATIVE RESEARCH; strategic positioning

摘要

Research has established that organizations benefit from optimal distinctiveness, that is, being sufficiently similar to and different from competitors. However, we know less about producers' strategic positioning choices to establish optimally distinctive identities. We explore this question through a qualitative study of chef-owners who started their own restaurants after training with well-known mentors. We identify two trajectories followed by chefs to establish optimal distinctiveness-legacy and divergent-and their components: interpersonal origins, strategic material and symbolic practices, tensions, and performance outcomes. Our study contributes to research by providing a more complete picture of how creative producers attempt to find an optimal balance between similarity to and difference from mentors, and the constraints they face in their strategic choices, including how these change over time.