When Fields Intersect: Capital Activation in Art World Mentoring

• In Event: 2451 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 24. Social Networks

Abstract

What explains the mechanism by which mentoring produces benefits? What explains why mentoring benefits some more than others? While extant scholarship is focused on the characteristics of mentors/protégés or the content of mentoring relationships, I show that the success of mentoring is a function of structural factors like mentors’ field position. Using data from interviews with 27 art school professors, I show how mentors (professors) activate capital on behalf of protégés (students) and how the capital activation process is constrained by the structure of the art world and mentors’ position within it. I found that professors activate capital through four primary activities: giving advice or instruction (cultural capital), passing information (social capital), mining networks (social capital), and exerting influence (symbolic capital). I also found that capital activation—thus, the success of mentoring relationships—was constrained by professors’ position at field intersections. Professors positioned at field intersections—e.g., professors with gallery representation—were more valuable to protégés, on average, than mentors positioned in one field only. This paper addresses the mentoring literature by showing how the structural context of mentoring can constrain protégé outcomes. This paper also addresses organizational field theory, where research on field intersections and capital activation are underdeveloped.

Author

• Peter Lista, Indiana University