In this chapter, we argue that well-conducted qualitative research can play an important role in advancing the field of media management through theory building. We outline and compare different perspectives to qualitative research and how these can be used in terms of sampling, data collection and analysis. We also introduce relevant criteria to assess the quality of qualitative research and present some ethical considerations.

Relevance of the research

A doomed atmosphere has dominated the traditional newspapers environment in the last years. However, legacy newspapers’ economics have experienced similar situations in the past (Conboy, 2010; Nerone, 2013), having succeeded before in managing significant changes in their business models (BMs). Paradoxically, legacy newspapers are perceived today as locked-in in an obsolete dominant BM.

Business literature has described the questions posed by the Internet technology revolution to current newspapers’ economics but has failed to provide relevant cues for the development of new BMs. In this paper I analyze previous BM changes in the industry to (1) better understand the current situation that newspaper companies are in and (2) suggest potential lines of action to manage their business challenges today.

Theoretical grounding and rationale for selection

In an ever changing environment, companies which manage to create value over extended periods of time successfully adapt and renew their BMs (Achtenhagen, Melin, & Naldi, 2013). A BM describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). The paper defines BM innovation as a modification in the logic of profit generation (Magretta, 2002) and is operationalized as changes in the variables taking part in the profit formula (Johnson, Christensen & Kagermann, 2008).

Path dependency has been referred as a plausible theoretical explanation to the currently locked-in dominant BM in legacy newspapers (Koch, 2008, 2011; Ryfe & Kemmelmeier, 2011; Djerf-Pierre & Weibull, 2011; Rothman & Koch, 2013; Rothman, Wenzel & Wagner, 2014). Often, organizations and inter-organizational networks and industries are immersed in “dynamics that seem to run by and large beyond the control of agents”, usually in a change resistant manner resulting of a self-reinforcing process. A path dependence perspective helps to explain how this process takes place and eventually consolidates and locks organizations and markets into a path of quasi-deterministic character. Path dependent processes have been described in relation to technology, cognitive, normative or resource-based constraints (Sydow, Schreyögg & Koch, 2009).

Newspapers’ practices interact with cognitive and cultural processes on multiple levels, resulting in complexly embedded practices, attitudes and assumptions (Ohlsson, 2012). Zukin and DiMaggio (1990) identify four kinds of embeddedness of economic action: cognitive, cultural, structural, and political embeddedness. The notion of embeddedness may offer the right lenses to understand how path dependent dynamics could result in normative practices and affect business strategies in legacy newspapers.

Research design, Method and Data

The selected case study, for a longitudinal history, is the Cumbria News Group Ltd. The firm traces its origins to 1815 and holds an extensive archive. During its existence, the firm has gone through various periods when existing BMs have been challenged. The study includes the context of changes at different levels of analysis. The case particularly focuses on supposedly historical critical junctures in the history of newspapers; (1)1830s: origins of the penny press and the modern conception of news, (2) 1960s: big pipes and normatization of objective-investigative-enterprise journalism; and (3) the current period of digital news and defimiliarization of journalism.

The available sources in their archives are brought into dialogue trying to reverse the stages by which the series of narratives have accumulated. In-depth interviews are also used in the analysis of the current period of digital news.

The case provides a thick and careful description at the different levels of contexts, appearances and defining practices as a combination of discourse and materiality, and attempts to unearth the underlying logics in the process of change (Pettigrew, 1992).

Summary of main results

Whatever their public claims, legacy newspapers have seldom experienced in the past radical and fast transformations in their BMs. Incremental change is a better description of their business historic evolution, mainly as a result of a gradual incorporation of new technologies, new revenue streams and new business practices in an interwoven fashion.

Contributions to the field’s knowledge base

The paper contributes with a better understanding of:

- The role of cognitive and cultural embeddedness in business strategies of newspapers,

- The contributions and limitations of path dependence as a theoretical framework to interpret BM dynamics in legacy newspapers,

- How -in a BM analytical mode- legacy newspapers have effectively developed and evolved in different contexts in the past.

