Managing Creativity in Distress Elaborating on the Resilience of Temporary Organisations based on the Film Industry’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Managing Creativity in Distress

Elaborating on the Resilience of Temporary Organisations based on the Film Industry’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Copenhagen Business School (CBS)

MSc EBA (Strategy, Organization and Leadership) Supervisor: Associate Professor Joana Geraldi

Ramon Oehninger Student Number: 133355

Copenhagen, 17 May 2021

Number of Characters: 159,921 Number of Pages: 70.3

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Abstract

Due to the ever-increasing uncertainty and volatility in the general business environment, the focus on how organisations can prepare for and deal with potential disruptions has been growing accordingly. Most recently, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exemplified that such disturbances are often of unsuspected nature. Therewith, it is implied that organisations can neither anticipate, nor fully prepare for such manifestations of the unexpected. Consequently, it is rather unsurprising that the focus on how organisations can achieve resilience to not only cope with these incidents effectively, but to also do it in a way that potentially fosters future success and improves business performance, has become a focal point of organisation studies.

This thesis embraces the unfortunate disruption caused by the pandemic, to elaborate on the understanding of resilience in the context of temporary organisations. In order to do that, the analysis focuses on how the film industry, a paradigmatic case of temporary organisation, responded to COVID-19-realted issues and how resilience became manifest in this example. In doing so, it can not only be highlighted that impromptu trade-offs between creative and economic concerns are an integral part in achieving resilience in creative and cultural production, but it can also be emphasised how the social and contextual embeddedness of temporary organisations gives rise to an understanding of resilience that accounts for the necessity of collaborative action with system-external stakeholders. As a result, this thesis suggests a theorisation of resilience on a micro-level and on a macro-level depending on the nature of the disruption.

To achieve such an understanding, the analysis centred around twelve semi-structured interviews with various producers, executives and directors who experienced the problems and coping mechanisms first-hand. The result of such a focus is that the thesis’ understanding of the themes that typified resilience in the industry’s crisis response is inherently relevant to the study of temporary organisations and creative work, without being imposed from a potentially biased academic standpoint.

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I. List of Tables and Figures

Table 1: List of Interview Partners ... 20

Table 2: Key Questions and Corresponding Themes ... 21

Figure 1: The Pillars of the Film Industry (based on Eliashberg et al., 2006: Johnston, 1926; Jones & Lichtenstein, 2009; Lorenzen, 2007) ... 8

Figure 2: Resilience as a Meta-Capability (adapted from Duchek, 2020, p. 224) ... 12

Figure 3: Data Structure ... 24

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1 Introduction

The economic climate of the past two decades has been characterised by an ever-growing interdependence (Linnenluecke, 2017), as well as by the increasing complexity, volatility and uncertainty of the general business environment (Duchek, 2020). Accordingly, “organizations are frequently confronted with unexpected events such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks or technical malfunctions” (ibid., p. 216). The name of these events is indicative of their often unsuspected occurrence which not only tends to take organisations by surprise, but also poses unique challenges (Duchek, 2020; Linnenluecke, 2017). As a result, the idea of preparing and dealing with unexpected events and disruptions has naturally garnered growing amounts of traction within business and management research (Duchek, 2020; Linnenluecke, 2017;

Naderpajouh et al., 2020). While the topic has been addressed from a plethora of perspectives, ranging from risk and crisis management to business continuity, the discussion has culminated on the notion of organisational resilience (Linnenluecke, 2017). However, due to the immense interest of a variety of fields, the definition of the concept is immensely diversified (Duchek, 2020; Linnenluecke, 2017; Oppong Banahene et al., 2014), For example, while Bracci and Tallaki (2021) define it broadly as being able to survive or even thrive when facing crises, Linnenluecke (2017) simply establishes it as a decisive characteristic in times of adversity.

Adger et al. (2011), on the other hand, offer a more detailed conceptualisation as they view resilience as “the ability of a system to deal with, and respond to, a spectrum of shocks and perturbations whilst retaining the same structure and function” (p. 697). Overall, it can be recognised that resilient organisations are particularly able to not only survive, but to cope effectively with crises in a way that may “even foster future success” (Duchek, 2020, p. 215).

Most recently, the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic has propelled the concept of resilience into mainstream attention, as businesses and individuals alike have been subjected to unprecedented circumstances that seemingly emerged over night. The temporary closure of businesses and government regulations restricting civic freedom and gatherings of people may seem like snippets from dystopian novels, but they have been part of our reality for over a year.

The pandemic has brought the world to a virtual standstill and will most likely shape the economic climate for years to come considering the recession it triggered (The World Bank, 2020). In these highly uncertain times, where recurring nationwide lockdowns are intercepted by efforts for the controlled reopening of society, an organisation’s ability to quickly adapt to changing regulations may be a decisive factor affecting their survival.

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The extensive research into temporary organisations and projects indicates that some organisations may be more adept in navigating the current economic climate as they generally operate in highly uncertain environments (Bakker, 2010; Bechky, 2006; Geraldi et al., 2010;

Naderpajouh et al., 2020). In other words, an understanding of projects as temporary organisations (Sydow & Braun, 2018) that are inherently uncertain and prone to unexpected events (Geraldi et al., 2010), renders responding to such “a fundamental function [of] project management” (ibid., p. 547). Furthermore, temporary organisations, which are typified by a finite timespan (Bakker, 2010; Lundin & Söderholm, 1995; Sydow & Braun, 2018), usually deal with more complex tasks and offer high levels of flexibility (Sydow & Braun, 2018) amidst high environmental and task uncertainty (Bechky, 2006). Therefore, by simply building on the notion of practice makes perfect or Malcom Gladwell’s famous Ten-Thousand-Hours-Rule, organisations that deal with uncertainty more frequently should by association be more capable of coping with unexpected events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Such assumptions are somewhat substantiated by Bechky (2006) who mentions that “temporary organizations are known to provide flexibility for industries that rely on them” (p. 3). Furthermore, the concept of High Reliability Organisations (HROs) also reinforces such an understanding as they, by default, operate in hazardous conditions with a high potential for errors, but still manage to achieve a high level of safety and “have fewer than their fair share of adverse events” (Sutcliffe, 2011, p. 133). Jones and Lichtenstein (2009) further add on the notion of temporary organisations providing resilience in times of crises by establishing that interorganisational projects (IOPs) are especially prolific in dealing with uncertainty and are often employed to manage crisis situations. As a result, it is rather unsurprising that these types of organisations are in practice often employed in areas where there is great uncertainty and a high likelihood of unexpected events (Jones & Lichtenstein, 2009; Naderpajouh et al., 2020). For example, Naderpajouh et al. (2020) mention that “temporary organising through projects is essential to ensure continuity of critical societal functions in the face of crisis as well as to mitigate its consequences” (p. 2). Similarly, Pearson and Clair (1998) hint at the benefits of establishing temporary crisis management teams in times of organisational turmoil.

