The impact of reputational resources on event performance in international film festivals

Our research addresses the question: How do international film festivals acquire and confer reputational resources? Elsaesser (2005) suggests that festivals function as ad-hoc stock exchange of reputations and arbiters and taste-makers . Drawing upon his work and resource based view of strategy we propose that the most valuable intangible resource of international film festivals is their reputation. Further, using Dierickx & Cool\u27s (1989) intangible asset stock accumulation model we propose that the competitive advantage of an international film festival depends on its stocks of reputation, while renewing advantage depends on flows of reputation. The stocks of reputation are captured by the film festival\u27s jury profile, and the flows of reputation are represented by the profile of directors of films included in the competition section of the film festival. Findings suggest that the stock variable -number of feature film credits of a jury member, and the flow variable - number of award nominations of a director are significantly related to international film festival performance. One of the key contributions of our study is the operationalization of international film festival reputational resources in terms of stocks and flows, and its effect on event performance. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT