The management and economics of cross-border media communication

The aim of the project The management and economics of cross-border media communication. A study of the transnational relations between market structures and media management investigates how, why and when media products transcend national and cultural borders. For this purpose, we examined in a first step the volume and intensity of cross-border transaction including both information and entertainment media, as well as the structures of media markets that enable or constrain this kind of transactions between different countries (AT, CH, CHN, DE, ES, IND, MX, NL, POL, UK, USA). Subsequently, we analyzed the way media companies shape such structures of cross-border communication with their strategies, goals, and activities and how they react to structural changes, as well as their rationales to engage across borders and the structures enabling or restricting such cross-border engagement. Aside from finding a new way to measure transnational media trade beyond bilateral relations by using different data sources reporting on various modes of cross-border media flows focusing in official data, our results show that digitization and language play a major role in the cross-border strategies of media companies. We found that companies that originate from non-dominant language markets and focus on generic media products or niche markets can benefit from digitization, as can companies that have already grew large and overcome their linguistic constraints. Regarding the rationales to engage across borders, we can summarize our results in three types of motivations: economic, organizational and socio-political. Our analysis also show that digitization alters the means of and opportunities of media companies for balancing exploration and exploitation (ambidexterity) in their internationalization process. This applies especially for the information-based media industry. Results show how exploitation seems to take centre stage while patterns of ambidexterity differ significantly depending on the media type and the company provenance. Regarding (market) structures enabling or constraining cross-border engagement, results show that there is not one crucial aspect that guides the decision for or against an engagement abroad. Furthermore, we found that most media companies do not apply a single, overarching and transnational strategy when it comes to engage cross-border but combine different strategies flexibly depending on the media type they handle with, the size and cultural provenance, as well as on rules and resources applied. Therefore, we plead for an understanding of the transnational strategy as meta-strategy. That means that transnational strategies result from flexibly applying diverse strategies that are not necessarily transnational.

The aim of the project The management and economics of cross-border media communication. A study of the transnational relations between market structures and media management investigates how, why and when media products transcend national and cultural borders. For this purpose, we examined in a first step the volume and intensity of cross-border transaction including both information and entertainment media, as well as the structures of media markets that enable or constrain this kind of transactions between different countries (AT, CH, CHN, DE, ES, IND, MX, NL, POL, UK, USA). Subsequently, we analyzed the way media companies shape such structures of cross-border communication with their strategies, goals, and activities and how they react to structural changes, as well as their rationales to engage across borders and the structures enabling or restricting such cross-border engagement. Aside from finding a new way to measure transnational media trade beyond bilateral relations by using different data sources reporting on various modes of cross-border media flows focusing in official data, our results show that digitization and language play a major role in the cross-border strategies of media companies. We found that companies that originate from non-dominant language markets and focus on generic media products or niche markets can benefit from digitization, as can companies that have already grew large and overcome their linguistic constraints. Regarding the rationales to engage across borders, we can summarize our results in three types of motivations: economic, organizational and socio-political. Our analysis also show that digitization alters the means of and opportunities of media companies for balancing exploration and exploitation (ambidexterity) in their internationalization process. This applies especially for the information-based media industry. Results show how exploitation seems to take centre stage while patterns of ambidexterity differ significantly depending on the media type and the company provenance. Regarding (market) structures enabling or constraining cross-border engagement, results show that there is not one crucial aspect that guides the decision for or against an engagement abroad. Furthermore, we found that most media companies do not apply a single, overarching and transnational strategy when it comes to engage cross-border but combine different strategies flexibly depending on the media type they handle with, the size and cultural provenance, as well as on rules and resources applied. Therefore, we plead for an understanding of the transnational strategy as meta-strategy. That means that transnational strategies result from flexibly applying diverse strategies that are not necessarily transnational.