Back to All Events

Feb. 20 | Recognition and Fame: How Peer Endorsements Influence Artistic Innovators' Fame (with Damon Phillips)

  • 509 Knox Hall 606 West 122nd Street New York, NY, 10027 United States (map)
Damon-Phillips-266x300.jpg

WHEN: Wednesday, February 20th, 2019, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

WHERE: Knox Hall 509, 606 W 122nd Street

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch and light refreshments will be provided. All are welcome!

Abstract: “In this study we examine how a producer’s recognition among peers relates to that producer’s fame, where fame refers to a producer’s broader public recognition. Using a unique data set on jazz musicians spanning 1910-60, we disaggregate a producer’s peers across two dimensions of social distance – expertise and formal collaboration. We find that a producer who is more socially proximate to peer evaluators (the ones who bestow their recognition) in the expertise dimension is likely to experience a decline in fame, whereas a producer who is more socially distant from her peer evaluators in the formal collaboration dimension is likely to experience an increase in fame. That is, the more socially proximate a musician’s endorsers were, the lower that person’s fame. Famous musician are more likely to receive endorsements from socially distant peers. We consider the underlying mechanism in order to clarify the ambiguous relationship between two key forms of social capital – peer recognition and fame. Specially, our study speaks to why talented innovators respected by their peers, might remain obscure.”

Damon J. Phillips is the Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise. He received his PhD from Stanford University. Before joining Columbia in 2011, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (from 1998-2011). During the 2010-2011 academic year he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Professor Phillips has expertise in social structural approaches to labor and product markets, entrepreneurship, innovation, organizational strategy and structure, as well as social network theory and analysis. His industry specialties are markets for professional services (law, consulting, investment banking) and culture (music industry). His 2013 acclaimed book, "Shaping Jazz," is an innovative study of the emergence and evolution of the market for recorded jazz. In addition to publishing in top journals within management and sociology, Professor Phillips has been on the editorial board of the Administrative Science Quarterly, an Associate Editor with Management Science, and was a Consulting Editor at the American Journal of Sociology. Professor Phillips is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Morehouse College with a bachelor's degree in physics. He earned his first master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a second master's degree in sociology from Stanford University. Before pursuing his PhD at Stanford, he worked as an engineer and researcher affiliated with the U.S. Air Force (Lincoln Labs, MA) and was an executive in a family-owned electronics manufacturing business. He enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters, learning to play instruments, and listening to music. Areas of Expertise: The Sociology of Labor Markets and Professional Careers Social Networks Managing Innovation, Creativity, and Change Entrepreneurial Management


The Networks and Time Workshop Series is part of the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Lecture Series sponsored by INCITE (Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics).

Knox Hall is located at the intersection of West 122nd Street and Broadway (606 West 122nd Street, New York, NY 10027).

For inquiries about Networks and Time, please contact Berenike Schott (berenike.schott@columbia.edu) or Eugene Grey (eg2646@columbia.edu).