Elements of Innovators' Fame: Social Structure, Identity and Creativity.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

What makes an innovator famous? This is the principal question of this dissertation. I examine three potential drivers of the innovators' fame -- their social structure, creativity and identity. My empirical context is the early 20th century abstract artists in 1910-25. The period represents a paradigmatic shift in the history of modern art, the emergence of the abstract art movement. In chapter 2, I operationalize social structure by an innovator's local peer network. I find that an innovator with structurally and compositionally diverse local network is likely to be more famous than the one with a homogenous local network. I find no statistical evidence for creativity as a link between social structure and fame. Instead, the evidence suggests that an innovator's creative identity and access to promotional opportunities are the key drivers of her fame. In Chapter 3, I find that the creativity identity resulting from an innovator's creative trajectory can lead to obscurity despite early fame and acclaim. The drastic change in the nature of a producer's output can dilute her identity and cost her niche. In combination with her peer network characteristics, these dynamics can mean obscurity even for talented and prolific innovators. In chapter 4, I undertake a large-scale analysis of the relationship between creativity and fame. Using a novel computational measure for the novelty of the artists' works, I explore how their creativity and fame evolve over 1905-2000 in five markets. I find no statistical evidence for a positive relationship between creativity and fame; in fact, the statistical evidence is in favor of a negative relationship between creativity and fame through several time periods. The results suggest that creativity (measured by expert or machines) is not a driver of fame. In effect, it further supports the conclusions of chapter 2 and 3.