This study empirically investigates dynamic managerial capabilities (DMC) in the context of social media influencers (SMIs) operating in digital ecosystems and examines individual-level strategic orientations as antecedents of these capabilities. Survey data from 335 UK-based SMIs collected in February and March 2025 were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Results show that all three DMC dimensions (human capital, social capital, and managerial cognition) contribute to business model innovation and performance, with managerial cognition emerging as the most critical driver. Market, technology, and entrepreneurial orientations emerged as antecedents of DMCs. In contrast, relative creative orientation (opposed to business orientation) shows a negative effect on DMC development. The study extends DMC theory to solo entrepreneurs in creative industries and provides guidance for creative entrepreneurs seeking to sustain innovation and performance in platform-driven markets.

Die Transformation der Medienmärkte verändert nicht nur Unternehmen und deren Geschäftsmodelle, sondern zunehmend auch die akademische Auseinandersetzung mit der Medienwirtschaft. Entsprechende Studienangebote, Forschungsfragen und die den akademischen Austausch tragenden Scientific Communities bzw. deren formale Institutionen bleiben von den technologischen, ökonomischen und gesellschaftlichen Verschiebungen nicht unberührt. Das erfordert eine kritische Analyse der Situation des Fachs an deutschen Hochschulen sowie der Situation der Studierenden – reflektiert an den Veränderungen des Untersuchungsgegenstands. Dieser Beitrag wird das allein nicht leisten, aber er soll über drei (unterschiedlich fundierten) Thesen dazu einladen. Es ist Zeit, aktiv zu werden und es bestehen dafür zahlreiche Freiheitsgrade. Eine letztes Jahr auf der Tagung der European Media Management Association in Rom vorgestellte Untersuchung der Abstracts der letzten fünf Konferenzen zeigte, dass kaum neue Theorien aus der BWL, geschweige denn der VWL, rezipiert wurden und – abgesehen von den allfälligen Buzzwords dazu – war kaum ein tiefergehendes Verständnis der neuen Technologien auszumachen. Es wurden wenig international vergleichende Ansätze oder elaborierte analytische Methoden eingesetzt, und auch die politischen Rahmenbedingungen des Medienmanagements blieben kaum angesprochen.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping advertising, communication and media agencies, enhancing operational efficiency and creativity. These agencies, central to the media business and brand management across all industries, have transitioned from their traditional roles to digital marketing consultants, with AI significantly influencing this evolution in co-creating value. At the same time, AI also bears the risk of co-destruction. This paper examines AI’s current deployment, and its potential future impact based on a survey of 108 decision-makers from German agencies. Results show varied AI adoption across different types of agencies and specific aspects of the overall value creation process, while the orchestration of AI deployment still appears to be in an experimental stage. Decision-makers see enormous further opportunities and also warn of challenges. AI is seen to have already had a strong impact on productivity and is also likely to lead to substantial job losses in the future.

This paper is the first to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer perceptions of luxury within different cultural contexts. Based on a sample of 181 subjects, this exploratory study analyses pandemic-driven shifts in perceptions of luxury among consumers in Russia and Germany, considering also the influence of age, gender and education. The paper compares its findings with those from previous research by Godey et al. As a long-term trend, the study finds that the terms ‘conspicuous’ ranked significantly lower in perceptions of luxury during the pandemic, as did ‘prestigious’, ‘extravagant’ and ‘snobbish’. Conversely, ‘exclusive’, ‘desirable’ and ‘emotional’ ranked higher. This paper also discusses the key differences between sociodemographic groups, and finds that cultural factors had the least impact on consumer perceptions. These findings have implications for the practice of luxury marketing.

Social media influencers (SMIs) have become an internet phenomenon with significant impact on public opinion. Although SMIs are becoming more professional and are differentiating themselves in terms of content and communication styles, quantitative indicators such as reach and engagement rates are still at the centre of marketers’ attention. This study identifies and tests five qualitative types of social media influencers (‘storyteller’, ‘rationalist’, ‘expert’, world-changer’ and ‘extravert’) based on four key motivational factors for content creation from a broad international sample. The authors find differences regarding the relative frequencies of the identified SMI types between the surveyed countries. This study provides substantial insights for researchers and brand managers seeking to better understand influencer types and manage influencer relations respectively.

The esports industry still exhibits progressive growth driven by digital transformation and an increasing followership. Such dynamic development involves manifold interactions between multiple actor types captured as value co-creation (VCC). Esports players comprise a key and specific group of actors. With various levels of professionalisation, they attract huge audiences in stadiums and on screen. Empirical insights can reveal the players' perspective of VCC and thus inform managerial decision-making. This study's primary purpose is to contextualise, specify and measure VCC in esports as a reliable and valid concept. Also, by applying structural equation modelling, VCC's impact on satisfaction with the service and financial rewards is empirically tested. Media companies benefit from tapping into esports players' resources in co-creation activities to venture into this prospering industry.

