Entrepreneurial orientation – an overlooked theoretical concept for studying media firms

Current changes in the media industries not only provide a range of new business opportunities for entrepreneurial start-ups, they also force legacy media firms to engage in corporate entrepreneurship and (re-)develop their entrepreneurial orientation as part of their strategic renewal. In recent years, media entrepreneurship has emerged as an area of study within media business studies, but it still lacks theoretical anchoring. While in mainstream entrepreneurship research entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has developed into a highly prominent theoretical concept, it has been largely overlooked for the study of media firms to date. This paper introduces entrepreneurial orientation to media business studies. It characterizes EO’s different dimensions and reviews relevant studies, and then illustrates the dimensions of the EO concept by drawing on the case example of a European online publisher. The case shows how different dimensions of EO are at play in the media firm and how the relevance of these dimensions is not stable over time, but in constant flux. Such process perspective on EO is outlined as a major future research opportunity for media entrepreneurship studies

Stabilization of microbial residues by co-precipitation with Fe and Al oxyhydroxides

It is now widely accepted that microbial residues are a significant source for soil organic matter (SOM) formation. This material must be stabilised in soil in order to persist. A potential mechanism for stabilisation of organic materials in soil is co-precipitation with metal oxyhydroxides (Fe and Al), which, however, may be affected by redox transitions. We thus evaluated the mineralisation of 14C-labelled bacterial residues (Escherichia coli cells and cell envelope fragments) and their co-precipitates with Fe or Al oxyhydroxide under different redox conditions in a laboratory incubation experiment. The co-precipitates or untreated microbial residues (control) were mixed with soil and incubated in sealed vessels under either fully aerobic or under oxygen-limited conditions for up to 345 days. To achieve oxygen limitation, incubation was conducted under an N2 atmosphere for the first 100 days. The redox potential was further decreased by waterlogging the samples (from day 100) and by substrate and nutrient additions (from day 290), to increase electron acceptor consumption by the soil microbes. Mineralisation of the microbial residues was quantified by liquid scintillation counting. The data were fitted to different types of models, depending on the experimental phase. Co-precipitation with Fe and Al oxyhydroxides decreased mineralisation of both intact cells and cell envelope fragments significantly, indicating strong protection of biomass and its fragments. Mineralisation of intact cells was slightly faster than that of cell envelope fragments, indicating higher recalcitrance of the latter material, which therefore may be enriched in SOM. Strongly reducing conditions resulted reductive dissolution of Fe oxyhydroxide and thus in a loss of the stabilising effect of the co-precipitation. We conclude that co-precipitation with and incrustation of organic material by Fe and Al oxyhydroxides provide significant stabilisation of microbial residues. However, environmental conditions, e.g. the redox potential, modify the extent of this stabilisation. Fitting the mineralisation data to the models indicated that initially mainly pool sizes were affected by the factors studied, whereas later in the experiment the rate constants were more sensitive. The results improved significantly our understanding how organic materials, in particular microbial residues, are stabilised in soil

"Das 21. Jahrhundert ist weiblich": Unternehmerinnen in der Presse

Die vorliegende Studie untersucht die Presseberichterstattung über Unternehmerinnen insbesondere mit Blick darauf, welches Bild von Unternehmerinnentum in den Presseberichten vermittelt wird. Zu diesem Zweck wurden Artikel in sechs ausgewählten überregionalen deutschen Tageszeitungen im Zeitraum 2004-2013, sowie ausgewählte Artikel aus schwedischen Printmedien ausgewertet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Berichterstattung zunehmend vielfältiger wird und die Sichtbarkeit von Unternehmerinnen zunimmt. Allerdings werden auch heute noch klassische Stereotype und traditionelle Rollenbilder durch die Berichterstattung transportiert.The present study examines how the daily press in Germany contributes to presenting and spreading role models for women entrepreneurs. Therefore we analyzed six of the biggest nationwide newspapers in the space of time 2004-2013. For comparison we furthermore included selected Swedish print media. Our results show that women entrepreneurs get more and more visible in the press discourse, but traditional stereotypes and role models are still presented in several of the articles

Qualitative Research in the Field of Instruction - Introductory Comments on a Controversial Discussion

Die äußerst vielschichtige und in ihren Aussagen nicht einheitliche Literatur zur Auseinandersetzung von qualitativer und quantitativer Sozialforschung wird anhand von vier Punkten diskutiert: (1) Deskription sozialer Felder; (2) Gewinnung von Theorien; (3) Prüfung von Theorien; (4) Umsetzung von Theorien in Technologien. Forschungspraktisch scheint danach der behauptete Gegensatz sich nicht zu bestätigen. (DIPF/Orig.)The discussion of the controversy on qualitative and/or quantitative research is pointed out by four problems: (1) Description of social context; (2) finding and formulating adequate theories; (3) testing theories; (4) relationship between theories and technologies. In a pragmatic view there seems to be no difference between qualitative and quantitative research

Are firm growth paths random? A reply to “Firm growth and the illusion of randomness"

We respond to Derbyshire and Garnsey's article "Firm growth and the illusion of randomness", adding theoretical and methological clarifications as well as some new empirical evidence

Identify Innovative Business Models: Can Innovative Business Models Enable Players to React to Ongoing or Unpredictable Trends?

Socioeconomic trends (such as makers, crowdsourcing, sharing economy, gamification) as well as technological trends (such as cloud computing, 3D printing technology, application, big data, TV on demand and the Internet of things) are changing the scenario and creating new opportunities, new businesses and, as a result, new players. The high level of uncertainty caused by the fast speed of innovation technology along with an enormous amount of information difficult to analyse and exploit are characterizing the current framework. On the other hand, businesses such as Netflix – with its 44,000 users and a long tail business model – show a new service based on TV on demand where innovation starts from the convergence between two different industries (TV and the Internet) and spreads on the need of new users. Quirky, with its innovative open business model, is manufacturing new products designed and developed by the community and finally produced with the use of 3D printing technology. While Google in a multi-sided model are giving their new glasses to different developers who build their own application on them, Kickstarter finds its business funders in the crowd, and pays them back with its future products, according to what the organization needs. Another element that adds complexity to the previous framework is the new customer. He or she is showing a social attitude in favour of transparency, openness, collaboration, and sharing. Every second more than 600 tweets are posted on Twitter and around 700 status updates are posted on Facebook. At the same time, people are receiving text messages, e-mails and skype or phone calls and simultaneously consuming TV,radio and print media. In this scenario characterized by trends where employees, funders, customers and partners do not play a stable role but work together with a sort of “platform organization” to create a product or service completely customized for different market niches, how can an organization set up an innovative business model in a defined trend? Is it possible to identify a sort of framework, able to inspire new business models, with an examination of trends? In this article we will use a mix of different approaches to inspire new business model