1.1 Research Question and Objectives

Since temporary organisations are known to be adaptive and provide flexibility, this thesis aims to explore whether they can consequently be expected to be more resilient in times of crises.

More precisely, by specifically focusing on how the film industry handled an extreme form of

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unexpected events in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic, this thesis’ objective is to elaborate on how resilience is understood in the context of temporary organisations. In doing so, it can be investigated whether industries centring on temporary forms of organisation tend to be more resilient and how resilience is manifested.

While organisation through projects can be encountered in many industries (Bechky, 2006;

Sydow & Braun, 2018), this analysis focuses on temporary organisation within the film industry for several crucial reasons. First, the film industry is a perfect example of temporary organising as every shoot is a transient endeavour that requires the cooperation of an unfamiliar group of people, each specialised in their own métier, in order to “coordinate complex interdependent activity under severe time pressure” (Bechky, 2006, p. 4). Furthermore, projects are the main form of how the industry is organised and not just an arbitrary means of accomplishing specific tasks (Bakker, 2010; Bechky, 2006; Lorenzen, 2017; Sydow & Braun, 2018). Second, film productions exhibit the characteristically high uncertainty of temporary forms of organising (Bechky, 2006). In other words, there is a variety of things that could go wrong and potentially derail the whole project that need to be dealt with effectively in order to mitigate potential consequences. While there are smaller issues, like the threat of changing weather conditions (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998; Johnston, 1926), that may be handled more easily with greater experience, there are unexpected events, such as Tom Cruise breaking his ankle while performing an ‘easy’ stunt during the production of Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Schaffstall, 2018). Therefore, it can be recognised that film productions, by default, deal with uncertainty, complexity, and novelty on a more regular basis than traditional businesses and that, as a result, film workers could be expected to be well versed in coping with disruptions and unexpected events. Lastly, the film industry, aside from simply coping with unprecedented challenges, was also met with unique opportunities because of the pandemic. More precisely, since cultural and leisure activities have been prohibited or restricted for longer periods of time, the film industry experienced unparalleled levels of demand for its products (Roettgers, 2020). However, because the at times lengthy nationwide lockdowns also gravely complicated the production of new material (ibid.), the industry was subjected to a favourable disequilibrium. As a result, there seemingly was an incredibly powerful incentive for proactively dealing with the crisis as quickly as possible. Due to these reasons, this thesis views the response of the film industry to the ongoing pandemic as an ideal opportunity to explore whether temporary organisations can

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be expected to be more resilient than traditional ones. As a result, following research question is established:

Is the film industry resilient and how does resilience manifest itself?

In framing the research question as such, the focus lies less on the prevention of internal failures, similar to HROs (Roberts et al., 2001; Sutcliffe, 2011), but rather on resilient responses to truly unexpected external events. Although, anticipation is an integral part of organisational resilience (Duchek, 2020), this thesis argues that the drivers of resilience are best noticeable when coping with challenges that cannot be prepared for. This is because during such times, organisations are navigating untested waters and do not simply respond to situations where contingency plans already exist. Therefore, an organisation’s or an industry’s response to COVID-19 is expected to distinctly uncover the characteristics of their more or less resilient response. It is duly noted that some questions regarding potential awareness to the COVID-19 pandemic are warranted based on Bill Gates’ (2015) now infamous TEDTalk and subsequent warning efforts (Baker, 2020). However, evaluating potential shortcomings within anticipatory capabilities is beyond the scope of this paper. Therefore, for this thesis, the pandemic is treated as an event that could not have been anticipated.

In order to develop valid answers to the research question, this thesis employs a rigorous qualitative research design based on a Grounded Theory approach. The main objective of engaging with the topic in such a way is that the understanding of resilience in the context of temporary organisations is allowed to be driven by first-hand experiences of the crisis without potentially limiting the understanding by imposing specific theoretical perspectives. Therewith, it can be ensured that the emerging factors characterising resilience are innately relevant for temporary organisations and actually reflect the reality of their crisis response. Furthermore, in doing so, the influence of potentially biased academic presumptions on the evaluation of the collected data can be limited. In addition, by specifically accounting for the intricacies of the creative industries, and especially film production, this thesis aims to articulate potential drivers and constraints on resilience arising from cultural products. Explicitly acknowledging such influences potentially enables extending the findings within a broader context of temporary organisations that is less impacted by the research design. Lastly, the thesis aims to explore how constantly dealing with uncertainty influences the resilience of organisations in regard to more severe, high-impact events that cannot be prepared for.

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Overall, the data analysis indicated that while the continuous exposure to uncertainty that requires flexible ad-hoc management capabilities, seems to have enabled the film industry to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic quite effectively, there are two distinct areas that require further attention. More precisely, first, the findings emphasise the need for resilience capabilities on two distinct levels, a macro- and a micro-level. While the organisational (or micro-) level is crucial for a resilient response to unexpected events, resilience on the interorganisational (or macro-) level is essential due to the high interdependence of temporary organisations. In other words, for this the extreme case, it was indicated that a resilient response solely on the micro-level may have been somewhat insufficient. Therefore, it could be concluded that fostering macro-level resilience may be necessary for temporary organisations with an incredibly high interdependence of various parties, such as megaprojects. Second, the analysis has shown that in the context of creative products, achieving ambidexterity between artistic and commercial concerns could potentially inhibit resilient crisis responses in specific circumstances.

The structure of this thesis is as such that the state of the current research regarding the relevant concepts is introduced first. In doing so, a basic understanding of the underlying themes can be guaranteed, and any important particularities can be highlighted. Subsequently, the methodological approach considering the underlying philosophical view and the research design is elucidated. In this section, a detailed account of how the data was collected and evaluated is provided in order to increase the transparency and reliability of the data analysis, while also addressing potential methodological limitations. Finally, the findings from the data collection are presented and their implications within a broader academic and practical concept are discussed.

