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Network Diversity and Network Change in Creative Careers

Tue, August 15, 2:30 to 4:10pm, Palais des congrès de Montréal, Floor: Level 5, 516D

Abstract

There is a vast amount of research examining how social capital influences individual success. Many studies have sought to highlight the optimal network structures that lead to varying successful outcomes. Less clear, however, is how social capital over time and dynamic network structures influence measures of labor-market success or failure. To address this gap, this study argues that brokerage and closure over time has both a helping and hindering effect on labor-market success. Specifically, individuals can be both over and underembedded in their networks, both of which influence success. Using a longitudinal networks dataset of collaborating jazz musicians between 1945 and 1958, I apply existing theoretical frameworks in network analysis to determine the effect of network dynamics on labor market success. Findings reveal that musicians who occupy a brokering structural position will be more successful than those who occupy a closed position. Regarding network change, I find that a balance between personnel change and reoccurring collaboration provides optimal network structure for success. I also find an inverted U-shaped relationship between amounts of change or recurrence and success. This study contributes to the literature on social capital’s influence on labor market outcomes in creative careers over time as well as augments the overembeddedness hypothesis by examining an underembeddedness hypothesis longitudinally.

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