Sourcing smart through project manager structures: The role of managerial direction multiplicity in Korean popular music industry

Abstract

Internal development project organizations are likely to have a pre-defined internal goal to optimize the use of internal resources while joint development project organizations tend to have a flexible goal to take advantage of diverse external resources. In this situation, the managerial direction multiplicity of project managers (i.e., convergent or multi-faceted directions) reflected in their organizational structures can affect the effectiveness of sourcing strategy differently. Three key structural components of project managers—project manager group size, prior interactions among project managers, and managerial authority split—were chosen to examine their impact on project market performance by two sourcing strategies. Empirical evidence from the Korean popular music (K-Pop) industry for the period 2004–2013 at the album project-level supports that project manager structures offering multi-faceted directions improve project market performance more for joint development projects, while those offering convergent directions improve performance more for internal development projects. This study highlights the importance of project manager structures in sourcing strategies by theorizing managerial direction multiplicity as a key mechanism. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd