On Taste and Organization in the Field of Cultural Production
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Taste at Work ON TASTE AND ORGANIZATION IN THE FIELD OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION Akademisk avhandling som for avlaggande av ekonomie doktorsexamen vid Handelshogskolan i Stockholm fram laggs for offentlig granskning den r6 december 2005, kl. I} .OO i sal K.A.W., Handelshogskolan, Sveavagen 65 av Jenny Lantz Handelshogskolan i Stockholm Stockholm 2005 Jenny Lantz Taste at Work On Taste and Organization in the Field of Cultural Production Content ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PART I I. INTRODUCTION I I 2. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM 29 3. A GENDERED REALITY 4 7 4· FORM AND CONTENT 63 5. PRODUCTION OF SELF AND THE NATURE OF SOCIAL LIFE 7I 6. BOURDIEU'S FIELD THEORY AND HIS THEORY OF TASTE I03 7· GENDER AND ORGANIZATION I39 8. STUDIES IN ARTS MANAGEMENT AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION I 67 9· METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS I 8 5 PART II IO. THE ORGANIZATION IN BRIEF 229 I I. AN ORGANIZATION WITH COMPETING PRINCIPLES OF LEGITIMACY 2 7 5 I2. TASTE AT WORK 343 PART III 13· TASTE MANAGEMENT 4I3 APPENDICES 443 REFERENCES 46 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS During my time as a Ph.D. student writing on this proj ect I have accumulated a substantial stock of debt. First, I would like to express my appreciation to my advisors Sven-Erik Sjostrand, Gerd Lindgren (Karlstad Uni versity) and Anna Wahl (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm). Special thanks to Sven-Erik Sjostrand for his interest and support from the inception of this pro ject. My second thanks go to Sandrew Metronome, the organization at the center of this study, and its employ ees. The organization generously opened its doors to me and provided me with a very inspiring setting for a research study. Third, I want to thank my colleagues at the Center for Management and Organization at the Stockholm School of Economics: Lena Andersson, Carina Beckerman, Illinca Benson, Dag Bjorkegren, Stefan Einarsson, Emil Emling, Nanna Gillberg, Johan Hvenmark, Markus Kallifatides, Annelie Karlsson Stider, Ingrid Kollberg, Pernilla Petrelius Karl berg, Joanne Pirie, Klara Regno, Emma Stenstrom, Birgitta Sodergren, David von Laskowski and Filip Wijkstrom. In addition, I am most grateful for stimulating commentary and gen erous support from the research group FosFor: Anna Wahl, Charlotte Holgersson, Pia Hook, Sophie Linghag and Klara Regno. In particular, I want to thank Anna Wahl who inspired and encouraged me to pursue a Ph.D. Furthermore, I would like to highlight the fact that this study would not have been possible without the financial support and participation of the Anders Sandrew Foundation. My thanks also go to the other institutions that provided financial support for the research that resulted in this book: the Jan Wallander and Tom Hede lius Foundation and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. I also wish to thank Corporate Relations at the Stockholm School of Economics for a research fel- 5 lowship at the Council of Women World Leaders at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Thanks also to Jason Kaufman and Ingalill Holmberg for their input into my study. Further, I am grateful to Thomas Lavelle for editing and proofreading my English. For spiritual support I would like to thank Olle Ljungstri:im. I have also had the benefit of ideas, dis cussions and support from my friends Nicole Boesch and Linda Portnoff. Finally, for their unflagging support and encouragement I want to thank my parents Marianne and Tore, and my brother Peter. Stockholm October 2005 6 PART I CHAPTER I Introduction PROBLEM AREA 14 MY OBJECTIVE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 19 LIMITATIONS 20 THE STUDY 21 PLAN OF THE BOOK 24 II A man with his occupational provenance in the organ ization at the center of this study, an integrated film com pany, puts it quite succinctly: Taste is one of the most difficult things in this job. If you really love a certain kind of films and you get films that you personally don't like, it's really difficult. This dissertation is concerned with taste in an organiza tion in the cultural production field. "Taste" here en compasses more than everyday preferences in terms of music, art, clothing, food, design, etc; the employment of "taste" centers on its particular relevance for cultural production. Indeed, the citation above lays bare one of the peculiarities of the field of cultural production (cf. Bourdieu 1984) or "the creative industries"• (cf. Caves 2ooo): the significance of taste. Another way of putting this is that many people in the cultural production field share a concern for artistic achievement. They care about the product in terms of, for example, originality, artistic expression and technical qualities. Sometimes these feel ings of aesthetic commitment are very strong. However, cultural production requires diverse skills. Though very pertinent to