An Integrated Study on Determinants of Performance in Korean Film Industry

한국영화의 흥행성과 결정요인에 관한 통합적 연구

This research empirically examined the determinants of competitive advantages and performance of Korean film industry from 1996 to 2003 over a sample of 396 movies. Especially, the effects of knowledge-based resources, social capital, product differentiation strategy, and market entry strategy on a film performance were hypothesized and empirically tested. Findings of this study are as follows; First, confirming the importance of knowledge-based resources in film industry, both the superior business track records of producers and the superior artistic track records of directors and actors had positive effects on film performance. Second, supporting social capital hypotheses, while the strong ties between directors and producers had positive effects, the strong ties between directors and actors had negative effects on film performance. Third, confirming the importance of product differentiation strategy, genre differentiation against competing films had positive effects on film performance. Finally, confirming the importance of market entry timing, the number of competing films released following a film opening within a week had negative effects on film performance. The findings of this research suggest that producers, directors, and actors are not only the critical knowledge-based resources to create competitive advantages indeed, but the pattern of relationships among them also systematically influences the film performance. Moreover, it is suggested that film performance may be improved by the proper genre differentiation and opening day selection.