The tenet that audience perception is critical to the orderly functioning of markets is well documented in organization theory literature (Bower, 2015b).
Violations of audience perception, such as straddling of incongruent categories and inconsistent status cues (Zhao and Zhou, 2011; Zuckerman, 1999), will confuse audiences and affect the rewards organizations obtain from markets (Hsu et al., 2009; Leung and Sharkey, 2014). Audience perception is particularly essential in industries in which consumers “pay for their own experiences” (Pine and Gilmore, 1998: p. 101). For example, in premium wine market, audiences consume an image, a sincere brand story, or a culture (Beverland, 2005; Zhao and Zhou, 2011), when they enjoy expensive wines. For wineries failing to deliver consistent high-status cues of their products, consumers are less willing to pay high prices (Zhao and Zhou, 2011). On eBay’s engagement ring market, diamond solitaire rings that violate audience expectation (e.g., from a failed relationship) have lower sales prices than rings that fit audience expectation (e.g., from a happy marriage), even if their physical attributes such as stone, shape, and design are exactly the same (Bower, 2015a). Audience perception is less associated with rational calculations of the physical features that a product possesses. It is more about the unique value audiences capture when consuming the product.
When the underlying expectation of audience has a marked impact on the market success of a product, the basic principle is that firms endeavor to make their practices consonant with audience perception. Hiring decisions are among the practices that are to be fined-tuned when they decide the overall perception
audiences gain from the product (Kuppuswamy and Younkin, 2019). Feature film industry is a typical setting in which the hiring of film crew directly constitutes the experience of moviegoers (e.g., Kuppuswamy and Younkin, 2019; Pontikes, Negro, and Rao, 2010). First, moviegoers decide whether to see a film (Liu, Liu, and Mazumdar, 2014), yet their decisions are highly related with the composition of film crew members (Elberse, 2007). Films with reputable actors and actresses tend to have higher office revenues (Elberse, 2007; Liu, Mazumdar, and Li, 2015).
Second, moviegoers are subject to cognitive bias and social stereotypes when making sense of the film crew. While studios discern the skills and ability of an actor by comprehensively dissecting the genres the focal actor played before, moviegoers tend to interpret the actor using their own cognitive maps (Bowers, 2015b; Hsu, 2006). For example, moviegoers may only recall the most representative work the focal actor played in; sometimes they mix up the character that left them a deep impression with the actor who played the character. Sylvester Stallone is often cited as an action figure by moviegoers, even though he attempted to shake off his stereotype in several comedies and dramas (Huffer, 2003;
Zuckerman et al., 2003). The cognitive bias of moviegoers is particularly pronounced for actors/actresses in movie franchises. William Shatner became a cultural icon for his characterization of Captain Kirk in the Star Trek series, yet his casting in other works is often neglected. Since the last Harry Potter film in 2011 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2), Daniel Radcliffe has actively
played roles that are vastly different from the schoolboy wizard to distance himself from his past records. A journalist summarized Radcliffe’s effort in an interview:
“… he has done everything he possibly could to distinguish himself from Harry: riding a horse naked and aroused on stage in Peter Shaffer's Equus, limping around stage as Billy Claven in The Cripple Of Inishmaan, haunted by ghosts in the horror movie The Woman In Black. Now he's at it again, with another part from which Harry Potter would run a mile: in Kill Your Darlings, he plays gay beat poet Allen Ginsberg, sexually infatuated with the dangerous Lucien Carr.” (Hattenstone, 2013)
The effort of Daniel Radcliffe in the “post-Potter” era is an example of how persistent moviegoers’ perception on an actor/actress can be and how difficult it is to change an established perception. Moviegoers are often not interested in the performances of a star in genres beyond his or her primary area (i.e., the genre for which he/she becomes famous), even if the focal actor/actress can act in those genres as good as in his/her home “turf” (Huffer, 2003). An audience member stated his preference in a survey of the relationship between stars and fandom:
“If you want to watch a comedy you don't watch an action star trying to deliver it, you want a comedian. Would Jim Carey [sic] try to play Rambo? No, so why does Stallone try comedy?” (Huffer, 2003)
In fact, even though actors/actresses want to break out of their stereotyped image among audience, studios often take advantage of such a cognitive bias by crafting hiring that (studios believe) caters to audience perception (Kuppuswamy and Younkin, 2019; Zuckerman et al., 2003). The strategic consideration of studios drives the structural reproduction of specialism (i.e., typecasting) in feature film industry. Once an actor/actress is known to moviegoers, the sustained perception on the focal actor/actress’ on-screen image will shape studios’ hiring decisions,
making the focal actor/actress more likely to be picked in future for his/her established image than for his/her unknown talent.
The above arguments lead to the core idea of this paper: Specialist advantage in hiring is not purely driven by skills (i.e., specialists have better skills and ability) and skill-based signalling (i.e., specialists have advantages in signalling skills than generalists). In contexts in which hiring decisions directly affect audience experiences, the specialist advantage of a job market candidate is contingent on how audience perceive the focal candidate. In feature films, the advantage of a specialist will be more prevalent if the market category (i.e., genre) in which the focal actor/actress is skilled is consistent with his/her image among moviegoers. Conversely, the advantage of a specialist will be weakened if the market category for which the focal actor/actress is hired is incongruent with the way moviegoers feel about the focal actor/actress. This suggests the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: The positive effects of specialism on job market candidates’ work opportunities will be stronger for a candidate who is also accepted by audiences as a specialist in the area for which he/she is hired.