Learning from broadcasts of project participation: selection of second-tier actors during project-venture formation in the movie industry, 1931-40

摘要

The disintegration of project ventures after task completion creates challenges for the retention and transfer of knowledge to future projects. Consequently, it is not clear to what degree and under what conditions learning across projects occurs in project-venture settings. This study argues that the industry-wide broadcasting of project participants' identities plays a key role in supporting performance-outcome learning during the formation of project-venture teams. In a stratified random sample of 233 US movie projects between 1931 and 1940, performance-outcome learning affected the selection of second-tier participants. Such learning, however, was conditional on the industry-level availability of both project participant information and project performance for prior projects. Industry-wide broadcasting of participants' identities by individual projects in the form of on-screen credits was sufficient to enable this form of performance-outcome learning in the movie industry. The emergence of the internet has created similar industry-wide broadcasting opportunities for other project-venture systems.