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

Abstract

Paper's objectives: The paper aims to explore the negative impacts of social relationships (SR) on business activity. As a research context, the video game industry (VGI) and the video game developers' (VGDs) relationships are analyzed. Design/methods: 17 semistructured in-depth interviews and 1 focus group interview with Polish VGDs were conducted. Findings: (1) support for five negatives of SR previously discussed in the literature (2) recognition of the four original negatives (i.e., employee turnover, buying up employees, inefficiency/termination of interorganizational cooperation, and confidential information leakage); and (3) recognition of the harmful results of SR as an industry-dependent issue. Originality/value: (1) Analyzing the negative consequences of SR for business, which is less frequently considered compared to the positive consequences of these relationships for business; (2) identifying dark sides previously unidentified in the literature; and (3) using the VGI as the research context.