Business model innovation in news media organisations – 2018 special issue of the European Media Management Association (emma)

The practice of shared inquiry: how actors manageforstrategy emergence

“…In the same way it can be less radical and more incremental such as writing a new app for a magazine, trying out a new way to reach customers for advertisements, or changing the style of writing in cover pages in a niche magazine. Contrary to macro-oriented approaches (Evens et al, 2018;Vukanovic, 2016;Wirtz & Elsäßer, 2017), these strategic actions may not reorient an entire business model. Nevertheless, as our study has shown, they are enormously successful for ensuring strategic survival, because they allow people to playfully develop ideas, visions and possibilities and develop the future in shared manner.…”

“…This research often focuses on the organizational level, and elaborates how to carefully select an environment, build core competencies, or design longterm strategies (Colapinto, 2010;Küng, 2008;Vukanovic, 2009), such as new multiplatform or content strategies (Goyanes & Dürrenberg, 2014). Following this tradition, research analyzes how organizational changes impact financial performance (van Weezel, 2009) and how new distribution strategies might be best adopted to enhance production activities, content development and business models (Doyle, 2013;Evens et al, 2018). They show how media organizations can move towards higher margin activities through vertical integration and horizontal concentration (Daidj & Jung, 2011) and describe the importance of path-dependency for an organizations strategic development (Cestino & Matthews, 2016).…”

“…This is particularly the case in the media industry, where companies are transforming towards an open future. This future brings new products, business models and cultural practices (Achtenhagen, 2017;Deuze, 2012;Evens, Raats, & von Rimscha, 2018;Küng, 2017a;Lowe, 2016;Mierzejewska & Shaver, 2014;Wirtz & Elsäßer, 2017) and drives organizations to become more entrepreneurial (Will, Brüntje, & Gossel, 2016) and more adaptive (Baumann, 2013). Essentially, this rapid and continuous change, which characterizes both the strategic environment and internal structures, workprocesses and practices of media organizations (Daniels & Hollifield, 2002;Ekdale, Singer, Tully, & Harmsen, 2015;Järventie-Thesleff, Moisander, & Villi, 2014;Picard, 2009), makes traditional approaches to strategic planning often quite ineffective.…”

Digital Intermediaries: More than New Actors on a Crowded Media Stage

“…From an academic perspective, many researchers have already analyzed the wild transformations experienced by journalistic ventures, as well as their impact on their business models (Achtenhagen and Raviola 2009;Evens et al 2017;Maijanen and Jantunen 2014;Oliver and Parrett 2018;Vukanović 2016). The innovation strategies that were implemented (Baumann and Heine 2013;Ekdale et al 2015;Horst et al 2018) and the threats brought after the outbreak of news aggregators (Günzel and Holm 2013;Kleis Nielsen and Ganter 2018) have also been reviewed and studied in detail.…”

Changing Business Models in the Media Industries

“…52 Alternative revenue sources to advertising, such as paywalls, the sale of newspaper apps, crowdfunding, and foundation funding to support news production, have not become viable options (see Note 9). 53 In this context, the case of Nihon Keizai Shimbun (the Nikkei, a major Japanese financial newspaper) deserves description as an apparently successful example. It is necessary to understand that newspapers are a particularly big business and social institution in Japan with its population of around 130 million.…”