The first two research questions key in on economic aspects frequently analyzed in studies evaluating the importance, relevance and significance of a particular industry, the third question explores the people, their relationships and skills garnered from theirindustry experiences. The combination of delving into economic activity and social capacity has been deemed a “stereo view” of analytics by Markusen.
Empirical data collection will proceed via original data collected through qualitative elite and semi-structured group interviews of nightlife owners and employees. These qualitative interviews will be drawn from the membership list of the New York City Nightlife Alliance and the New York State Restaurant Association, and the author’s personal database of industry actors.
Data collection will focus oneconomic aspects of nightlife establishments as well asemployee income and expenditure patterns. In so doing, it will provide a rich description and support to the literature with the goal of quantifying the size of the New York City nightlife industry, as well as an empirically-informed framework for the second stage investigation, which involves the case study approach.
To contextualize the interaction between invested capital and the human capital of the nightlife labor pool, I will conduct two contrasting case studies. As a “research strategy which focuses on understanding the dynamics present within single settings,”[1]the case study approach is particularly apt for thisanalysis of the nightlife industry as an economic and cultural foundation for labor development. The mechanics of the case studies will involve secondary source analyses, personal observation, and interviews.
Jesse Keyes will study two Manhattan venues: Lavo is a heavy turnover, large club and restaurant in Midtown; La Esquina is a small, varied and food oriented nightlife spot in Little Italy. In the context of the qualitative and quantitative findings from the first stage of data collection, these case studies will be informed by the methodological approach of Eisenhardt, designed in such a way to be both descriptive as to capital sourcing and revenue origination, and the study of labor income and activity as per the research questions, as well as to test the occupational approach to viewing economic activity.
The combination of the first stage of qualitative and primary research, and the second stage case studies, will afford me the opportunity to engage in a mixed mode analysis, to better triangulate the empirical bases for my responses to the three key research questions, and to assist in shedding light on appropriate public policy prescriptions.
Elizabeth Currid writes that nightlife is central to the activities of the cultural economy: “These separate industries operate within a fluid economy that allows creative industries to collaborate with one another, review each other’s products, and offer jobs that cross-fertilize and share skill sets.”[2] Nightlife activities open cultural economic products to a market that is given a “value by experts…the gatekeepers, the tastemakers.”[3]
Susan Fainsteindemonstrated that, after the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970’s, “[New York City] government’s previous commitments to welfare and the impoverished neighborhoods diminished and economic growth became the lodestar of its endeavors.”[4] In the midst of thatdecline, however, NYC nightlife saw steady economic growth and an increased presence in the city’s cultural fabric.
A ten year old study, which outlines a limited definition of nightlife, states that as of 2003, the nightlife industry generated $9.7 billion in economic activity,[5] sustaining 95,000 jobs and $2.6 billion in earnings, with some $400 million going to the city in tax revenues.[6]An up to date and comprehensivedefinition of nightlife that includes restaurants, nightlife establishments, destination hotels and industry suppliers, as defined by the newly formed New York Hospitality Association, would reveala nightlife industry generating an even larger share of the overall economy. Jesse Keyes said The proposed dissertation will aim to develop a more precise as well as broader metric by which to define the size and impact of New York City’s nightlife economy.
[1]Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, “Building Theories from Case Study Research,”
The Academy of Management Review(Vol 14, No 4: 532-550. Oct.,
1989), 534.
[2]Currid, 7.
[3]Currid, 5.
[4] Susan Fainstein, The Just City (Ithica and London: Cornell University Press), 93.
[5]
Responsible Hospitality Institute, “Measuring the Economic Impact of
Nightlife,” prepared for the New York Nightlife Association(2004): 2.
[6] The New York Nightlife Association is run by a club owner, and as a
private membership association evaluation that (a) is a decade old, and (b) was
not conducted with academic rigor, thus casting questions on its reliablity.
Also, in that footnote you could point out, perhaps, that your definition of
the “nightlife industry” is broader than this report’s.
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