The dark side of social relationships – the context of the video game industry

Czernek-Marszałek, Katarzyna; Klimas, Patrycja; Wójcik, Dagmara

doi:10.2478/ijme-2023-0025

Figures & Tables

IDI and FGI interviewee characteristics

No.	Code	Position	Establishment	Headquarters	Size [based on employment]	Form of ownership	Scope of activity	Type of activity
IDIs
1.	G1	Owner	2007	Katowice	Middle	Priv. comp.	Global	GD
2.	G2	Owner	2012	Katowice	Middle	Priv. comp.	Global	GD
3.	G3	Game designer	2010	Wroclaw	Middle	Priv. comp.	Global	GD
4.	G4	Owner	2005	tódź	Micro	Private sole	Global	GD
5.	G5	Owner	2015	tódź	Micro	Private sole	Global	GD
6.	G6	Owner	2005	Kamionki	Micro	Private sole	Global	GD
7.	G7	Animation director	1991	Wroclaw	Big	Priv. comp.	Global	GD & GP
8.	G8	Owner	2014	tódź	Micro	Private sole	Global	GD
9.	G9	Owner	2014	Poznan	Micro	Priv. comp.	Global	GD
10.	GIO	Game designer	2007	Poznan	Micro	Private sole	Global	GD
11.	Gil	Owner	2018	tódź	Micro	Private sole	Global	GD
12.	G12	Owner	2013	Plewiska	Micro	Private sole	Global	GD
13.	R1	Owner	2011	Wroclaw	Middle	Public company	Global	GD
14.	R2	Senior developer	1999	Wroclaw	Big	Priv. comp.	Global	GD
15.	R3	Senior developer	2011	Bielsko- Biala	Small	Private sole	Europe	GDS
16.	DI	Publishing director	2012	Warsaw	Small	Priv. comp.	Global	GD, GP & GDS
17.	D2	Company president	2015	Warsaw	Small	Priv. comp.	Global	GD
FGI
1.	R1	Owner	2012	Katowice	Micro	Private sole	Global	GD
2.	R2	Owner	2020	Katowice	Small	Priv. comp.	Global	GD
3.	R3	Owner	2019	Kraków	Micro	Priv. comp.	Global	GD
4.	R4	Developer	2004	Kraków	Micro	Private sole	Global	GD
5.	R5	Board member, managing director	2001	Wroclaw	Small	Priv. comp.	Global	Other
6.	R6	Owner	2016	Toruñ	Micro	Spin off	Global	GD & GDS

Typology of the negative effects of social relationships

No.	Type of negative effect	Characteristics
1.	Lower level of innovativeness	Remaining closed to resources (information, innovation, capital, etc.) and entities from the outside, which causes lack of diversity, reducing the inflow and use of new ideas – lack of a “fresh look” and the so-called “collective blindness.”
2.	Lower adaptability	Adaptation to familiar partners resulting in lower adaptability.
3.	Incurring alternative costs	Loss of opportunities, e.g., for introducing a new product, lowering prices, etc., due to doing business with an unknown partner.
4.	Limiting economic efficiency	Suppression of economically effective activities, including entrepreneurship, due to the replacement of economic rationality with loyalty – the desire to fulfil expectations or abide by hidden rules.
5.	Negative phenomena, e.g., nepotism	The desire to meet expectations toward the other party leading to nepotism.
6.	High costs associated with the development and maintenance of strong ties	Costs of capital employed, time, engagement and other resources etc.
7.	The costs of breaking the existing strong ties (domino effect)	High risk and costs of unforeseen changes in the enterprise or partner organization resulting from strong dependence on the partner (e.g., adaptation costs and costs related to looking for a new partner).
8.	Interpersonal conflict	Quarrels or negative emotions (e.g., anger, humiliation) caused by being tired of the relationship and/or better knowledge about the partner and his/her faults.
9.	Greater susceptibility to opportunistic activities of partner(s)	Ties based on trust increasing the susceptibility of entities to partake in opportunistic activities (fraud); the more trust in a partner, the greater the potential benefit of his/her opportunism (active or passive).

Negative results of social relationships perceived by VGDs

No.	Negative consequences of SRs	Characteristics	Type of SR participant
1.	Negative atmosphere at work (due to IC and nepotism)	IC: IC resolution resulting from too strong SR requiring time and effort, which negatively affects the functioning of the team IC absorbing employees’ attention on negative emotions, which does not serve productivity and creativity IC resulting from strong SR, which can cause burnout and the desire to change jobs IC resulting from the inability of the team to intervene in a strong relationship between a supervisor and an employee	Employees
1.	Negative atmosphere at work (due to IC and nepotism)	Unequal treatment of employees or accusations of favoritism toward those with whom a supervisor has strong SR (nepotism): Greater leniency with regard to mistakes made by a person with whom a supervisor has a strong relationship Hiring friends Making decisions under the influence of and for the benefit of people with whom a superior has a strong relationship Higher pay for a person with whom a supervisor has a closer relationship relative to other people in the same position, or the distribution of the company’s salary pool taking into account an additional person hired because of strong SR with a supervisor	Employees
2.	Employee turnover	Dismissal of well-liked employees entailingthe departure of others	Employees
3.	Buying up employees	High familiarity with the community making it easier to reach and ’poach’ potential new employees	Employees
4.	Breakdown of business cooperation and/or high costs associated with cooperation	Termination of cooperation due to the mixing of private and business relations In a situation of dissatisfaction with cooperation with people with whom strong SR are maintained, dilemmas about the future of the relationship The high cost of ending cooperation with a person with whom SR are maintained (due to the frequent lack of formal agreements)	Co-operators
5.	High cost of building, maintaining, and breaking off SR	The cost of attending events, e.g., industry conferences, team-building outings, to maintain relationships that have already been established Costs associated with the large amount of time spent on an ongoing basis to maintain close relationships Costs outweighing the benefits of building a community of strong SR in the VGI Difficulties and costs associated with fighting for one’s own priorities Fear of incurring costs in the form of damaging relationships in the future (domino effect) Difficulty of entering some communities, more-or-less deliberately isolating others, and being closed to outsiders Disturbed work–life balance, which also leads to costs (for the company and in one’s personal life) and may ultimately negatively affect the functioning of the company (domino effect)	Co-operators, employees
6.	Reducing economic rationality and efficiency [bearing alternative costs]	Lowering the margin in transactions with a friendly entity (bearing alternative costs) Choosing the offer of friendly entities, even though from an economic point of view they are not optimal for the company (bearing alternative costs) Making economic decisions as other friendly entities do – the herd phenomenon – even though these decisions are not optimal for the enterprise	Co-operators
6.		The difficulty of making certain decisions that are necessary for the good of the organization, such as admonishing or firing an employee Lack of objectivity, which can lead to inefficient operations in the company	Employees
7.	Limiting innovativeness and lowering adaptability	1. Reducing the need for innovative activities when access to them is facilitated by contacts with a friendly entity2.Being closed to other relationships and the new opportunities that they bring (low adaptability)	Employees, co-operators
8.	Risk of disclosure of important and confidential information	Greater risk of passing on information that is confidential in nature, often even by accident	Different external entities
9.	Opportunistic behavior	1. Possibility of suffering losses due to overconfidence2. The difficulty of enforcing penalties against a trusted person with whom strong SRs are maintained	Employees, co-operators

The dark side of social relationships – the context of the video game industry

Figures & Tables

IDI and FGI interviewee characteristics

Typology of the negative effects of social relationships

Negative results of social relationships perceived by VGDs

Paradigm

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