Practical implications

Managers in the newspaper industry can use the past as a valid reference to interpret and manage the business challenges in the industry today. Key learnings include:

- Since BMs of legacy newspapers have been revised through incremental processes in which new practices do not immediately replace old ones, managers should challenge the current BM without jeopardizing current capabilities,

- Since new practices spread from successful innovative newspapers to other players in the industry by a replication process, managers should scan the industry for success stories of new practices,

- Managers would benefit from understanding that some normative practices in legacy newspapers are relatively accidental and new to the industry (e.g. quality journalism, readership maximization…)

This paper studies how divergent organizational novelty can emerge and be sustained in seemingly powerless and resource constrained new ventures entering a highly institutionalized field. Our study of seven new ventures in the industry of written news surprisingly indicates that ventures facing high tangible resource constrains yield higher divergent organizational novelty than ventures facing lower tangible resource constrains. We observe that this happens because severe material resource constraints direct the new venture’s attention to intangible resources -available in the personal background of the entrepreneurial team- that creatively combine in new organizational functionalities. Another key finding is that although a process of novelty emergence can be triggered by external formative events and facilitated by organizational conditions, it can only result in divergent organizational novelty when driven by organizational growth. We complement traditional views on institutional entrepreneurship and contribute to concepts in institutional change. Our research also conceptually tightens the process of entrepreneurial bricolage for the outcome of divergent organizational novelty.

While part-time entrepreneurship dominates startups, entrepreneurship research largely assumes that ventures are the entrepreneurs' primary work activity. Theory on hybrid entrepreneurship, usually inferring part-time entrepreneurs' motivations, sees hybrids either as a learning stage in a path to fulltime entrepreneurship or as marginalized players, victims of a fractured employment market. Yet, surprisingly little is known about why and how individuals sustain their entrepreneurial ventures in non-transitional hybrid forms. This article, based on a multi case study approach, provides foundations for a more nuanced theoretical understanding of hybrid entrepreneurship. Specifically, it proposes a decision-making process that explains how, despite their similar mixed motivations to fulltime entrepreneurs, hybrid conditions can shield part-time ventures from market demands, allowing these entrepreneurs to resolve trade-offs and tensions differently and to pursue valued forms of work. The model provides answers to why constrained individuals 'prefer' receiving nonmonetary benefits as hybrids rather than as fulltime entrepreneurs and deciphers a phenomenon unattended by previous studies: reverse transitions from fulltime self-employment to a hybrid form.

This dissertation explores entrepreneurial processes in an institutional field incrisis. It is based on the inductive reinterpretation of four original papers that, combined, study activities of individuals searching for solutions to organizational problems in incumbent and startup newspapers. Building on an integrative framework of compatible concepts in entrepreneurship and institutional theory, and foregrounding the role of Bourdieu’s notion of capital, this thesis provides answers to how actors’ capitals mediate mechanisms of reproduction and novelty. Based on the analysis of multiple cases situated in a macro-level shift characterized by the transformation of the material environment, this work finds how—despite the aleatory and materialistic origins of written news norms and concepts, and their failing economic traction—entrepreneurial processes in all types of newspapers reproduce structural templates. In relatively affluent incumbents, reproduction happens because, in their search for solutions to losses of capital, actors interpret imported ideas within the meaning structure provided by existing norms and concepts, and day-to-day activities—“decoupled from innovation”—do not change significantly. Also, at the moment that these new activities generate short-term (albeit small) relative capital gains, as problems seem to wane, individuals unravel their search for solutions, reinforcing reproduction. In particularly deprived newcomers, the importation of innovative ideas can even be averted upfront by the organization of unrelated-to-the-venture supportive activities that generate unrelated-to-the-venture economic capital—a condition that shields these ventures from market demands and avoids exit scenarios. The “sheltered conformity” of daily activities in these organizations also results in reproduction. Yet, not all the entrepreneurial processes this thesis identifies contribute to the reproduction of existing institutional arrangements. Instances of significant difference in organizational structures can be forged in a distinct experience of constraints resulting from severe capital scarcity. A combination of absence of economic capital and moderate-to-low levels of cultural and social capital, as they are defined by the field, inhibits common solutions to problems. When actors find that freely available inputs accumulated in their personal biographies work, these inputs become “situated new forms of capital”. As they work, significantly different activities, partly decoupled from templates in the field, are incorporated in the structure of these organizations. Because it is existing ideals in the field that fuel resource-deprived entrepreneurs to sustain efforts, institutional arrangements do play a role in their own change.

