A Narrative World

Previous chapters illustrate the themes which I have identified as being of most concern to the research participants, and the different ways in which particular objects relevant to the music industry are constructed. In the process of extracting them and presenting them in abstract form, logically sequenced for manageable appraisal, something is lost. That ‘something’ may best be described as the messy struggle to make sense of a complex world. It is both a private struggle and a social contest, though the private element is more difficult to capture. The usual demands made of executives for simple rhetorical coherence mean that intra- and inter-organizational encounters are generally the domain of the social sense-making contest rather than the private cerebral struggle, with the latter only rarely being publicly acknowledged. The research conversations allowed participants a more balanced exploration of the dilemmas and paradoxes inherent in cultural production. Whilst some were more confident in expressing their expertise and wisdom (or ignorance) than others, and despite some evidence of toeing corporate lines, most participants demonstrated an appetite both for reflection and the capacity to be reflexive. This ought to be a desirable outcome, but it does lead to participant inconsistency and presents a challenge for the researcher in pursuit of a clear distillation of findings.