Informal Networks and Risk Coping Strategies in Temporary Organizations: The Case of Media Production in Germany

The erosion of internal labor markets, together with the rise of flexible forms of work such as projects, increases uncertainty regarding the coordination of work and labor market transactions, and it makes employment, income and career perspectives less predictable. This paper addresses the questions of what, if any, kinds of institutional and social-structural conditions are able to provide stability in the absence of the open-ended employment relationship, and which individual certainty strategies are used. On the basis of qualitative, semi-structured interviews with experts and project workers in the German television and film industry, it is argued that the institutional and social-structural context matters crucially for individual strategies to reduce uncertainty. More specifically, this paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the interrelationship between networks and biographies, and of the interaction between networking and other forms of coping with risks and uncertainty