Brokerage Styles and Interaction Rituals in Creative Projects: Toward an Interactionist Perspective on Brokerage

Santi Furnari, Marianna Rolbina

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Despite the importance of brokers in creative projects, limited attention has been devoted to the micro-interactions by which brokers induce others’ collaboration while simultaneously retaining some control over creative production. Building on an interactionist perspective, we develop the concept of brokerage style – i.e., a recognizable pattern in the ways in which a broker interacts with others. By using different brokerage styles in different phases of a creative project, brokers can orient the social interactions among project participants, “charging” those interactions with different types of emotional energy and mutual attention, eventually inducing collective collaboration and limiting participants’ expectations of control. We illustrate our interactionist model of brokerage styles with examples from the music and TV industries.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)17-45
Number of pages29
JournalResearch in the Sociology of Organizations
Volume55
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Apr 2018

Keywords

  • creative projects
  • brokerage
  • micro-interaction
  • interaction ritual
  • creativity
  • conceptual paper

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