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2 Literature Review

In alignment with Gioia et al. (2012), the literature review for this thesis is neither extensive nor exhaustive, since qualitative studies using a Grounded Theory method “[presume] a level of semi-ignorance or some suspension of belief in the received wisdom of prior work” (p. 23).

Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is simply to systematically introduce and elaborate on the key academic concepts that build the foundation for an informed understanding of the emergent themes in their theoretical context. First, a brief overview of the film industry, illustrating its intricacies and establishing the notion of achieving ambidexterity in creative and cultural work, is given. Second, the intricacies of temporary organisations are highlighted before this thesis’

understanding of organisational resilience is deduced.

2.1 The Film Industry

The film industry is organised through projects, as every film production is a “temporary and flexible [grouping] of skills and other inputs with given budgets and deadlines” (Lorenzen, 2007, p. 12). As a result, the industry has often been portrayed in terms of its characteristic uncertainty, especially concerning returns on investments, where high inputs do not necessarily guarantee high outputs (Eliashberg et al., 2006; Jones & DeFillippi, 1996). In other words, there exists a disconnect between the money spent on a film production and its value on the market as demonstrated by Eliashberg et al.’s (2006) example of “The Adventures of Pluto Nash, which cost over $100 million to produce but earned less than $5 million” (p. 641). Furthermore, while there is a myriad of highly successful and unsuccessful movies, there seemingly is no such thing as moderate success (Jones & DeFillippi, 1996) and the overwhelming majority actually fails to break even (Lorenzen, 2007). The reason for this is that neither research nor the success of past products can reliably predict the value of a new creative good ex ante, as it is based on the consumers’ subjective experiences (Caves, 2000; Jones & Lichtenstein, 2009; Lorenzen, 2007).

Therefore, the “producer’s intimate knowledge of the good’s production process still leaves him in the dark about whether customers will like it” (Caves, 2000, p. 3). The problem of a highly uncertain rate of return is further exacerbated by film productions being an incredibly time-sensitive endeavours where potential delays could vastly delude the economic viability.

This is especially relevant regarding the potential impact COVID-19 pandemic, as “with the project under way and $95 million already spent, any delay that postpones the influx of revenue is very costly”, while the profitability is not much affected by postponements prior to money being committed (ibid., p. 8).

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One major implication of the uncertainty and the unstable economic viability of film projects is that industry members who manage to limit negative consequences are highly valued and

“gain a disproportionate share of the opportunities and resources” (Jones & DeFillippi, 1996, p. 90). Simultaneously, however, creative workers exhibit greater care about their product to such an extent that an artist may divert effort to aspects of the product that consumers neither value nor notice (Caves, 2000). Therefore, valuable time is spent on areas that do not increase the consumers’ willingness to pay and hence amass costs that are unlikely to be recovered (ibid.). For example, suppose a director continues to delay a shoot because the setup or execution of a scene is not fully corresponding to his ideal vision, it will defer the influx of revenue for the same amount of time and incur financial consequences correspondingly. As a result, it can be recognised that any film production “is a long succession of creative decisions with far-reaching economic implications for the different players involved” (Eliashberg et al., 2006, p. 640). However, for the director this decision may ultimately be worthwhile after all, since his reputation is as much affected by his artistic skills as it is by his ability to contain costs (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998; Jones & DeFillippi, 1996). Consequently, it can be recognised that creative workers are inherently confronted with opposing objectives regarding creative and industrial concerns (Lorenzen, 2007; Murphy, 2016; Wu & Wu, 2016). Wu and Wu (ibid.) refer to resolving such tensions “between creativity and other organisational goals at the project level” as achieving alignment ambidexterity (p. 2389).

In order to keep coordination costs to a minimum and therewith potentially allow for a higher level of creative realisation, the film industry is organised according to highly specialised fields of expertise (Bechky, 2006; Jones & Lichtenstein, 2009; Lorenzen, 2006). Lorenzen (2007) distinguishes them according to creatives, such as writers, directors and actors, technicians, such as editors or cinematographers, and managers, mainly in the form of producers. Film projects are therewith reliant on the successful collaboration of interdependent experts, all while being confronted with extreme uncertainty and tight time constraints (Bechky, 2006). As a result, DeFillippi and Arthur (1998), as well as Jones and DeFillippi (1996), recognise the importance of collaborative skills for freelancers in the industry, next to the aforementioned ability to mitigate uncertainty and manage costs. Furthermore, the constellation of these project teams is decisive for its success and can suffer from having collaborated too much or too little on past film productions (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998).

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Figure 1: The Pillars of the Film Industry (based on Eliashberg et al., 2006: Johnston, 1926; Jones & Lichtenstein, 2009; Lorenzen, 2007)

As depicted in Figure 1, the industry is organised according to three integral functions that have already been recognised as such nearly a century ago (Johnston, 1926). While the particulars of some have changed over time, with, for example, the rise of independent production companies or technological advances in exhibition, they remain the central pillars of the industry (Eliashberg et al., 2006; Johnston, 1926). Following, these are briefly introduced to outline the wider context of the research subject.

Production: The development process for all kinds of film projects is unique but will always begin with some story concept, for example in the form of a full screenplay or a simple idea, that is subsequently developed in collaboration with writers (Eliashberg et al., 2006).

Following, if the project is accepted and continued, both the fundraising and recruitment is pursued by the producer simultaneously and the production budget is prepared (Eliashberg et al., 2006; Jones & Lichtenstein, 2009). Subsequently, the actual shooting process is initiated, which is followed by postproduction activities, such as editing and special effects (ibid.).

Distribution: The second stage encompasses marketing activities, as well as the physical distribution of the product (Eliashberg et al., 2006). One crucial decision that must be addressed by the distributors is the timing of the cinematic release, since the box office success is the main determinator of the film’s price tag further down the revenue cascade (ibid.). Eliashberg et al.

(ibid.) recognised the increasing value of nontheatrical windows in recouping the initial investment as the main motivation for producers aiming to shorten the time between distribution windows.

Production Distribution Exhibition

FILM INDUSTRY

 Development: scripting

 Preproduction: casting, art design, budgeting, financing

 Production: shooting

 Postproduction: editing, effects, scoring, sound

 Sales channels

 Advertising

 Physical distribution (shipping)

 Cinema

 Television (Pay-TV, Free-TV)

 Video retail

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Exhibition: According to Jones and DeFillippi (1996), the main interest of production companies is to recover their investment as soon as possible, since film productions rely on substantial amounts of upfront financing (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998), which incurs interest payments with passing time (Jones & DeFillippi, 1996). Therefore, the exhibition windows and value cascade are defined according to revenue contribution (Eliashberg et al., 2006). As such, a film is first released where it achieves the highest returns within the shortest time period (ibid.), which is arguably why the prime status of cinematic releases has been upheld in spite of the technological developments of the last decades.

