This article examines how cultural workers interpret and respond to reputational challenges they encounter when leading portfolio careers. Specifically, the portfolio career model involves the cultivation and signalling of adaptability through broad competencies and diverse portfolios comprised of boundary-spanning work. These practices conflict with standards of artistic legitimacy and highlight specialist-generalist tensions, since they can make workers appear to be ‘jacks of all trades, masters of none’ – unskilled, opportunistic dabblers, lacking expertise and artistic integrity. The article draws on 56 interviews with cultural producers working as filmmakers, fashion designers and musicians. Findings show how workers engage in ‘reframing’ to reinterpret the symbolic meanings attached to their behaviours and, in the process, carve out new positions and standards for legitimacy within their fields. Reframing is structured by field and labour market conditions, but also represents the possibility of change as a form of culture in action.
AlvarezJLMazzaCPedersenJS, et al. (2005) Shielding idiosyncrasy from isomorphic pressures: towards optimal distinctiveness in European filmmaking. Organization12(6): 863–888.
2.
AlvessonM (2010) Self-doubters, struggles, storytellers and others: images of self-identities in organizational studies. Human Relations63(2): 193–217.
3.
BainAL (2005) Constructing an artistic identity. Work, Employment and Society19(1): 25–46.
4.
BeechNGilmoreCHibbertP, et al. (2016) Identity-in-the-work and musicians struggles: the production of self-questioning identity work. Work, Employment and Society30(3): 506–522.
5.
BourdieuP (1993) The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press.
6.
BridgstockR (2012) Not a dirty word: arts entrepreneurship and higher education. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education12(2–3): 122–137.
7.
BrownAD (2015) Identities and identity work in organizations. International Journal of Management Reviews17(1): 20–40.
8.
CoulsonS (2012) Collaborating in a competitive world: musicians’ working lives and understandings of entrepreneurship. Work, Employment and Society26(2): 246–261.
9.
De LaatK (2015) Write a word, get a third: managing conflict and reward in professional songwriting teams. Work and Occupations42(2): 225–256.
10.
DelmestriGMontanariFUsaiA (2005) Reputation and the strength of ties in predicting commercial success and artistic merit of independents in the Italian feature film industry. Journal of Management Studies42(5): 975–1002.
11.
DowdTPinheiroD (2013) The ties among the notes: the social capital of jazz musicians in three metro areas. Work and Occupations40(4): 431–464.
12.
EikhofDRHaunschildA (2006) Lifestyle meets market: Bohemian entrepreneurs in creative industries. Creativity and Innovation Management15: 234–241.
13.
FaulknerR (1983) Music on Demand: Composers and Careers in the Hollywood Film Industry. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
14.
FaulknerRAndersonA (1987) Short-term projects and emergent careers: evidence from Hollywood. American Journal of Sociology92(4): 879–909.
15.
FloridaR (2012) The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited. New York: Basic Books.
FrenetteA (2017) Arts graduates in a changing economy. American Behavioral Scientist61(12): 1455–1462.
18.
GoffmanI (1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
19.
GoldMFraserJ (2002) Managing self-management: successful transitions to portfolio careers. Work, Employment and Society16(4): 579–597.
20.
GrodachC (2013) Cultural economy planning in creative cities: discourse and practice. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research37(5): 1747–1765.
21.
HannekamSBennetD (2017) Creative industries work across multiple contexts: common themes and challenges. Personnel Review46(1): 68–85.
22.
HaukkaS (2011) Education-to-work transitions of aspiring creatives. Cultural Trends20(1): 41–64.
23.
HesmondhalghDBakerS (2010) ‘A very complicated version of freedom’: conditions and experiences of creative labour in three cultural industries. Poetics38: 4–20.
24.
JacksonM (2004) Investing in creativity: a study of the support structure for U.S. artists. Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society34(1): 43–57.
25.
JonesC (2002) Signaling expertise: how signals shape careers in creative industries. In: PeiperlMAArthurMBAnaandN (eds) Career Creativity: Explorations in the Remaking of Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 209–228.
26.
KallebergA (2011) Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Precarious and Polarized Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s to 2000s. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
LindemannDTepperS (2012) Painting with Broader Strokes: Reassessing the Value of an Arts Degree. Bloomington, IN: Center for Postsecondary Research, University of Indiana.
29.
LingoETepperS (2013) Looking back, looking forward: arts-based careers and creative work. Work and Occupations40(4): 337–363.
30.
McRobbieA (2002) Clubs to companies: notes on the decline of political culture in speeded up creative worlds. Cultural Studies16(4): 516–531.
31.
MarkusenAGilmoreSJohnsonA, et al. (2006) Crossover: How Artists Build Careers across Commercial, Nonprofit, and Community Work. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
32.
MartinNFrenetteA (2017) Lost in transition: college resources and the unequal early career trajectories of arts alumni. American Behavioral Scientist61(12): 1487–1509.
33.
MilesMHubermanMSaldanaJ (2014) Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
34.
NeelyM (2020) The portfolio ideal worker: insecurity and inequality in the new economy. Qualitative Sociology43(2): 271–296.
35.
NeffGWissingerEZukinS (2005) Entrepreneurial labor among cultural producers: ‘Cool’ jobs in ‘hot’ industries. Social Semiotics15(3): 307–334.
36.
PellegrinoJHiltonM (2012) Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
37.
PinheiroDLDowdTJ (2009) All that jazz: the success of jazz musicians in three metropolitan areas. Poetics37(5–6): 490–506.
38.
PriorN (2010) The rise of the new amateurs: popular music, digital technology, and the fate of cultural production. In: HallJRGridstaffLLoM (eds) Handbook of Cultural Sociology. London: Routledge, 398–407.
SchediwyLBhansingPVLootsE (2018) Young musicians’ career identities: do bohemian and entrepreneurial career identities compete or cohere?Creative Industries Journal11(2): 174–196.
41.
SewellW (1999) The concept(s) of culture. In: BonnellVHuntL (eds) Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 35–61.
42.
SteinJ (2013) Millennials: the me me me generation. Time, 20May, 26–34.
43.
SutherlandWJarrajiMHDunnM, et al. (2020) Work precarity and gig literacies in online freelancing. Work, Employment and Society33(3): 457–475.
44.
SwidlerA (2001) Talk of Love: How Culture Matters. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
45.
TaylorSLittletonK (2012) Contemporary Identities of Creativity and Creative Work. Farnham: Ashgate.
46.
ThomsonK (2013) Roles, revenues, and responsibilities: the changing nature of being a working musician. Work and Occupations40(4): 514–525.
47.
ThrosbyDZednickA (2011) Multiple job-holding and artistic careers: some empirical evidence. Cultural Trends20(1): 9–24.
48.
WeiJ (2012) Dealing with reality: market demands, artistic integrity, and identity work in reality television production. Poetics40(5): 444–466.
49.
YoganarasimhanS (2013) The value of reputation in an online freelance marketplace. Marketing Science32(6): 860–891.
50.
ZarifauS (2008) Reputation work in selling film and television: life in the Hollywood talent industry. Qualitative Sociology31(2): 99–127.
51.
ZuckermanEW (2005) Typecasting and generalism in firm and market: genre-based career concentration in the feature film industry, 1933–1995. In: JonesCThorntonPH (eds) Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing, 171–214.
52.
ZuckermanEWKimTUkanwaK, et al. (2003) Robust identities or nonentities? Typecasting in the feature film labor market. American Journal of Sociology108(5): 1018–1075.