By offering empirical support to the central role of the personal experience of capital constraints and situated redefinitions of capital in processes of institutional reproduction and divergence, this thesis complements interpretations of institutional contradictions: Rather than starting from the coexistence of different templates that actors can alternatively employ at intersections of structures, this study explores early endogenous processes by which new norms and concepts enter existing fields, reinterpreting resources in them. These findings provide additional insights into questions related to the origin of ideas, emergent processes of decoupling and to definitions of an institutionalized field in crisis and organizational novelty. This research also contributes to entrepreneurship within sights into how alertness and discovery transpire. When focusing on institutional templates and problem-solving activities of ordinary actors, entrepreneurial action—even in an institutional field in crisis—can contribute to the reproduction of the status quo. And when significant differences happen, because they can result from a distinct experience of resource constraints, they may appear in humble beginnings that contrast those chronicled in later stages of change by institutional entrepreneurship theory. Additionally, this thesis adds to entrepreneurial resourcefulness by unbundling the process by which bricolage produces outcomes that depart from its institutional environment. In my findings, bricoleurs do not blatantly violate norms and concepts, and yet they can bring divergent organizational novelty to their working solutions. In fact, the efforts of entrepreneurial bricoleurs are largely sustained by the predetermined meaning of inputs and institutionally conforming ideals in ways that, I suggest, bring the concept of bricolage closer to its original definition by Lévi-Strauss.

There is an unsatisfied need to understand the underlying mechanisms through which industrial sectors shape entrepreneurship phenomena. In this paper, we elaborate on the legitimacy-building mechanisms used by entrepreneurs in media industries. We suggest that in highly institutionalized contexts, start-up entrepreneurs may build trust in their ventures by borrowing sociopolitical legitimacy from neighboring fields. We also analyze the implications that these mechanisms may have on the cognitive and competitive configuration of the disrupted industry set-up. Our results propose that bricolage-entrepreneurs may succeed not only in developing a competitive advantage but also in creating a truly native, new legitimacy base in the media industry. We illustrate our theoretical analysis with the growing phenomenon of journalism entrepreneurship.

This paper explores the implementation of service-orientated strategies within newspapers using SDL and servitisation as theoretical departure points. This perspective helps to interpret the advancements and barriers in the current marketing innovation activities in the industry. Based on the exemplary case of the award-winning Svenska Dagbladet, we show that use is made of servitisation and SDL to the extent allowed by some strategic determinants of institutional nature. While some components of SDL have been implemented successfully others–customisation, resource development and coordination, and dialogue-based marketing communication–present managerial opportunities to increase value co-creation. But for this to happen the industry may need to consider changes in some of the institutional components of qualitative news that today act as institutional limits to innovation.

In this paper we examine why strategy innovation is rare. We integrate the knowledge-based view of the firm and embeddedness of economic action to interpret the historic emergence, formation and current lock-in of legacy newspapers. We research the historic case of the provincial press in UK and the current case of a regional leading newspaper in Spain and analyze how, in an industrial context of relative simplicity and certainty, path dependent formation processes are led by knowledge integration mechanisms. We also suggest that in legacy provincial newspapers the formed path has become locked-in due to embeddedness mechanisms, insolating it from outside negative inputs and perpetuating today’s failing business model. Finally, in order to enhance the potential contributions of path dependence to theory and practice, this paper proposes that an observable outcome of strategic change is needed and offer, for this purpose, a refined conceptualization of strategy innovation based on business model studies. This provides some clues about what is needed for the current lock-in of regional newspapers to be eventually unlock.