2.2 Temporary Organisations

The current academic understanding of temporary organisation is driven by two seminal theorisations from Lundin and Söderholm (1995) and from Turner and Müller (2003), who use it to enrichen their conceptualisation of projects and to establish it as a production function. In doing so, they establish uncertainty management as one of the main tasks of projects (ibid.).

Overall, temporary organisations are distinguishable in terms of time, task, team, and transition (Lundin & Söderholm, 1995; Sydow & Braun, 2018). However, this thesis opts for embracing Bakker’s (2010) slightly altered perspective, where transition is replaced by context due to little academic literature substantiating Lundin and Söderholm’s (1995) fourth theme (Bakker, 2010;

Sydow & Braun, 2018). Overall, it can be recognised that temporary organisations are almost exclusively driven by a need for specific actions or for achieving immediate goals (Lundin &

Söderholm, 1995; Turner & Müller, 2003). Consequently, film productions can be classified as such in that they are “time-pressured, performance-driven undertakings” (DeFillippip & Arthur, 1998, p. 129), whose immediate and sole purpose is the creation of an audio-visual product (Lorenzen, 2007). Furthermore, as briefly touched upon, they exclusively rely on the collaboration of specialised personnel. Following, the adopted understanding of how temporary organisations differ from permanent ones is addressed based on the four dimensions.

Time: Temporary organisations are transient endeavours that have an ex ante defined termination date (Bakker, 2010; Bakker et al., 2016; Lundin & Söderholm, 1995; Sydow &

Braun, 2018; Turner & Müller, 2003). Therewith, it is implied that while time is precious in all kinds of organisations, “for a temporary organization the handling of time is more complicated, since their time is literally limited” and hence the general sentiment is that “time is always running out” (Lundin & Söderholm, 1995, p. 439). Time is viewed as a linear concept

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progressing through distinct phases, where it is integral that the task and resource allocations are meticulously defined in the initial stage (ibid.). This understanding is clearly evident in the aforementioned description of the film production process. Due to the severe time pressure, there is a constant sense of urgency (Turner & Müller, 2003) that requires temporary organisations to be highly organised and effective in “dealing with time problems and [in]

acting according to the perception of time as being scarce, linear and valuable” (Lundin &

Söderholm, 1995, p. 440). However, acknowledging time as being scarce does in no means imply that temporary organisations need to be of short duration (Bakker, 2010), as, for example, demonstrated by the typically long duration of megaprojects (Nachbagauer & Schirl-Boeck, 2018) or the long-lasting research projects in biotechnology (Jones & Lichtenstein, 2009).

Task: An understanding of temporary organisations as production functions indicates that the task is what legitimises a temporary organisation’s existence and is often the sole purpose for its creation (Bakker, 2010; Jones & Lichtenstein, 2009; Lundin & Söderholm, 1995; Turner &

Müller, 2003). While some temporary organisations are “created for one single and specific situation that will not occur again” others complete repetitive tasks, where a shared understanding of the situation in the broader context already exists (Lundin & Söderholm, 1995, p. 441). However, Turner and Müller (2003) establish that even when formed around repetitive tasks, these endeavours are unique, as past or future projects may be similar but never exactly the same.

Team: Since the completion of a task is the prevalent objective, the teams are always designed

“around the task or around some aspects of it” (ibid., p. 442). Consistent with the overall time- restricted nature of these type of organisations, team affiliations therefore often take form of temporary assignments (ibid.). Bakker (2010) emphasises the interdependence of such teams in that the members often contribute unique skills that are intrinsically necessary for accomplishing the task. Within the film industry, the team that works on a production is contractually obligated to provide their services exclusively for this one project for the entire duration to facilitate coordination (Jones & Lichtenstein, 2009).

Context: The last dimension of temporary organisations elaborates on the relationships between them and their enduring environment (Bakker, 2010). More precisely, it underlines “a contextual perspective on temporary organizational forms, which sees “[them] as inextricably embedded within an organizational and social context” both on a firm, as well as on a societal

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basis (ibid., p. 479). By emphasising that film productions are interorganisational projects where the product is produced jointly between multiple collaborating organisations (Jones &

Lichtenstein, 2009; Sydow & Braun, 2018), the importance of social embeddedness in their context is specifically highlighted. The concept of social embeddedness emphasises the structural embeddedness of the film industry where “shared rules and understandings provide a macroculture, […] that actors use when coordinating their collaborative activities” (Jones &

Lichtenstein, 2009, p. 239).

2.3 Organisational Resilience

As briefly touched upon in the Introduction, the general business environment is becoming increasingly uncertain, which can subject organisations to unanticipated, nearly unthinkable challenges as perfectly exemplified by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. According to Duchek (2020), it is essential for firms to develop resilience capabilities as in order to “survive in uncertain environments and to foster future success, organizations must be able to handle all of these manifestations of the unexpected” (p. 216). While the conceptualisations of resilience have famously been diversified (Duchek, 2020; Linnenluecke, 2017; Naderpajouh et al., 2020 Oppong Banahene et al., 2014), both Linnenluecke (2017) and Duchek (2020) have recently pushed for a more general understanding of the concept. While Linnenluecke (2017) differentiates between five distinct perspectives on resilience that are operationalised differently, Duchek (2020) views the concept as an overarching meta-capability. Because an understanding of resilience capabilities not only illuminates how resilient organisations behave, but “it can [also] help to explain why some organizations are better able to cope with unexpected events than others” (ibid., p. 225), this thesis’ understanding of resilience is strongly based on Duchek’s (2020) recognition of the concept as a meta-capability consisting of anticipation, coping and adaptation stages (Figure 2). This is because such an understanding of resilience is innately relevant in regard to the research question and objectives, where the way how resilience becomes manifest is an integral focus. Furthermore, it allows for insights into specific features that render the film industry’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic more, or less resilient.

