“Give and take”: A social exchange perspective on festival stakeholder relations

Abstract

Based on social exchange theory, this research seeks to establish the differences between festival stakeholder relations in terms of trust, control, dependence, and altruism. A total of 1105 par- ticipant surveys were collected at six festivals in Ghana across eight stakeholder groups including organizers, government authorities, visitors, volunteers, sponsors, and media. The results in- dicate that organizers have the highest level of trust for other stakeholders whereas media have the lowest. For other stakeholders trust levels are similar, suggesting that festival organizers capitalize on mutual stakeholder trust to broaden collaboration. Regarding dependence, volun- teers showed the least level of dependence on other stakeholders, suggesting that organizers work to more deeply engage their volunteers to improve relationships. This multi-dimensional as- sessment of social exchange theory in the festival field contributes to our understanding of dy- namics among festival stakeholders.