Questioning media management scholarship: four parables about how to better develop the field

Abstract

Media management scholarship has achieved increasing maturity in recent years. While acknowledging significant accomplishment, the essay provides a critical assessment to stimulate discourse in the field about what is needed to achieve next stage development in theorisation and relevance for practice. The authors present four parables to illustrate the importance of what they suggest: (1) benefitting societies as well as media industries, and thus more carefully considering our intended role as researchers and educators, (2) building theory that is multidisciplinary and of broader relevance in the social sciences, (3) broadening the methods we employ in research, and (4) challenging ourselves and our students to be more ambitious in our commitments and intentions.

Strategic transformations in the media

“…Finally, the strategic management of media organisations as an area of inquiry amongst the academic community has relied on a limited number of conceptual frameworks that have been drawn from general management theory (Picard and Lowe, 2016;Achtenhagen and Mierzejewska, 2016;and Mierzejewska,2018). There is no doubt that the digital transformation of media industries and firms will remain a strategic issue that researchers will continue to address; and whilst the development of unique media management theory has proved challenging, the dynamic nature of the media environment does provide researchers with an extraordinary opportunity to develop new intellectual insight by bridging previously discrete fields of knowledge.…”

Human Resource Management in the Media

“…Meanwhile, there are a variety of views on the research design that media management researchers will need to employ in the future. For example, Picard & Lowe (2016) believe that researchers should adopt more longitudinal approaches to study phenomena in order to better understand how an issue develops over time. Achtenhagen (2016) on the other hand suggests that more quantitative studies should draw on sample sizes that will allow researchers to generalize their findings to entire populations or sections of populations.…”

“…By designing studies in a manner that seeks to determine causality, Achtenhagen (2016) argues that scholars can build empirical studies that support more evidence that creative employees in media organizations differ from other industries. As much of the studies discussed above are based on theories grounded in organizational behavior and general management theories and Picard & Lowe (2016) argue that media management scholars need to ensure theories that cross over are relevant, it is clear that SHRM would benefit from a theory that incorporates strategic human relation management in an industry where the workforce is a balance of creative and functional employees.…”

“…Finally, we consider how initiatives such as recruitment, retention and performance may play out in the future. By examining these aspects of SHRM, we can begin to identify the gaps in our understanding of how media organizations human resource practices should adapt and evolve over time (Picard & Lowe, 2016).…”

Media Entrepreneurship—Taking Stock and Moving Forward

“…But also beyond entrepreneurial journalism, the changes taking place in the media sectors have spurred some research activity. As has been called for by several scholars over the past years (e.g., Achtenhagen & Mierzejewska, 2016;McKelvie & Picard, 2008;Picard & Lowe, 2016), publications in media management-as well as media entrepreneurship-should pay more careful attention to building theory. Some signs of such theory-oriented scholarship are becoming evident.…”