Search results

Consecration is the process by which producers in creative fields become canonized as “greats.” However, is this the end of the story? Research on consecration focuses on the drivers of consecration but pays little attention to the post-consecration period. Furthermore, the research ignores the dynamics of consecration. To address these gaps, we examine the changing fortunes of a consecrated artist – the musician Phil Collins. We identify the ways in which three actors (fans, critics, and peers) assemble for consecration, disassemble for deconsecration, and reassemble for reconsecration. Examining the changing public image and commercial fortunes of Collins as a solo artist between 1980 and 2020, we identify an N-shaped process of rise-fall-rise that we call the Phil Collins Effect. This effect offers a new way of thinking about how cultural producers gain, lose and regain status in their fields.

Consecration represents the most definitive form of legitimation in every cultural field. Complementing previous research focused on individual, contextual, and structural conditions underpinning consecration, this paper takes a sequence analytical perspective and explores whether diverse creative trajectories are more frequently associated with consecration. We introduce the notion of signature style and the pace of category spanning as key features for consecration. We argue that a consecrated signature style is just as likely to result from a producer’s adherence to a specific style over time or from a consistent (and fast-paced) category-spanning creative trajectory. The resulting identity will be specialist in the first case, eclectic in the second. We analyze the stylistic trajectories of 863 electronic music artists and find robust support to our hypothesis. The analysis is corroborated by further exploratory findings that identify intriguing questions for future research. By examining the organization of creative journeys in the career of cultural producers, this paper emphasizes the importance of considering the unfolding and rhythm of creativity over time. This temporal perspective sheds new light on the dynamics of distinctiveness and consecration in cultural fields.

All knowledge claims are also to some extent legitimacy claims. No theory can receive serious attention, let alone gain credence, unless it is also seen as legitimate. Philosophers of science have spent decades trying to frame criteria that determine the legitimacy of theories, only to agree to disagree on the matter. Sociologists of science, on the other hand, take a broader view, arguing that rather than seeking ex ante criteria of knowledge it is best to examine how researchers legitimate knowledge in practice.

Building on sociological research that examines the allocation of rewards in peer evaluations, we argue that the recognition of cultural producers’ work varies with their status and social distance from the audience members who evaluate them. We study the influence of these two mechanisms within the context of the Norwegian advertising industry. Specifically, we looked at how cultural producers’ status and social distance from jury members affect their chances of being honored in “The Silver Tag” – one of the main digital advertising award contests in Norway – during the period 2003–2010. While our findings provide support for status-based rewards allocation, the positive effects of status may be more circumscribed than previously thought. When accounting for the existence of previous connections between audience members and cultural producers, we find that cultural producers are more or less likely to receive an accolade depending on their degree of separation from the audience members. By exposing network-based determinants of consecrating decisions, and suggesting that the positive effects of status may be more circumscribed than previously thought, our findings shed important light on the social foundations of evaluation and, more broadly, the mechanisms of reward allocation in cultural fields.

The purpose of this research is to illuminate the processes that give rise to gendered career pathways in Spanish academia, tracing how individuals might move from academic “passion” to academic “consecration” in a setting in which both visible and veiled discrimination persist. By examining academics' testimony, the paper aims to explore the production and reproduction of complex dynamics of power and gender inequalities through informal processes.

Qualitative study, drawing on semi‐structured interviews with 33 academics (16 female and 17 male) working in academic departments of psychology (17) and engineering (16) in three Madrid universities.

Although the percentage of professors in Spanish universities who are female is relatively high, compared to many European countries, this quantitative feminization does not appear to be associated with clear institutionalization of formal gender equality policies or the elimination of tacit discriminatory practices. Despite recent measures to reform the recruitment patterns in Spanish universities towards a more meritocratic model, the tradition of a sistema endogámico (an “inbreeding” system) persists, under which appointments are frequently made on the basis of internal (departmental) networks. This was found to operate to the disadvantage of women in both disciplines studied.

