scholarly journals Why Do Digital Native News Media Fail? An Investigation of Failure in the Early Start-Up Phase

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Buschow

Digital native news media have great potential for improving journalism. Theoretically, they can be the sites where new products, novel revenue streams and alternative ways of organizing digital journalism are discovered, tested, and advanced. In practice, however, the situation appears to be more complicated. Besides the normal pressures facing new businesses, entrepreneurs in digital news are faced with specific challenges. Against the background of general and journalism specific entrepreneurship literature, and in light of a practice–theoretical approach, this qualitative case study research on 15 German digital native news media outlets empirically investigates what barriers curb their innovative capacity in the early start-up phase. In the new media organizations under study here, there are—among other problems—a high degree of homogeneity within founding teams, tensions between journalistic and economic practices, insufficient user orientation, as well as a tendency for organizations to be underfinanced. The patterns of failure investigated in this study can raise awareness, help news start-ups avoid common mistakes before actually entering the market, and help industry experts and investors to realistically estimate the potential of new ventures within the digital news industry.

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Rehme ◽  
Peter Svensson

This article investigates how external stakeholders influence the first sale of technology-based business-to-business start-up companies. The authors combine entrepreneurship theory with marketing theory to describe the marketing and selling activities of start-ups and how new ventures reach key milestones. The study shows how two start-ups, an e-business firm and a new product development firm, acquired their first customers. The analysis provides a picture of how a network of the firms' founders, board members and owners contributed to their first sales. It also highlights the importance of sales activities, relationships and industrial knowledge. The paper examines the importance of external stakeholders' relative positions in the web of relationships and assesses how relevant these are in affecting outcomes and speed to market. The authors conclude that the first sale follows a time line with three important phases of activities involving credibility, closing and operations. They find that credibility is best obtained through establishing relationships.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffaele Fiorentino ◽  
Sergio Longobardi ◽  
Alessandro Scaletti

PurposeDespite the relevance of innovation in entrepreneurship literature, empirical research on the innovation-performance relationship in start-ups is underdeveloped and shows controversial results. To bridge this gap, the aim of this paper is to investigate the role of innovativeness on new venture performance in the early stage of the life cycle.Design/methodology/approachRegression modelling and propensity score matching are used to reveal systematic differences in growth between innovative start-ups (ISUPs) and non-innovative start-ups. We use an ad hoc dataset obtained through merging the financial database AIDA with data from administrative sources (Italian Chambers of Commerce and the Italian Ministry for Economic Development).FindingsThe results show that differences in growth can be explained by the different levels of innovativeness in new ventures. Moreover, unlike in prior studies, the innovation inputs matter more than innovation outputs. Indeed, the results support the idea that innovation policies can contribute to maximising the potential of start-ups.Practical implicationsThe findings provide suggestions for policy makers and entrepreneurs to help firms configure ex ante appropriate actions to support the growth of new ventures in the start-up stage.Originality/valueThis study is the first to use the new objective measure of start-up innovation, available from the Italian LD 221 register. Second, different types of innovation are investigated as antecedents of firm growth. Third, we employ propensity score matching, which favours revealing systematic differences in growth between ISUPs and non-innovative start-ups. Fourth, the results of our study are the first to offer evidence on the effectiveness of the new Italian sustaining ISUPs policy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry H Robinson ◽  
Criss Jones Díaz ◽  
Cris Townley

This paper examines the ways in which current affairs related to diversity and difference, nationally and globally, are represented to Australian children in children’s digital news media and through family discussions. The discussion is based on qualitative research that explores parents’ views and practices in addressing news media and diversity and difference issues with their children. In addition, this project includes a discursive analysis of stories found in Behind The News ( BTN), the primary digital news media source for Australian children, aged 8–13 years, from 2015–2018. The news stories are related to three significant topics: the marriage equality debate, refugees and terrorism. Within feminist post-structuralist, post-developmentalist and critical theorist frameworks, a focus is given to examining the dominant discourses that prevail in the stories, which provide insight into how childhood and children’s access to certain types of knowledge is viewed and regulated through media and family practices. Drawing on thematic and Foucaultian discursive analyses, the pilot study findings demonstrate that children’s news media is closely scrutinised and regulated, with major news stories framed within dominant discourses of childhood innocence, as well as the agenda and particular interests of the producers of children’s new media. These topics, which have dominated news in recent years, are frequently considered by some adults as inappropriate or difficult topics to discuss with children.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 393-409
Author(s):  
Terese Mendiguren Galdospin ◽  
Irati Agirreazkuenaga Onaindia ◽  
Koldo Meso Ayerdi

Ongoing downsizing in the media sector has sparked a new start-up culture in the field of journalism. Over the past few years an increasing number of news organizations seeking to leverage social and symbolic rather than financial capital and cultivate employee as well as audience loyalty have entered the market (Wagemans, Witschge and Deuze, 2016). This paper examines El Diario (eldiario.es) and El Confidencial (elconfidencial.com). Qualitative methods involving the on-site observation in their newsrooms and semi-structured interviews with their journalists were employed. Findings indicate that both see themselves as alternative news providers whose emphasis El Diario draws heavily upon the symbolic capital of its founder Ignacio Escolar, El Confidencial, has banked primarily on its social capital.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ester Appelgren ◽  
Carl-Gustav Lindén

