“Reel”ing it in: The Indian film industry’s survival and growth in the post-pandemic era

Business-to-business (B2B) firms are expected to work collectively to overcome the sector's challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic was a ‘rare’ event that triggered failures across many business sectors. With limited financial resources, governments in emerging economies could not assist businesses and the B2B firms relied on their networks for survival. In this study, we explored the B2B firms' response to the pandemic and whether their long-established networks and relationships with each other aided or hindered their ability to operate through the disruption and rebound in the post-pandemic recovery period. We studied the operations of the Indian film industry through the pandemic and collected interview data from key informants from the sector. Using stakeholder and institutional theory lenses, we highlighted the changes in the sector, including the weakening of B2B firm networks and firms moving away from organizational collaboration to prioritizing individual interests. The nature of the business model has changed, with increased use of digital platforms for movie releases. These findings have implications for theory and practice as international government agencies were providing incentives for Indian filmmakers to produce movies in their country, which needed to be countered by the Indian government.