Despite the limitations inherent in a small‐scale study, this paper is likely to help not only to increase awareness of gender bias, but also to contribute to the reevaluation of the current university culture in Spain which, through its ostensibly gender‐neutral recruitment practices rooted in internal networks, constrains women's career opportunities.

Although the host, the future body of Christ in the Catholic Eucharist, seems to lie completely outside of the economic system, it needs to be produced and sold. The majority of host producers are female monasteries for which the production process brings double tension: as an economic activity within a religious utopia (the monastery) and as the economization of something that is considered to be a religious good. This double tension provokes the question, how do the nuns legitimate this economic process in their monastery without desacralizing the symbolic good? Trying to answer this question, nuns typically deny the economic dimension of production and transaction, yet the sheer existence of this economy proves it is accepted. This chapter examines the relationship between economy and religion through an analysis of the ambivalence in the production and marketing process of altar bread.

Mormonism as used in this article is defined as that theological system characteristic of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saints (Mormons) as distinguished from several other religious bodies with similar names and/or with some historical and theological roots common to that body. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the United States, there are in excess of five million members with organised congregations (wards and branches) in 89 countries, mostly in the Americas, western Europe, the Pacific Basin (except for Communist China and Vietnam), Australia and South Africa.

This volume brings together empirical and conceptual papers that investigate the challenges of organizing creativity in the innovation journey in and across different empirical contexts. Seen as the basis for innovating new products, processes or services, organizing creativity is studied as intentional efforts that occur in teams, organizations, and fields. What creativity is, how it is defined, negotiated and recognized is hereby co-constructed with different audiences and in different economic and societal spheres. The papers in this volume extend our understanding of these contextualized social dynamics of organizing creativity in four directions. The first direction sheds light on the temporal dynamics of organizing creativity in artistic fields. The second direction compares creative processes in arts and science, thereby examining tensions and uncertainties in the creative process unfolding in two distinctive contexts of creativity. The third direction examines identity struggles of creative agents in organizations with clashing roles, professional norms, and ambiguities in creativity assessment. The fourth and final direction unravels the communicative journey of ideas from pitching to feedback, revealing how ideas are challenged, enriched, and acquire meaning in communicative interaction. Overall, the papers in this volume contribute to a situated view of creative processes in innovation which goes beyond questions of idea generation to account for dynamics of idea development, judgment, and dissemination which involve identity struggles, evaluation, and communication – processes which are at the heart of organizing for innovation.

Recent research has shed light on career trajectories outside enclosed organizations and linked individual careers to career fields. This article seeks to explore how individuals' trajectories are affected by structural changes in career fields.

By exploring several jazz musicians' biographies, a typical trajectory is built. In contrast with this typical trajectory, alternative successful trajectories are investigated.

The typical trajectory entails a successful introduction of a musician into a field, followed by increasing recognition among peers at jam sessions, stream of engagements and among critics. Consecration of one's public persona occurs in tandem with the institutionalization of one's personal style. These higher levels of “symbolic capital” grant continuous streams of engagements, which in turn are translated into higher levels of economic capital. As a musician achieves a dominant position in a field, inertial forces typecast him, impeding innovation, which leaves room for upcoming younger artists. This model is contrasted with deviant careers that proved to be successful due to structural changes in the field. As the legitimacy sources were no longer tightly coupled, musicians were able to undertake choices not prescribed by successful predecessors. The way individuals behave when facing field uncertainty reveals the enduring values underlying the employment and conversion of resources.

This research is based on qualitative research on jazz musicians' bios. Future research might further explore interpretative schemata applied by musicians facing career choices.

Practitioners might find controversial and conflictive sources of legitimacy opportunities for taking up alternative career paths. Conversely, structural changes might help analysts to assess endurable patterns of individual strategic choices.

The logics of jazz musicians' trajectories are assumed to be analogous to other industry careers. This analogy adds value to the study of careers in two ways: first, it contributes to understanding career patterns outside formal organizations; and second, it permits a multi‐level analysis, where both individual trajectories and the field dynamics are interwoven.