Research
Research Interests
- Organizational Theory, Strategic Management
- Culture & Networks, Brokerage, Organizational Identity, Cultural Innovation
- Cultural Markets, Entrepreneurship
Job Market Paper
Byun, Jiwon. “Bridging the Gap: Strategic Cultural Brokerage in the Global Music Industry.”
This paper theorizes strategic cultural brokerage as a symbolic and structural affiliation that enables foreign artists, as a case of cultural producers, to gain recognition and enter new national markets. Using panel data on over 20,000 artists and 4,478 first-time cross-cultural collaborations across more than 100 national markets, I examine how symbolic distance, measured by differences in language and cultural values, shapes the magnitude and durability of performance gains. Leveraging staggered and two-stage difference-in-differences designs, I find that collaborations with locally legitimate artists increase local listenership on average, but the returns vary over time: collaborations across greater symbolic distance generate sharper immediate spikes in visibility, while culturally closer ones lead to more enduring growth. The findings specify when and how symbolic distance enhances or limits the value of global cultural partnerships and offer broader insight into how cultural producers navigate recognition and positioning in platform-mediated markets.
Working Papers
Byun, Jiwon, Jon Atwell, and Adina Sterling. “Policy over Prejudice: How Organizational Referral Policies and Labor Pool Composition Shape Demographic Outcomes.”
This paper examines how an organization’s referral-based hiring policies shape its demographic composition in the absence of taste-based bias. Using an agent-based model, we simulate hiring into an organization while varying the referral policy, the structure of social networks in the labor pool, and the demographic makeup of potential applicants. The results show that these factors jointly shape organizational demographics over time, demonstrating how policy design and labor market context can influence composition even when decision processes are impartial.
Byun, Jiwon, Mooweon Rhee, and William Barnett. “Which Rivals Matter? Competitive Learning under Divergent Logics among K-pop Idols.”
This paper theorizes competitive learning as shaped not only by the timing but by the logic of competition embodied by rival experiences. Using longitudinal data on Korean Idol groups from 2004 to 2014, we examine how exposure to rivals from older, same, and younger generational cohorts affects performance. Results show that competition with peers enhances performance, while sustained exposure to older rivals is detrimental. Competitive experience with younger rivals has conditional benefits and strengthens peer-based learning when logics are partially aligned. The findings show that the value of competitive experience depends not just on when it occurs but on the compatibility of underlying competitive logics.
Selected Work in Progress
Byun, Jiwon. “Climbing the Ladder: How Global Cultural Hierarchy Shapes Cross-Border Success.” Writing.
Byun, Jiwon and Natasha Overmeyer. “Making Culture Up: The Situated Construction and Negotiation of Organizational Culture in Early Founding Teams.” Data analysis; ongoing fieldwork.
Byun, Jiwon. “Culture x Structure: A 2 x 2 Test of Brokerage across Network and Symbolic Boundaries.” Data analysis.
Barnett, William, Natasha Overmeyer, and Jiwon Byun. “Pivoting to Sustainability: Entrepreneurship as a Catalyst for the Green Transformation.” Internal draft completed; additional data collection.
Byun, Jiwon. “Who Gains When Markets Open? Network Brokerage, Cultural Gaps, and Startup Financing After Deregulation.” Data collection.