Reputation management for creative workers in the media industry

Abstract

ABSTRACT Creative workers in media industries work under particular employment conditions and structures that can be described as “atypical employment”. For most of the creative workforce, employment is not full-time, and the average annual income is low and unpredictable. It is important for the creative workforce to know that reputation plays a decisive role in overcoming barriers of entry to networks, and obstacles to employment in artistic-creative projects. Thus, it is crucial to learn how reputational capital can be built, developed, preserved and expanded. Therefore, this paper will present a theoretical framework for reputation management that demonstrates the complex cause-and-effect relationships among a creative worker’s reputational capital as an intangible resource in a media network. It will be shown that a creative worker’s personal branding has instrumental value for the development and maintenance of reputational capital. Moreover, this paper conceptualises reputation management based on a review of related literature for the purpose of conceptual development.