A study of human and social capital on Hollywood actors' career success.

• Main Author: Khong, Shi Hui.
• Other Authors: Wong Sze Sze
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::General::Careers and profession
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/15119
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This research study aims to investigate how social and human capital affects a hollywood actor's career success. Findings from data collected from IMDB on 100 actor and actresses indicate that diversity of experience, namely diversity of genre of films, are higher for successful actors than unsuccessful actors, of which the success is based on average box office earnings. This is in line with hypotheses 1 where diversity of films for actors with successful careers is higher than diversity of films for actors with unsuccessful careers. However, my results show that depth of film, which is measured by the number of films an actor has participated in over his lifetime, is not significant and hypotheses 2 – depth of films for actors with successful careers is higher than depth of films for actors with unsuccessful careers, is not supported.