Playing across the playground: paradoxes of knowledge creation in the videogame firm

Patrick Cohendet () and Laurent Simon
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Patrick Cohendet: BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, HEC Montréal - HEC Montréal
Laurent Simon: HEC Montréal - HEC Montréal

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Abstract: This contribution illustrates how a videogame firm copes in managing creativity and expression of artistic values, while meeting the constraints of the economics of mass entertainment. The research is based on a case study in one of the largest video game studios in the world located in Montreal, Canada. The approach considers that the creative units of the firms are the communities of specialists (game developers, software programmers, etc.). Each of these communities, which have found a fertile soil in Montreal that nurtures their creative potential, is focused on both exploration and exploitation of a given domain of knowledge. In order to benefit from these sources of creativity, the integration forces implemented by the managers of the firm to bind the creative units together for achieving commercial successes reveal a hybrid form of project management which combines decentralized platforms with strict constraints on time, and a specific management of space that favors informal interactions. However, we suggest that the integration forces put forward by the firm are not just for harnessing creative units: they also generate creative slacks for further expansion of creativity.

Keywords: Playground; Experiment; Creativity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-07
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Published in Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2007, 28 (5), pp.587-605. ⟨10.1002/job.460⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00279260

DOI: 10.1002/job.460

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