Elizabeth Lingo
Organizational Behavior PhD
Dissertation Chair: Prof. K. McGinn
Negotiations and Lovesongs: A Theory of Nexus Work in Market-Based Cultural Industry Projects
In this dissertation I studied the practice of Nashville producers to understand how they manage the creation of music projects in a market context. Producers are faced with managing a non-routinizable process for securing resources from market resource gatekeepers and an ambiguous quality aesthetic emerging through interaction among occupational specialists. In this research, I have shown that producers engage in nexus work, or the active management and integration of the relationships, resources and perspectives of actors engaged in market-based projects. Actors central to the cultural production process engage in nexus work. More specifically, I have identified and defined a repertoire of nexus work practices used by nexus actors. Producers draw from the repertoire and use certain practices in varying ways, based on the differing demands of their market and project contexts. In particular, I have shown that how nexus work is enacted is shaped by the opportunity and ambiguity structures of nexus actors' project and market segment contexts. Throughout the dissertation, I have shown that while the opportunity and ambiguity structures shape the demands for the nexus practices, not all nexus actors use the same nexus work practices in response to the same demands, or in the same ways, or in ways that guarantee the project's success or a successful role performance. Nexus actors' role enactments are shaped by their situated context, but not determined by it.
More generally, I suggest that nexus work involves coping with three dualities that are increasingly present in organizing efforts. Nexus work involves managing the duality of market and project contexts, and the permeability of a project and market interface. Nexus actors both respond to constraints of interface permeability as well as utilize permeability to their advantage. Second, nexus work involves an inextricably intertwined duality of not only nurturing and eliciting perspectives and creative potential, but also winnowing and integrating the perspectives and potential. Third, at the level of interaction, nexus work involves simultaneously pursuing project marketability while managing the subtle nuances of ambiguous and overlapping occupational jurisdictions.
