Dynamic Capabilities: exploring industry level capabilities in UK Publishing.

Abstract

The competitive dynamics of many industries have changed considerably over the past decade and perhaps none more so than in news media. There is no doubt that this industry continues to undergo structural changes that compel news media firms to adapt and transform their business in response to the dynamic nature of media environment (Oliver, 2012; 2014). Indeed, many scholars have written extensively of the influence that the digital media environment has had on news businesses in terms of organizational value chains, profitability and their strategic adaptation to an environment disrupted by innovative new media technologies (Kung, 2008; Picard, 2010; Coates Nee, 2013; Neilsen, 2014; Schlesinger and Doyle, 2015). Industries have long been examined by researchers from a strategic perspective with various themes of inquiry relating to; industry structure and positioning, industry evolution and development, industry lifecycle, industry change and industry consolidation. Fundamentally, this body of knowledge emphases the importance of an organisation’s strategic fit with their competitive environment to achieve competitive advantage. This paper argues that ‘industry analysis’ could usefully draw on Dynamic Capabilities Theory (Teece, Pisano and Shuen, 1997) which argues for the strategic adaptation and reconfiguration of news media firm resources and capabilities in order to address a rapidly changing competitive environment. The increasingly dynamic nature of news media provides an ideal context to examine the dynamic capabilities exhibited at industry level, and whilst questions of industry analysis have been extensively covered in the field of strategic management, there is a dearth of literature that examines dynamic capabilities at industry level, and more specifically, UK news media. This paper will present empirical findings from a comparative time-series analysis (1997-2013) of the UK Publishing Industry and compare it to other industries categorised within the UK Creative Industries. Using descriptive statistics, this research will examine two key resource based metrics: the number of employees and the Gross Value Added by each industry. In doing so, this analysis will extend the limited knowledge on industry level dynamic capabilities and inter-industry performance and provide an insight into how the UK Publishing Industry has adapted to digital media over two decades change and turbulence.