Consequently, resilience is established as “an important success factor in dealing with unexpected threats and crises” and is distinguished from concepts, such as flexibility or agility, which are useful in dealing with daily incidents (ibid., p. 216). The value of such a conceptualisation of resilience lies in its acknowledgement of resilience as a process while also

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addressing its underlying capabilities (ibid.). This is imperative, as an understanding of resilience capabilities potentially enables conclusions as to why some organisations may deal with unexpected events more effectively than others (ibid.). As depicted in Figure 2, the resilience process progresses successively through three, in practice, at times overlapping stages focusing on reactive, concurrent, and anticipatory action (ibid.). Therefore, it can be recognised that resilience encapsulates preparing for potential threats, as much as purposeful coping and organisational learning (ibid.). Overall, Duchek (ibid.) recognises resource availabilities, social resources, as well as power and responsibility as the main drivers of resilience.

Figure 2: Resilience as a Meta-Capability (adapted from Duchek, 2020, p. 224)

Anticipation: The first stage of the resilience process “refers to the ability to detect critical developments within the firm or in its environment to adapt proactively” (Duchek, 2020, p.

225). Therewith, the focus lies less on prevention, but on facilitating swift responses to minimise consequences should potential threats or the unexpected manifest themselves abruptly (ibid.). In doing so, the anticipation stage prepares organisations to capitalise on opportunities while coping with adversity (ibid.). However, Duchek (ibid.) also recognised that in the case of truly unexpected events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, anticipation capabilities are circumvented and intuitive ad-hoc coping is emphasised.

Coping: These second stage capabilities focus on resilience as ensuring survival in from of handling “unanticipated dangers after they have become manifest” (Wildavsky 1991, p. 77, as cited in Duchek, 2020, p. 227). Therefore, it can be recognised that in the research context, coping capabilities may be the most prominent. Furthermore, Duchek (ibid.) highlights the importance of accepting a problem as precondition of coping and effectively reacting to it.

BEFORE

the unexpected event DURING

the unexpected event AFTER

the unexpected event

Anticipation Coping Adaptation

RESILIENCE

Anticipatory/Proactive Action:

 Observation

 Identification

 Preparation

Concurrent Action:

 Accepting

 Developing and implementing solutions

Reactive Action:

 Reflection

 Learning

 Change

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Adaptation: The final resilience stage emphasises the notion of learning and organisational advancements in the aftermath of crises (ibid.). As a result, due to the COVID-19 pandemic still being an omnipresent feature of our daily lives, adaptation capabilities in the form of learning and inducing change are expected to feature less strikingly in the interview data.

3 Methodology

The research conducted in this thesis is deeply rooted in Saunders et al.’s (2016, 2019) detailed accounting of methods and methodology within management and business research. In doing so, a high standard of methodological rigour can be ensured that safeguards the process of knowledge creation from the initial wonderings to the resulting conclusions and implications.

This section elucidates the philosophical view adopted by this thesis, as well as the chosen research design and strategy, and further elaborates on the methods employed for data collection and processing.

3.1 Philosophical View

The philosophical stance of critical realism is applied to guide and shape the undertaking of this research and its ontological and epistemological assumptions. Its understanding is largely informed by literature from Eriksson and Kovalainen (2008), as well as Saunders et al. (2016).

While the former views critical realism as the combination of constructionist and positivist thinking (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008), the latter’s more precise classification establishes the concept as the middle ground between postmodernist nominalism and positivist direct realism (Saunders et al., 2016). In other words, unlike positivist philosophies, critical realism does not view our experiences as accurate portrayals of reality, but rather as a small part of a bigger picture (ibid.). However, the world is still perceived as observable and independent of human consciousness (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). Therewith, critical realism sees experiences as incomplete manifestations of the real world and knowledge as socially constructed (ibid.;

Saunders et al., 2016).

Accordingly, the analysis emphasises an objective reality while acknowledging that each interviewee’s point of view is a reflection of their subjective perception. Thus, it is stressed that only a combination of the various interpretations and the underlying social structures allows for an approximation of the independent observable world. This is relevant in the context of this thesis because it aims to determine how resilience manifests itself in the film industry’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, due to the nature of film production as a form

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of temporary organisation, the subjective perspective of individual experts is seen as more appropriate for the research context than the socially constructed realities of organisations.

3.1.1 Ontology and Epistemology

Ontology describes a researcher’s understanding of reality and determines how management and business are viewed (Saunders et al., 2016). Corresponding with the critical realist philosophy, this thesis perceives reality as objective and “[existing] independently of human thoughts and beliefs” but reiterates that it “is interpreted through social conditioning” (Saunders et al., 2012, p. 140). Therefore, a multitude of perceived realities can exist depending on the time and context of its interpretation (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). According to Guest et al.

(2013), such an interpretative view means that this research is unable to capture reality fully but merely creates a perception of it.

The epistemology addresses “what constitutes acceptable knowledge” (Saunders et al., 2016, p.136). Therewith, it guides the creation of and argumentation for knowledge by determining what can be deemed valid and legitimate (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008; Saunders et al., 2016).

Critical realist thinking embraces epistemological relativism, which highlights the influence of situational and social factors on knowledge, as well as its transient nature (Saunders et al., 2016). In doing so, it recognises knowledge as “a product of its time” and “a result of social conditioning [that] cannot be understood independently of the social actors involved” (ibid., 2016, p. 140). An understanding of how the researcher’s experiences and background may influence the analysis mitigates biases and allows for a more objective, but never complete answer to the research question (ibid.).

3.1.2 Approach to Theory Development

After elaborating on the ontological and epistemological assumptions that correspond with the researcher’s philosophical view, the approach to theory development determines how knowledge is created. Within social sciences, there are two main approaches to theory development, deduction and induction (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). These two ways of reasoning are of contrasting nature and differ in terms of logic, generalisability, as well as their use of data and theory (Saunders et al., 2016). A deductive approach deduces hypotheses and testable propositions from existing theory that are subjected to an empirical study aiming for falsification or verification (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008; Saunders et al., 2016). Conversely, within inductive reasoning, theory follows data (Saunders et al., 2016). Therefore, it focuses on

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themes and patterns emerging from data to create a conceptual framework (ibid.). However, despite such clear distinctions, Eriksson and Kovalainen (2008) note that these two approaches are rarely used in isolation but are rather applied iteratively throughout the research process.

The combination of the two approaches is known as abduction and “refers to the process of moving from the everyday descriptions and meanings given by people, to categories and concepts that create the basis of an understanding or an explanation to the phenomenon described” (ibid., p. 23). In doing so, abduction creates new hypotheses or ideas that are justified from empirical data via induction and evaluated via deduction (ibid.). Saunders et al. (2016) describe the abductive process as first exploring a phenomenon and identifying themes before relating them to theory with subsequent testing through additional data collection.