This paper examines why strategy innovation is rare in the regional news industry. It integrates the knowledge-based view of a firm, path-dependence theoretical perspective and the field of business model studies to interpret the historic emergence, formation, and current lock-in of legacy regional newspapers. The historic case of the provincial press in England is analysed to consider how, in an industrial context of relative simplicity and certainty, path-dependent formation processes are led by knowledge integration mechanisms.

In this paper we examine why business model innovation is rare. We integrate the theoretical frameworks of embeddedness, path dependency and business models to interpret the historic emergence, formation and current lock-in of legacy provincial newspapers. We analyze the historic case of the provincial press in UK and the current case of a regional leading newspaper in Spain and suggest that the cultural norms which today configure the path dependent business model of legacy newspapers are historically contingent. We also propose that in legacy provincial newspapers the formed path has become locked in due to embeddedness mechanisms, isolating it from outside negative inputs and perpetuating today’s failing business model. Finally, we offer a conceptualization of lock-in from a business model innovation perspective which provide some clues about what is needed for the current lock-in of regional newspapers to be eventually unlock.

It is impossible to think about the role of local journalism out of its context. In the United States of America, as in many other Western societies, this context is of increasing precarity. This chapter analyses observations made at key industrial and academic events, which are complemented by interviews with local players and articles, reports and studies produced by prominent actors in the field of news. Despite the significant changes brought by the digital, the core ideas that organise the business of providing local journalistic content in the regional press remain virtually unchanged from the analogic age. By the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the technological disruption brought by the internet had already syphoned advertising revenue from local newspapers to a reduced number of big technological players. Print advertising is collapsing and collective actors, increasingly aware of the inability of newspapers to compete with SMP for digital advertising, take issue with the sustainability of advertising as a revenue stream.

Purpose: This paper studies early stages of actor mobilization for institutional change within Swedish esports. Design/methodology/approach: The authors employ interpretative phenomenological analysis. Findings: The authors’ findings explain how actors become motivated to act in critical reflections linked to conflicting legitimacy judgments and emotionally charged personal struggles. Moreover, the findings show how, as actors get activated in collective action, they identify efficacy lines around valid domains and experience emotionally charged collective endeavors. Furthermore, the findings explain how particularities in early experiences project legitimacy aspirations that orient collective action toward validity ends and particular values and ideals shaping actors' grassroots movements. Originality/value: This study adds to legitimacy and institutional change theory through individual actors' perspectives, providing key insights into how they are motivated, activated, and oriented. This study is the first to investigate grassroots activists' personal stories in esports.

Esports is a phenomenon which continues to grow in socio-cultural and economic importance, yet it remains at the edges of mainstream society. To date, there have been few works which address the topic in terms of legitimacy, particularly the micro-processes of legitimization. Given that the esports system is one which currently operates outside wider societal practices, the lived experiences of actors in the ecosystem can offer valuable insights into the world of esports. This research employs IPA in order to understand how actors in organized grassroots esports movements make sense of their individual experiences and actions. A series of novel contributions are provided by this work. First, micro-level theories of legitimacy are applied to a phenomenon which has recently come to mainstream attention, one which is at the same time a business and a culture. Second, it is the first, in our knowledge, to apply a qualitative methodology to the explicit issue of legitimacy in esports. Third, it adds to theories of legitimacy and institutional change by providing empirical insights into the circumstances in which the experience of conflicts in legitimacy judgments independently mobilizes actors, shaping collective action into grassroots activism efforts. Finally, it highlights tensions between international success and the foundations of grassroots esports. 

Research Summary: There is growing consensus that exogenous environmental changes can affect entrepreneurship. The external enabler framework, which provides the structures and terminology to analyze these enabling effects, has typically focused on new venture creation. In an attempt to extend the external enabler framework to corporate entrepreneurship and innovation, our longitudinal multiple-case study explores how environmental changes enable entrepreneurial initiatives in existing organizations. Our findings contribute to the external enabler framework, corporate entrepreneurship, and innovation literature by identifying new conceptual tools to understand the enabling effect of environmental change for the emergence, novelty, and persistence of entrepreneurial initiatives in existing organizations.

Managerial Summary: We studied how the Covid-19 pandemic enabled the initiation and continuation of entrepreneurial activities. Our study of eight small US-based news companies shows that some entrepreneurial initiatives emerged as these organizations redirected their course of action toward new initiatives enabled by the changes in the external environment. Notably, the entrepreneurial initiatives that were new-to-the-industry originated from ideas that were already available in some form within the organization but were not in use until the pandemic gave them a second life. Furthermore, the continuation of these initiatives depended on the persistence of the changes in the environment and on the low maintenance requirements of these initiatives in terms of time, effort, and resources.

Despite the recent proliferation of research on blockchain, the existing literature is widely dispersed and lacks a comprehensive understanding of the integration of blockchain in impacting environmental and social sustainability. The purpose of our review is to synthesize previous research on the intersection of blockchain and sustainability. In our systematic review, we integrate and reconcile existing research on blockchain and sustainability by presenting antecedents and outcomes of blockchain integration and how blockchain is leveraged to achieve environmental and social impacts. We also propose a future research agenda to advance our knowledge of blockchain’s role in enhancing organizations’ sustainability efforts.

Blockchain research has proliferated in recent years, attracting more attention from academics and practitioners. However, the current body of management literature is widely scattered and lacks a comprehensive view of how the use of blockchain in organisations impacts environmental and social sustainability. To bridge this gap, our review comprehensively examines 238 academic papers sourced from the Scopus database, synthesising previous research on the convergence of blockchain and sustainability. Employing a systematic approach and incorporating bibliometric analysis, our study provides an analysis of the current management research landscape concerning blockchain and sustainability. Our study yields a comprehensive model comprising the antecedents, blockchain mechanisms, and sustainability outcomes of the use of blockchain in organisations. Based on our literature review, we establish a future research agenda and provide practical implications. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Aims: The aim of the paper is to explore emerging themes, which support the development of a sustainable esports industry.

Methods and results: This study is based on a workshop methodology, which aims to identify and explore topics perceived as most pertinent by individuals with an intimate understanding of the dynamics of the esports context. Two workshops were held with a total of 64 participants, representing both academia and industry stakeholders. Interpretations of the sustainability of esports were thus recorded, developed, critiqued, and refined through social interaction with experts. The results indicate three critical themes to address regarding the development of sustainability of esports, namely a) health and inclusiveness, b) the incomplete industry structure, and c) the immature business logic.

Conclusions: Sustainability refers to the ability of esports to survive or persist. We argue that sustainability is dependent on how well industry stakeholders can address the identified themes. Currently, social sustainability is the primary concern of both practitioners and researchers of esports. Economic sustainability mostly deals with securing business growth, while environmental sustainability is not yet perceived as a relevant topic (e.g., using sustainable technologies and energy-saving related to gaming and competitive events). Structures and processes within esports presently constitute the focus of sustainability in esports.

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to systematically review existing literature concerning the transmission of entrepreneurial values within the context of family entrepreneurship. Specifically, the study aims to address two primary inquiries: First, which entrepreneurial values transferred across generations have been discerned in family entrepreneurship literature? Second, what mechanisms for the transmission of these values have been identified within family entrepreneurship literature?

Design/methodology/approach: We utilized the Web of Science database to identify relevant articles. We employed a broad set of Boolean search terms related to family, entrepreneurship and values. Ultimately, 77 articles were selected for detailed analysis based on their relevance to the topic.

Findings: Our review identified a diverse array of entrepreneurial values that can be categorized into three themes: family values, family business values and societal entrepreneurial values. Furthermore, mechanisms facilitating the transmission of these values were classified into eight distinct types, i.e. relational embeddedness, vicarious learning, explicit communication, imprinting, educating, parenting styles, community-zeitgeist and genetics. The paper concludes with an agenda for future research on entrepreneurial value transmission in enterprising families.

Practical implications: Understanding how entrepreneurial values are transmitted within family firms can inform practices such as succession planning, leadership development and fostering a culture of entrepreneurship across generations.

Originality/value: This paper contributes to the theoretical development of family entrepreneurship by consolidating and synthesizing existing knowledge on entrepreneurial value transmission. It provides a comprehensive overview that can guide future empirical and conceptual investigations in this field.