Preguntas específicas:

The project-based, one-off nature of independent production which derives

from the director-centred practices remains apparent in the CIN practice

within the sector; as a result, the independent production as a firm has been

firm-level has been a tricky task, because it is difficult to separate the firm from the project in this case due to its lack of defined infrastructures. Such elusiveness of the ‘firm’ in fact reveals management issues and problems concerning the prevalent one-off project-based production practices, and the empty shell of most independent production ‘companies’ in Taiwan.

Firstly, the CIN of the case production are partly based on the entrepreneurial actions of the network agents with the Producer acting as the gatekeeper to overall networks, but also on the reputation of the Director as the selling point or the stepping stone to the connections. As was discussed in the sector-level analysis, a shift has emerged from the director-centred filmmaking practices to the producer-driven CIN activities. However, the case project shows that although the Producer is required to act as a central point of authority for such a flexible and loose organization, and to be responsible for balancing the trade-offs and deploying responsibilities, the Director still remains the centre of the decision-making, as the CIN fundamentally involves trade-offs of their creative control. As a result, due to the fact that the Director is the property of the production, instead of the firm, networking remains a one-off project-based enterprise, centering around and contributing to the project, rather than the firm.

Secondly, the case company shows that as it lacks the required legal and commercial functions to support the continuing evolution of the CIN in the case production, the outsourcing of functions affects all levels of the system. This can be seen from the fact that the Producer has become dependent on those functions; yet integration of those functions has become difficult, because of the incapacity

and fragility across all levels of the company. This indicates that while flexibility benefits project organizations by promoting adaptation in changing environments, a CIN project has to be structured around indispensable functions. It can also be seen from the possible power shift within the production system which not only causes the Producer the challenge of balancing the tension between flexibility and control; paradoxically it also makes the Producer aware of the importance of creating institutions at the firm level, to govern the responsibilities of and interactions among network members, both internal and external.

In conclusion, the in-depth case study further demonstrates that CIN, in effect, emerges from the ‘bottom up’, and despite being fragmented, is capable of forming itself out of disorder. In particular, discussions concerning the individual-driven and cross-level interconnectedness of the network system arose from the work of Prigogine, Kauffman and Holland, as outlined in Chapter 3. I suggest that in the context of the AVS, this model of system transformation needs to encompass individual self-transformation. Personal challenges in terms of the self-transformation of the independent producers are the key to understanding networking and its effects in the Taiwanese context – thus the networks revolved around individual learning, not organizational learning, which is the most noticeable characteristic of the network phenomenon in Taiwan.

Summary and Continuation

In this chapter, the findings of the two-part empirical study conducted in Taiwan were presented. The first part, that of the general and sector-level of study show

that the CIN practices of independent producers are a result of the fragmenting structures of the film industry and a self-sustaining production sector. The findings are deepened by the second and major part of the study, a focused bottom-up study of an independent production company and its CIN practices during its first and only film production. With the CAS analytical framework, this chapter draws several conclusions about the way in which the independent producers in Taiwan move into a broader context of filmmaking in the AVS and its chaotic order.

Prigogine’s theory of dissipative structures helps to draw out empirical evidence that CIN practices trigger a process of self-awareness of the Producer as an independent and creative producer. In addition, the network conditions towards a CIN system are clearly illustrated by the Producer’s eager openness, expectation and entrepreneurial risk-taking actions. However, it is found that the network conditions set off by the Producer for the project enterprise are full of anxiety, tensions and dilemmas.

Secondly, by drawing on Kauffman’s conceptual framework of self-organization, I moved on to analyze the way in which the network agents interact with each other during the network organizing process, and to examine how agents deal with the networking issues. However, it may be found that the fragile structure and agency of the project organization are being constructed through the evolution of the CIN, with the agents seeking for external resources to fill up the functional gaps. During the evolution, the networking practices of the agents were encouraged and driven outward by a diversity of personal resources and