Scandal, Social Movement, and Change: Evidence from #MeToo in Hollywood

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Luo, Hong; Zhang, Laurina
• 署名单位: Harvard University; Boston University
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2021.3982
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 1278-1296
• 关键词: gender inequality; social movements; scandal; project selection; CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

摘要

Socialmovements have the potential to effect change in strategic decisionmaking. In this paper, we examine whether the #MeToo movement, spurred by the Harvey Weinstein scandal, leads to changes in the likelihood of Hollywood producers working with female writers on new movie projects. Because #MeToo affected the entire industry, we use variation in whether producers had past collaborations with Weinstein to investigate whether and how #MeToo may spur change. We find that producers previously associated with Weinstein are, on average, about 35% more likely toworkwith femalewriters after the scandal than theywere before, relative to nonassociated producers, and the size of this effect increaseswith the intensity of the association. Female producers are the main drivers of our results, perhaps because they aremore likely thanmale producers to resonatewith themovement's cause and face relatively low costs of enacting change. Changes made by other groups, such as production teams with the most intense association withWeinstein and less experienced all-male teams, may be better explained bymotivations tomitigate risk. We also find that producers do not sacrificewriter experience by hiring more female writers and that both experienced and novice female writers have benefited from the increased demand. Our study shows that social movements that seek to address gender inequality can, indeed, lead to meaningful change. It also provides perspective for thinking aboutwhether, and towhat extent, changesmay occur in broader settings.