some people in the field, taste and artistic expression are only secondary to others. Many people are rather indifferent to both employer and task (as long as the latter falls within the confines of the worker's competence). Indeed, this section of the workforce could be described as "being in for the money". Along these lines, economist Caves (2ooo) distinguishes between "cre ative" and "humdrum" inputs\ where only the former can be characterized by an aesthetic commitment. Thus, organizations in the field of cultural production bring together people of varying backgrounds, role per ceptions and aspirations, a diversity that may lead to 13 conflicts regarding, for example, priorities and taste. Accompanying these differences are two competing prin ciples of legitimacy. PROBLEM AREA Many organizational researchers address issues of legit imacy (see for example Meyer and Rowan 1977, Pfeffer and Salancik 1978, DiMaggio and Powell 1983, Dobbin 1994, Suchman 199 5 ). Legitimacy may be said to refer to "a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, val ues, beliefs, and definitions" (Suchman 1995, p. 574). Much of this strand of research concerns how organiza tions gain legitimacy through the incorporation of rationalized institutional rules (see for example Meyer and Rowan 1977, DiMaggio and Powell 1983, Zucker 1987, Brunsson 1989, Dobbin 1994). However, a basic assumption of this study is the distinc tiveness of organizations in the field of cultural produc tion. It can be summarized through the field's two com peting principles of legitimacy, the cultural and the eco nomic pole, based on, respectively, cultural and economic capital (Bourdieu 1993). My study of how the economic logic intersects with the cultural logic revolves around "taste". Thus, this dissertation presupposes the impor tance of taste3 in an organization operating in the field of cultural production (see Becker 1982; Bourdieu 1984, 1993). However, it is not only the significance of taste that varies, as Caves suggests by his distinction between "humdrum" and "creative" labor, but the actual con structions of taste can vary across the organization. By endorsing a social constructionist perspective, I base my study on the idea that the meaning of taste is continu ally constructed in the interaction among people. In the case of an organization in the field of cultural production, I regard the organization as an arena for the construction4 of taste (and, naturally, of an abundance of other "things" such as leadership, gender, sexuality, deviance, compe tency, skills, etc (see for example Weick 1979, 1995; Liska 1981; Hosking 1988; Wahl 1992; Hook 2001a; Sjostrand, Sandberg and Tyrstrup 2001; Wahl eta!. 2001)). The overall ambition of this study is to understand an organization located in the field of cultural production through the notion of taste. My rationale for this particu lar focus rests on the idea that taste is something every organizational member in the field must relate to in his or her work. Hence, this study calls for a closer look at the construction processes and uses of taste in organizations in the cultural production field. As a researcher, I too take part in constructing taste in the organization in question, through my preconceptions and theoretical choices. I problematize taste and organization in a certain way. In addition to the two intersecting logics presented above, this study is informed by select notions of taste. Notions of taste Taste can be conceptualized as an operationalization of cultural capital, as a medium for distinction, and is, accordingly, highly valued by the cultural pole in the field of cultural production (Bourdieu 1984}. This kind of dis tinction can involve any cultural objects in the cultural consumption field (for example, art, music, literature, food, leisure activities), i.e., not just the product at the center of the organization. Based on the clear divide between popular and "legitimate" taste, preferences for certain cultural products may be used to form symbolic boundaries around groups of people, boundaries which serve to include some and exclude others (see Bourdieu 1984, Lamont and Fournier 1992, Holt 1997). Symbolic boundaries may thus function as impediments to attain ing certain positions within organizations. It has however been demonstrated that not only can cul tural objects be used as a basis for the formation of sym bolic boundaries (as a medium for power), but they also can be employed in "least common denominator" con versations as a valuable interaction medium (Douglas and Isherwood 1979, DiMaggio 1987) in line with Simmel's sociability concept (Simmel 19 so). By adding an organizational context to the study of taste, I auto matically introduce a new set of conditions not present in other social contexts where the distinctive aspect of cultural objects might dominate. The role of taste in organizations in the field of cultural production is most likely not solely a question of distinction, not only because of the two principles of legitimacy, but also because of the organizational arena itself.