We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Overcoming the Illegitimacy Discount: Cultural Entrepreneurship in the US Feature Film Industry.
- Authors
Zhao, Eric Yanfei; Ishihara, Masakazu; Lounsbury, Michael
- Abstract
How can organizations spanning institutionalized categories mitigate against the possibility of reduced attention by audiences? While there has been a good deal of research on the illegitimacy discount of category spanning, scant attention has been paid to how organizations might strategically address this potential problem. In this paper, we explore how the strategic naming of products might enhance audience attention despite the liabilities associated with category spanning. Drawing on a sample of films released in the United States market between 1982 and 2007, we analyze different naming strategies and show that names that simply signal familiarity are not potent enough to offset the illegitimacy discount, while names imbued with known reputations serve as a symbolic device that enhances audience attention to genre-spanning films.
- Subjects
UNITED States; ENTREPRENEURSHIP; DISCOUNT prices; MOTION pictures; FILM genres; MOTION picture industry; ORGANIZATIONAL performance
- Publication
Organization Studies, 2013, Vol 34, Issue 12, p1747
- ISSN
0170-8406
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/0170840613485844