Are Academy Awards Effective Signals of Quality Films?
The Academy Awards is a well-established celebration of talent and achievement in the film industry. Yesterday marked the Oscars’ 88th award ceremony, a testament to the popularity of the Academy Awards, but popularity alone does not mean that the Oscars are a reliable signal of quality. We revisit the article, “Why Some Awards Are More Effective Signals of Quality Than Others: A Study of Movie Awards” published in Journal of Management by authors Gedra Gemser, Mark A.A.M. Leenders, and Nachoem M. Wijnberg, to consider how different award shows define and award quality work. The authors discuss whether the Academy Awards, a peer-selected award, is less effective in boosting film performance than expert-selected awards. In addition, the authors compare the Academy Awards with less prestigious film awards to determine whether the Oscars are viewed as a more credible cue for consumers to select movies.
The abstract:
In this article, the authors develop and empirically test a conceptual framework that predicts which types of awards
have the biggest impact on the competitive performance of the award winners. The empirical setting is an industry where awards proliferate, namely, the U.S. motion picture industry. Overall, their results suggest that awards granted by a jury composed primarily of end consumers, peers, or experts each have a different effect on consumer behavior, which can be explained in terms of differences in source credibility and award salience.
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*Oscars image credited to Todd Wawrychuk (CC)