In alignment with the philosophical view, this paper relies on a predominantly inductive approach with some smaller abductive elements. More precisely, the thesis is driven by initial wonderings that determine the overreaching topic of interest, which is subsequently explored through data collection. The focus of the data collection is to improve the understanding of the context and the nature of the problem by recognising emerging differences and similarities between various sets of data (Saunders et al., 2019). These relationships that materialise are first grouped according to codes representing distinct themes and later allocated to broader categories that are linked to existing academic theory. Due to the simultaneous collection and analysis of data, emerging themes are at times subjected to verification in ensuing data collection. Moreover, because coding is a process of constant comparison between emergent themes, theory and new data, this research hence also elicits some abductive characteristics and agrees with Eriksson and Kovalainen’s (2008) notion that purely inductive research is nearly impossible. Such an abductive cycle during coding is valuable for critical realists as it arguably improves the approximation to the objective reality. The precise coding method will be elucidated in the Data Collection section towards the end of this chapter. Overall, an inductive approach is deemed the most appropriate way of reasoning because it emphasises that realities are subjective manifestations and is able to develop “an understanding of the way in which humans [interpret] their social world” (Saunders et al., 2019, p. 155).

3.2 Research Design

The research design, as outlined by Saunders et al. (2016), explains how the research question is developed into a research project and the general plan on how it will be addressed. In

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coherence with an inductive approach and the overreaching philosophical view, this thesis follows a qualitative research design with an exploratory nature. This decision is largely guided by the ability of exploratory studies to clarify the understanding of an issue or phenomenon by asking open questions (ibid.). In doing so, such a research design acknowledges the critical realist’s recognition of an individual’s experiences as incomplete manifestations of reality and promotes the collection of several distinct perspectives to allow for a closer understanding of the objective reality. As a result, an exploratory study favours qualitative data that is collected through relatively unstructured interviews and relies “on the quality of the contributions from those who participate to help guide the subsequent stage of [the] research” (Saunders et al., 2019, p. 187).

3.2.1 Research Strategy

Choosing the right research strategy guarantees a reasonable level of coherence and will enable the research to meet the outlined objectives (Saunders et al., 2016). Therefore, the choice should ideally be driven by the research question, the aforementioned philosophy and approach to theory development, as much as by pragmatic concerns, such as the availability of resources, the amount of time or the extent of existing knowledge (ibid.). In relation to this thesis, the research strategy is thus mainly constrained by the restricted timeframe of around five months from the initial conceptualisation to the final hand-in, as well as the researcher’s lack of prior experience within the chosen topic that could have provided a point of entry or facilitated the access to qualitative or quantitative data. Additionally, by framing the research as an inductive and exploratory study relying on qualitative data, the decision is further constrained as some strategies are more appropriate for certain research designs (Saunders et al., 2019).

Due to its recognition of reality as a social construct and its ability “to analyse, interpret and explain the meanings that social actors construct to make sense of their everyday experiences in specific situations” (ibid., p. 205), this research applies the Grounded Theory principle in the data analysis. According to Saunders et al. (ibid.), Grounded Theory research is a systematic approach to gather and evaluate qualitative data and a process where “a theory is grounded in or developed inductively from a set of data” (ibid., p. 205). According to Saunders et al. (ibid.), the conceptual theory emerges as an explanation of the relationships that are identified within the data. These relationships are discovered by the process of coding, which serves as a means of identifying major emergent themes from the data and grouping them into categories that eventually serve as the focal point of the study (ibid.). Therefore, coding is a process of

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determining differences and similarities between various subjective realities and linking them to existing academic theory (ibid.). Grounded Theory focuses on the simultaneous collection and analysis of data where the data gathered from an initial interview is analysed before the next interview is conducted (ibid.). For this thesis, this initial level of analysis has been performed in the form of notes and has identified early themes that have continuously been incorporated and tested in subsequent interviews. However, the actual coding and labelling of categories within NVivo 12 has only been initiated once the majority of interviews was conducted and fully transcribed. Despite the deferred official coding, the analysis was a process of constant comparison leading to the development of new codes or the reassessment of existing ones. In doing so, a higher level of analytical coding was ensured that exhibits characteristics of abductive research (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2008; Saunders et al., 2019).

3.2.2 Time Horizon

The time horizon of a study is concerned with whether a single snapshot of a phenomenon at any given time (cross-sectional) or a series of snapshots over a longer period (longitudinal) is evaluated (Saunders et al., 2019). Because this research aims to evaluate the notion of resilience based on the film industry’s reaction to a specific unexpected event, it is designed as a cross- sectional study focusing on the experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is substantiated by the topicality of the phenomenon and the focus on past and present reactions rather than long-term outcomes, change or development, which would have favoured a longitudinal research design. Furthermore, due to the nature of the Master’s Thesis and its respective time constraints, a longitudinal study was not deemed feasible.

3.3 Data Collection

The objective of data collection is to provide a rich empirical foundation in order to ensure the best possible answer to the research question in consideration of the thesis’ aims. Within inductive research, “[data] collection is used to explore a phenomenon, identify themes and patterns and create a conceptual framework” (ibid., p 153). For these purposes, either qualitative data, quantitative data, or a combination of both can be used as the basis for analysis (ibid.). As aforementioned, this research relies on qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews, which is deemed most suitable considering the research design and philosophy.

Therefore, as all data collected is non-numerical, this research can be classified as a mono- method qualitative study according to Saunders et al. (2016). By using a Grounded Theory

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approach, the purpose of data collection is “to pursue theoretical lines of enquiry rather than to achieve population representativeness” (Saunders et al., 2019, p. 207). Therefore, studying a smaller sample size is more beneficial than insights from a larger number of subjects (ibid.).

According to Saunders et al. (ibid.), the sampling ideally culminates once theoretical saturation is reached and additional data fails to reveal novel properties for any established categories (ibid.). For this research, saturation was suggested by the last two interviews not yielding any new properties to the existing emergent themes.

