The influence of embeddedness and social mechanisms on organizational performance in the music industry: The case of Mescal Music

The music industry represents a very difficult context in which to compete successfully, since it is characterized by high levels of uncertainty, human asset specificity, frequency of interaction, and task complexity. Two main organizational responses to this complex situation have emerged in the industry: on the one hand, we have relatively few large multinational firms (‘majors’); on the other, a large number of smaller and loosely-structured organizations (‘independents’). The main aim of this paper is to investigate the role that different types of networks may have in affecting the performance of independent labels. Our investigation will focus particular attention on analyzing the case of an Italian independent label, Mescal Music, which has achieved considerable artistic and economic success in the Italian market.