“I Hold On”: How Country Music Songwriters Cope with the Precarity of Craft Work — Online Appendices

<h3>Background</h3>
These appendices provide supplementary material for understanding creative craft work. They focus on the practices, processes, and experiences of professional songwriters as an example of how creative labor unfolds in practice.

<h3>Purpose</h3>
The purpose of these appendices is to provide conceptual elaboration and additional empirical material that support the analysis presented in Smolka and Heugens (2026), “‘I Hold On’: How Country Music Songwriters Cope With the Precarity of Craft Work” (Journal of Management, forthcoming).

<h3>Method</h3>
The appendices draw on qualitative, primary data consisting of retrospective, career-spanning interview narratives from professional country music songwriters. Appendix 1 develops a conceptualization of songwriting as creative craft and Appendix 2 presents additional illustrative quotations from the data in tabular form.

<h3>Results</h3>
Appendix 1 identifies five dimensions of creative craft practice—continuous practice, arousing tools, playful experimentation, intrinsic commitment, and masterful perceptiveness—and illustrates each dimension with interview excerpts. Appendix 2 provides further empirical evidence that substantiates these dimensions across respondents and career stages.

<h3>Conclusion</h3>
Together, the appendices enhance conceptual clarity, empirical transparency, and analytical depth by detailing the craft-based practices that underpin songwriters’ sustained engagement with their work under conditions of precarity.