Abstract

Two main accounts of the effect of social proximity between candidates competing for recognition and members of the evaluating audience can be extrapolated from extant literature on peer-based tournament rituals and cultural fields. Following a Bourdieusian tradition, one account—which we label “self-reproduction”—points to the catalyzing effect of social proximity in shaping recognition along relational lines. Drawing from recent scholarship on social evaluation, a second account—which we call “intellectual distance”—suggests that social proximity deters recognition. We probe the influence of different articulations of social proximity (i.e., direct ties, cliquishness, and reciprocity) on recognition by studying awarding decisions within the context of the Norwegian advertising industry. Interviews with key informants as well as econometric results suggest that, while self-reproduction tends to prevail over intellectual distance, these effects coexist and their relative influence varies across levels of recognition. We gauge the relative saliency of the two accounts by using a mixed methods approach. Important implications for research on social evaluation and recognition in peer-based tournament rituals are drawn.

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The authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally. We gratefully acknowledge helpful comments from the participants in the strategic management seminar series at Fox School of Business at Temple University, the entrepreneurship and innovation workshop at Imperial College Business School, the organization studies seminar series at the MIT Sloan School of Management, the management seminar series at Columbia Business School, Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, National University of Singapore, and Seoul National University. Earlier versions of this manuscript were presented at the 32nd European Group for Organizational Studies Colloquium and at the 2017 Academy of Management Annual Meeting. We gratefully acknowledge financial assistance from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research through the PRIN funding scheme (grant no. 2015LJXRXJ), the European Research Council (grant no. 695256), and the University of Bologna (Alma Idea funding). In addition, we thank the sociology department at the University of Pennsylvania, where the third author was fortunate enough to spend a wonderful sabbatical leave during the completion of this manuscript. We are grateful to John Chandler Johnson and Urjitkumar Patel for valuable assistance in constructing the prior positive co-experience and reciprocity variables, respectively. All errors remain the authors’ responsibility.

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Friends, Gifts, and Cliques: Social Proximity and Recognition in Peer-Based Tournament Rituals

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