3.3.1 Primary Data

The primary objective of this research is to determine whether the film industry is resilient and how resilience manifests itself. While this problem could be addressed from various perspectives, this analysis centres on numerous semi-structured expert interviews, due to their nature of providing first-hand accounts and interpretations by individuals who have personally experienced the phenomenon that is studied (Kvale, 2007). Furthermore, semi-structured interviews can achieve high levels of reliability and validity (Saunders et al., 2019) and “can produce substantial new knowledge to a field” (Kvale, 2007, p. 8). Hence, they fit well with exploratory research designs (Saunders et al., 2019). However, in alignment with the aforementioned epistemological assumptions, the obtained systematic knowledge is not objective but rather a product of “the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee”

(Kvale, 2007, p. 1). Consequently, using semi-structured interviews bears distinct limitations that are further elaborated on in the final section of this chapter.

The interviews were conducted on a one-to-one basis between the researcher and a single participant. Due to the current situation in a global pandemic warranting nationwide lockdowns, all interviews, apart from one exception where a physical meeting was possible, took form of synchronous electronic interviews mediated by Microsoft Teams. As a result, while preserving the face-to-face aspect of traditional interviews, the reliance on technology allowed for transcending national boundaries and focusing on geographically dispersed subjects. While this arguably facilitated access (Saunders et al., 2019), it also allowed the thesis to adopt a broader lens. The interviews combine positivist and constructionist qualities, since they focus on cross- checking pieces of information across all participants to determine the true picture of the situation, while using the predefined questions to initiate conversations that may divert into various directions (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008).

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3.3.1.1 Choice of Interview Partners

The interview partners were selected to provide a rich data set and enable a thorough understanding of the intricacies within the film industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the interviews are not confined to executive roles, but deliberately include producers, as well as creative workers, such as directors or writers. In doing so, a better approximation of the objective reality regarding the industry can arguably be achieved as several distinct perspectives are taken into consideration. Additionally, a few interviews specifically focus on corporate filmmaking to account for a large subsector within the film industry with slightly different industry structures. Lastly, the interview with Executive B allows for a more thorough understanding of the distribution and exhibition division of the industry, without which an analysis of the film industry would be incomplete.

Due to the thesis’ focus on the European film industry, the interviews cover the intricacies within different European markets, namely, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland. Furthermore, several interview partners have worked on European co-productions during the pandemic, which arguably contributes to a better understanding of the reality within the broader European context. The Danish and Norwegian interviews have been conducted in English, which was neither the interviewer’s nor the interviewees’ mother tongue. Therefore, depending on the level of proficiency, understanding the questions may be subject to potential language barriers.

Relying on synchronous semi-structured interviews partly mitigates such limitations as it allows for questions and elaborations where applicable. Furthermore, providing the interviewees with the key questions beforehand allowed them to familiarise themselves with the relevant themes in order to articulate their opinions to the best of their abilities. The interviews in Switzerland were conducted in Swiss German, which was the native language of both the researcher and the interviewees, and therefore are unaffected by such limitations.

Overall, twelve face-to-face interviews have been conducted, generally ranging between 30 and 70 minutes, and totalling slightly more than 8.5 hours and 137 pages of content. Furthermore, an extensive email conversation with Writer A expands on the intricacies within corporate filmmaking and introduces a slightly opposing perspective. Executive A is the only exception, where the interview time has been slightly shorter, due to having an urgent subsequent appointment. However, he would have remained available for a follow-up interview, were some questions addressed insufficiently. All the interviews centre on the same five broad questions that have been sent to the interviewee in advance. Nonetheless, due to the semi-structured nature

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and a partly constructionist approach, the interviews often resembled everyday conversations where the researcher took a less or more active role as required.

Table 1: List of Interview Partners

Name Code Sector Country Length Pages

Director A DA Corporate Films Denmark 00:50:52 12

Director B DB Corporate Films Denmark 00:32:06 9

Executive A EA Corporate Films Denmark 00:22:23 7

Executive B EB Exhibition Switzerland 00:42:57 11

Executive C EC Feature Films Denmark 00:35:44 10

Executive D ED Feature Films Norway 00:37:04 11

Producer A PA Feature Films Switzerland 00:52:36 16

Producer B PB Feature Films Denmark 01:06:40 14

Producer C PC Feature Films Denmark 00:31:40 10

Producer D PD Feature Films Denmark 00:31:25 9

Producer E PE Feature Films Norway 01:08:03 15

Producer F PF Feature Films Denmark 00:43:55 12

Writer A WA Corporate Films Denmark - 1

Total 08:35:25 137

3.3.1.2 Interview Questions

Semi-structured interviews are non-standardised and rely on predetermined themes with corresponding key questions that help guide the interview process (Saunders et al., 2019). As aforementioned, for this thesis, this type of interview was deemed most suitable, due to embracing positivist and constructionist perspectives (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). More precisely, the former requires a structured and consistent approach that addresses key questions to enable comparisons between each data set in order “to identify the underpinning reality”

(Saunders et al., 2019, p. 437). However, the latter facilitates exploring emerging themes as they are raised and addressing questions depending on the flow of the conversation (ibid.).

Furthermore, it allows for omitting or modifying questions in particular interviews, which happened with Executive B, where some of the key questions were less relevant and would not have contributed to an insightful discussion. Overall, using semi-structured interviews supports testing the applicability of previously deduced themes by consistently raising them during subsequently conducted interviews (ibid.). The fact that interviews conducted during later

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stages are affected by the current state of the research, is consistent with the chosen research strategy using a Grounded Theory approach (ibid.). The interview guide was developed based on the insights from a preliminary literature review. The questions were intentionally designed as open questions in order to follow the themes that were raised by the participants.

Table 2: Key Questions and Corresponding Themes

Theme Question

Understanding Context Overall, how has COVID-19 affected your projects?

Dealing with Uncertainty How was the uncertainty managed and what was the biggest concern among industry peers?

Industry Structures What do you think was special about the film industry and its response to the crisis?

Managing Creativity during Crises

How was the restart handled after lockdown ended?

Reflectivity What are your main takeaways from the crisis response?

The focus of the interview was to obtain first-hand accounts of how the crisis was handled and experienced. Therefore, the questions were purposefully framed broadly and not narrowed down to specific theoretical concepts in order to achieve an understanding of the important factors from the perspective of those actively involved in the situation. In doing so, the researcher aimed to ensure that the emergent themes are innately relevant to the phenomenon discussed and not imposed from a potentially biased academic point of view. Therefore, by subsequently linking the emergent themes to academic concepts, a higher relevance of the theories within the research context can be guaranteed.

