Latent organizations in the film industry: contracts, rewards and resources

The main aim of this article is to study the extent to which the project-based organization (PBO) and the latent organization determine the actual behavior of actors in a project-based industry and how this is mediated by the types of contracts and rewarding practices these organizational forms allow. Labor contracts connected to the PBO are mostly transactional in nature, while the members of the latent organization are linked by relational contracts. Interviews with Dutch film producers show that the transactional contracts connected to the PBO are less important than the relational contracts connected to the latent organization in governing the actual behavior of the involved actors. Relational contracts that structure relationships in the latent organization allow flexible rewarding practices, just as in `normal' organizations. In turn, employees prove willing to assist the organization in handling environmental uncertainty by making resources available without insisting on immediate compensation.


Key Words: contracts • creative industries • cultural industries • film industry • latent organization • project organization