Creative industries produce many one-hit wonders who struggle to repeat their initial success and fewer hit makers who sustain success over time. To develop theory on the role of creativity in driving sustained market success, I propose a path dependence theory of creators’ careers that considers creators’ whole portfolios of products over time and how their early portfolios shape their later capacity to sustain success. The main idea is that a creator’s path to sustained success depends on the creativity in their portfolio at the time of their initial hit—relatively creative portfolios give creators more options for leveraging their past portfolios while adapting to market changes, increasing their odds of additional hits. I tested the proposed theory using an archival study of the U.S. music industry from 1959–2010, including data on over 3 million songs by 69,050 artists, and the results largely support the hypotheses. Artists who reached their initial hits with relatively creative (novel or varied) portfolios were more likely to generate additional hits, but a novel portfolio was less likely to yield an initial hit than was a typical portfolio. These findings suggest that new creators face a tradeoff between their likelihood of initial versus sustained success, such that building a relatively creative early portfolio is a risky bet that can make or break a creator’s career.

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一击奇迹与热门制造者：在创意产业中保持成功

创意产业产生了许多难以复制最初成功的一炮走红的奇迹，而随着时间的推移保持成功的成功制造商则更少。为了发展关于创造力在推动持续市场成功中的作用的理论，我提出了创造者职业生涯的路径依赖理论，该理论考虑了创造者的整个产品组合随着时间的推移以及他们早期的投资组合如何塑造他们后来维持成功的能力。主要思想是，创作者的持续成功之路取决于其作品集在最初获得成功时的创造力——相对有创意的作品集为创作者提供了更多选择，可以在适应市场变化的同时利用他们过去的作品集，从而增加获得更多成功的几率. 我使用 1959 年至 2010 年美国音乐行业的档案研究来测试提出的理论，包括来自 69,050 位艺术家的超过 300 万首歌曲的数据，结果在很大程度上支持了这些假设。以相对有创意（新颖或多样）的作品集达到初始热门的艺术家更有可能产生额外的热门歌曲，但与典型作品集相比，新颖的作品集产生初始热门歌曲的可能性较小。这些发现表明，新的创作者面临着他们最初成功的可能性与持续成功的可能性之间的权衡，因此建立一个相对有创意的早期投资组合是一个冒险的赌注，可能会成就或破坏创作者的职业生涯。但是，与典型的投资组合相比，新颖的投资组合产生初始冲击的可能性较小。这些发现表明，新的创作者面临着他们最初成功的可能性与持续成功的可能性之间的权衡，因此建立一个相对有创意的早期投资组合是一个冒险的赌注，可能会成就或破坏创作者的职业生涯。但是，与典型的投资组合相比，新颖的投资组合产生初始冲击的可能性较小。这些发现表明，新的创作者面临着他们最初成功的可能性与持续成功的可能性之间的权衡，因此建立一个相对有创意的早期投资组合是一个冒险的赌注，可能会成就或破坏创作者的职业生涯。