3.3.2 Secondary Data

According to Saunders et al. (2019), secondary data, be it quantitative or qualitative, is primarily used in explanatory and descriptive types of research. For exploratory research, the viability of secondary data therefore tends to be limited. As a result, this thesis solely uses primary data collected through semi-structured interviews as the foundation for the analysis.

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3.4 Data Processing

3.4.1 Transcribing

Transcribing interviews is an integral part of qualitative analyses in that it translates the oral conversation into a written language (Kvale, 2007). In doing so, the data can be prepared in a from that is more amenable for detailed analysis (ibid.). For this thesis, the transcriptions have been based on the respective recordings of the research interviews, for which all subjects have provided their informed consent. By recording each interview, potential errors due to limited or selective remembrance can be bypassed and a higher level of accuracy when presenting an interviewer’s statements can be guaranteed (ibid.). As a result, the validity and reliability of the findings can be increased, since the analysis will be based on actual recordings rather than on what the researcher remembers of the exact linguistic formulations of the answers or hastily written notes (ibid.). Furthermore, it enabled a shift in the researcher’s focus toward the dynamics of the interview and served as a valuable tool for initial analyses (ibid.).

In order to guarantee that the transcriptions are true to each participant’s oral statements, the interviews, when possible, were first transcribed verbatim using the Microsoft Office 365 transcription tool. Subsequently, the transcripts have been amended to fit a literary style by, for example, omitting linguistic fillers or repetitions. This has been done in order for the transcriptions to better serve the purpose of the analysis, which is not of linguistic nature but rather to “facilitate [the] communication of the meaning of the subject’s stories” (ibid., p. 98).

To ensure the accuracy of these literary transcriptions and mitigate potential misrepresentations, all transcripts have been reviewed and verified by re-listening to the audio recording. The interviews conducted in Swiss German have been directly translated into literary transcriptions by engaging with the recordings due to the dialect not being recognised by traditional transcription tools. All transcripts are true to the language of the interviews, but the quotes used from the ones conducted in Swiss German were translated into English for coherence and comprehensibility purposes.

3.4.2 Purpose of Coding and Use of Codes

The further processing of the transcribed data has been performed systematically according to Gioia et al.’s (2012) understanding of Grounded Theory research in order to achieve high qualitative rigour. The Gioia Methodology has been deemed the most suitable in alignment with the research design due to its ability to “[capture] concepts relevant to the human organizational

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experience in terms that are adequate at the level of meaning of people living that experience and adequate at the level of scientific theorizing about that experience” (ibid., p. 16). The underlying ideal of this methodology is to combine informant-centric and researcher-centric understandings of a given phenomenon through two distinct stages of coding (ibid.). First, during the initial coding cycle, the researcher establishes a plethora of categories by adhering as much as possible to interviewee-centric terms that later are distilled into the broader first- order categories by “seeking similarities and differences among [them]” (ibid., p. 20). The labels of these categories still aim to retain the terms used by the interviewee. For this thesis, the process of merging and distinguishing between the myriad of categories was initiated after seven transcriptions have been analysed, due to having already established around 100 categories. Doing so enabled a considerable reduction in the overall number and allowed for more clarity. Second, the subsequent coding cycle engages with academic theory in order to link the emerging themes to existing theoretical concepts “that might help us describe and explain the phenomena we are observing” (ibid., p. 20). As aforementioned, after the final two interviews failed to discover new categories for the determined themes and saturation was suggested, the second-order themes were further condensed in aggregate dimensions. Finally, the coding results were composed and depicted in form of the data structure (Figure 3) for visualisation. Gioia et al. (ibid.) believe this step to be pivotal as it not only serves as a visual aid, “[but] it also provides a graphic representation of how we progressed from raw data to terms and themes in conducting the analyses” (p. 20).

Engaging with data processing in the form of the Gioia Methodology presumes the distinct precondition of a “semi-ignorance […] of the literature” (Gioia et al. 2012). More precisely, the analysis aims to counteract potentially imposing a priori explanations of for the emerging themes (ibid.). Therefore, an intimate knowledge of the academic literature may promote confirmation bias (ibid.). While high methodological rigour already partially mitigates such concerns (Saunders et al., 2016), the researcher has further tried to minimise confirmation bias by actively looking and embracing contradicting statements that may not confirm his worldview.

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Figure 3: Data Structure

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3.5 Limitations

As previously mentioned, the data collection may have been adversely affected by potential language barriers. This is because the majority of the interviews have been conducted in English between non-native speakers. Therefore, the different levels of proficiency may have led to subjective interpretations of the meaning of interview questions, which may have precipitated different answers. However, conducting internet-mediated face-to-face interviews, combined with the flexibility of non-standardised approaches, allowed for potential clarifications where confusion occurred, or misunderstandings were suspected. This has proven to be integral as the occasional ambiguity of interview answers potentially exacerbates interpretation issues (Kvale, 2007). Therefore, it was in the researcher’s best interest to clarify if “ambiguities and contradictory statements are due to a failure of communication in the interview situation” (ibid., p. 13). However, the ontological assumptions regarding the subjectivity of reality imply that another researcher may have interpreted the interview statements in a different way.

Furthermore, Kvale (ibid., p. 83) indicates that experienced interviewers “might go beyond technical recommendations and criteria, and – sometimes – deliberately disregard or break the rules” in order to improve interview quality. Therefore, it could be argued that the researcher’s limited experience in interview-based research may have impacted the way the interviews were conducted and therewith the resulting data set. In order to mitigate such potential variations, the researcher ensured a high level of methodological rigour and embraced qualified naïveté.

In other words, being critical of personal assumptions and hypotheses while interviewing and actively challenging confirmation bias, arguably helped to ensure a high level of objectivity throughout the data collection and analysis (ibid.).

Additionally, Saunders et al. (2019) recognise various underlying data quality issues commonly associated with semi-structured interviews. While this method of data collection is generally criticised due to a lack of reliability and dependability that complicates replicating, ensuring repeatability “would not be realistic or feasible without undermining the strength of this type of research” (ibid., p. 449). This is because the inherent flexibility is what makes semi- structured interviews valuable as it enables the exploration of the complexity of dynamic situations (ibid.). Therefore, “adhering to some misguided sense that the protocol must be standardized so that there is consistency” is deemed suboptimal (Gioia et al., 2012). A lack of generalisability is often cited as another shortcoming, due to the non-standardised nature of these interviews (ibid.). In order to mitigate such concerns, the interview guide was based on

Managing Creativity in Distress Elaborating on the Resilience of Temporary Organisations based on the Film Industry’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic