Entrepreneurialism - an asset in financial crises : A study of Swedish magazine publishers’ approach to new business development

• The media industry is working in a constant turbulence due to technological advancements in the way media content is produced, spread and consumed. The financial crisis came in the midst of this challenging business environment and was a hard blow for the whole industry. Developing creative and profitable products under such uncertain and difficult circumstances puts the usefulness of traditional strategic principles such as planning and forecasts in question. This paper discuss how Swedish magazine publishers approach new business development and presents preliminary results from a  study of 246 decision makers in 130 Swedish magazine publishing firms. These findings show that they use a logic similar to that of entrepreneurs, a logic which is different from generally applied management theory. It is suggested that having this entrepreneurial approach helps decision makers in the magazine industry to handle uncertainty, induced by financial crises but also induced by the general technological development.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Business development

effectuation

entrepreneurship

media industry

magazine industry

decision making

media management

financial crises

Business studies

Företagsekonomi

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)