The combined set of skills needed for producing data journalism (e.g., investigative journalism methods, programming, knowledge in statistics, data management, statistical reporting, and design) challenges the understanding of what competences a journalist needs and the boundaries for the tasks journalists perform. Scholars denote external actors with these types of knowledge as interlopers or actors at the periphery of journalism. In this study, we follow two Swedish digital native data journalism start-ups operating in the Nordics from when they were founded in 2012 to 2019. Although the start-ups have been successful in news journalism over the years and acted as drivers for change in Nordic news innovation, they also have a presence in sectors other than journalism. This qualitative case study, which is based on interviews over time with the start-up founders and a qualitative analysis of blog posts written by the employees at the two start-ups, tells a story of journalists working at the periphery of legacy media, at least temporarily forced to leave journalism behind yet successfully using journalistic thinking outside of journalistic contexts.


2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (04) ◽  
pp. 339-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
LENA LEE ◽  
POH-KAM WONG

Does an individual's positive attitude towards entrepreneurship education promote the growth of new ventures? It appears that it does. The empirical results presented in this paper support a prima facie claim that a relationship exists between attitude towards entrepreneurial education and business start-up. The aim of this paper is to investigate the hypothesised positive relationship between new venture founding and attitude towards entrepreneurial education (AEE). Limited if any research on new venture founding in the past has explored the contribution of AEE in business start-ups. A survey is carried out on a large sample (more than 15,000) of tertiary students residing in Singapore. In analysing the dataset, we have controlled for various factors in the regression analysis. Due to the limitations of our study, we are cautious not to assert any causal link between these 2 variables. The implications of the results to policy makers and educators are discussed along with suggestions for future research in order to refine our present understanding of these relationships.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 935-957
Author(s):  
Claudia Capozza ◽  
Sergio Salomone ◽  
Ernesto Somma

Abstract We explore the innovation-enabling factors in young innovative companies (YICs) considering different elements of firm-specific absorptive capacity along with factors related to the industrial structure. Evidence from Italian YICs, known as innovative start-ups whose creation was prompted by the Start-up Act in 2012, shows that absorptive capacity factors matter with differences for product and process innovation. Moreover, the configuration of the industry context remarkably shape innovation, providing implications for policy-makers seeking to improve the national competitiveness by sustaining new ventures of high technological value.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. p9
Author(s):  
Anthony LIU

Exploring the effective ways of start-up financing is an important and practical issue to technological innovation and economic development. This paper aims to investigate the impacts of information asymmetry on the high-tech start-up financing preference, and whether an entrepreneur’s internationality features moderate the main effects. A sample of 500 high-tech start-ups and new ventures was collected at Shenzhen, China. Regression models are designated for testing both the main effects predicted in research hypotheses and the predicted moderating role of an entrepreneur’s internationality features. Our test results lead to 3 findings: firstly, in the high-tech industries, the information asymmetry mitigated by disclosing intellectual properties can significantly increase the start-up preference for external financing. This finding can be explained by the reduction of agency costs of debts. Secondly, the lessened information asymmetry can shorten the life cycle of start-up financing under the pecking order hypothesis. Lastly, the liability of foreignness is observed to have a significant positive moderating role on the main effects under the investigation. It can be concluded that the information asymmetry and the liability of foreignness are crucial factors influencing start-up financing decisions.This conclusion implies that reducing the information asymmetry by adequately disclosing technological strength and tacit knowledge can benefit the entrepreneurial financing for the high-tech start-ups and new ventures at the early stages, as well as provide an effective shortcut to the start-up financing cycle. Furthermore, the introduction of overseas technologies, funds, knowledge, experiences, and entrepreneurship into the high-tech start-ups does not create the liability of foreignness, and on the contrary, it is an “asset” that can help improve entrepreneurial financing decisions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sreekala Girija

The rise in internet penetration and the growing number of digital device users have spurred a new wave of digital media entrepreneurship in India. In a media landscape dominated by corporate controlled mainstream news media that are susceptible to commercial and political pressures, some of these digital news media start-ups claim to offer news as a public service devoid of any corporate funding and profit-orientation. But how does the technology-aided public service news model work and what are its challenges? Using a case study of IndiaSpend, a not-for-profit digital news media start-up, this paper examines the public service news model. A critical analysis of the data collected through interviews and texts shows that IndiaSpend's business model reinforces hegemony as it is dependent on corporate funding and technology corporations. In the absence of public funding and government support, it is difficult to sustain such a model.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annamaria Conti ◽  
Maria P. Roche

We assess the heterogeneous impact of economic downturns on individuals’ decisions to bring high-technology ideas to the market in the form of new ventures. We thereby examine how worsening labor market conditions influence individuals’ opportunity costs of starting new ventures, the resulting composition of the entrepreneurial pool, and start-up performance outcomes. Using a rich data set of start-up founders in the biotechnology and medical device sectors, we find that an increase in the unemployment rate is associated with a substantial rise in the share of entrepreneurs who are most sensitive to worsening labor market conditions. Additionally, we find that start-ups founded by these entrepreneurs display lower financial and innovative performance than start-ups founded by entrepreneurs who are relatively insensitive to business cycles. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that individuals’ heterogeneous response to worsening labor market conditions is a relevant factor in explaining the negative relationship between unemployment and start-up performance outcomes.


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