An increasing amount of news is generated automatically by artificial intelligence (AI).While the technology has advantages for content production, e.g., regarding efficiency in aggregating information, it is also viewed critically due to little transparency in obtaining results and possible biases.As news media are dependent on trust and credibility, introducing AI to facilitate mass communication with consumers seems to be a risky endeavor.We expand research on consumer perception of AI-based news by comparing machinewritten and human-written texts to fake news and by examining the role of trust that consumers exhibit when evaluating news.Through an experiment with 263 participants, we find that consumers judge AI-based texts similar to true journalistic content when it comes to credibility, but similar to fake news regarding readability.Furthermore, our results indicate that consumers with low trust in media are less averse to AIbased texts than consumers with high trust in media.

Young media users increasingly engage with public affairs via social media such as YouTube, where content is increasingly produced by influencers who neither represent established professional news media nor political parties. Although the audience of these channels is already substantial in absolute terms and still growing enormously—making alternative influencers serious competitors to professional journalism—we still know little about their ways of attracting and monetizing audiences, the topics they emphasize, or the specific content they provide. To address this void, the present study examines political videos and their producers on YouTube in an explorative and comparative way for English- and German-speaking YouTube channels. We conducted a content analysis of the five most popular YouTube videos for each of the 20 most successful English- and German-speaking political influencers in 2020. Our analyses show that, although English YouTubers already appear to be more professionalized, similar patterns emerge in both language regions, particularly with regards to increasing efforts to manage microcelebrity status. In terms of content, two main types of political YouTube videos were identified: “partisan mockery” and “engaging education.” Results will be discussed in terms of their implications for political discourse, youth participation, and established journalistic media.

By seeking relationships with advertisers, actively posting social media users become "influencers" in the sense of influencer marketing. As such, they combine content based on person& stories or specific capabilities with third parties' commercial interests. Unlike research on well-known social media celebrities, in this study we focus on nascent media professionals in the early stages of developing from co-consumers to having their first financial success. We conducted a survey of 3500 such "nano" to "micro" influencers from a leading agency's German database to identify the principal components of attitudes that extant research proposes as drivers of formal professionalization. To achieve this, we operationalized and adapted theoretical concepts to influencers as a new kind of content creator. Characteristically, professionalization paralleled by reach is driven by a combination of established scales on entrepreneurial orientation, manifest in "proactiveness" and "risk-taking," as well as a brand orientation, resulting from "market mavenism" and "brand engagement in self-concept." However, a structural equation model not only suggests that there are additional drivers but also links the identified drivers to personality traits based on the five-factor OCEAN model. Hence, becoming an influencer is to some extent catalyzed by socialization; it requires the ability and willingness to entice an increasingly large followership with unique content, which represents both a challenge and an inspiration for incumbent media organizations.

Die Konferenz der European Media Management Association (emma) wird Mitte Juni diesen Jahres von der Macromedia University of Applied Sciences zusammen mit der Tagung der Fachgruppe Medienökonomie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft (DGPuK) in München ausgerichtet. Federführend sind die drei Macromedia-Professoren Castulus Kolo (Präsident der Macromedia University of Applied Sciences), Florian Haumer (Dekan der Fakultät für Kultur, Medien und Psychologie) und Joschka Mütterlein (Dekan der Fakultät für Business, Design und Technologie), die mit dem übergreifenden Thema „Reorganization of Media Industries – Between Digital Transformation, Entrepreneurship, and Regulatory Activities“ aktuelle Entwicklungen der Medienwirtschaft adressieren wollen.

PurposeThis study strives to improve one’s understanding of tailored messaging as an organizational communication strategy that amplifies processes of organizational change at an individual level of personality traits.Design/methodology/approachA scientific experiment was conducted to test the effects of tailored messages on self-reported employee engagement during an organizational change process.FindingsThe results show that tailored messaging improves employee engagement for change when messages fit the specific needs of different personality types. Conversely, message tailoring can lower employee engagement when messages do not match personality types. Further, message tailoring has different impacts at different stages of a change project.Research limitations/implicationsAn employee's ability to change as a function of his professional skill set as well as the project type (e.g. digital transformation project, post-merger integration project, leadership change project) should not be neglected in an overall model that aims to explain the success factors of change management.Practical implicationsObviously, proper targeting, timing, as well as the implementation of a valid, legal and feasible method for identifying an employee's personality as well as other individual characteristics are equally important and challenging to improve change management outcomes.Originality/valueThis study adds value to the discussion on the efficacy of message tailoring as a communication strategy for organizational change.

Der sogenannte Elektronische Sport, zuweilen auch Cybersport, im Folgenden mit dem heute verbreiteteren Anglizismus kurz als E-Sport bezeichnet, trifft als aufstrebender neuer Wirtschaftsbereich im Kontext der Medien- und Unterhaltungsindustrien im Allgemeinen bzw. des Sports im Speziellen auf die branchenübergreifenden Trends von Globalisierung und digitaler Transformation. Das immer noch stark wachsende Publikumsinteresse an E-Sport, reflektiert auch in der zunehmenden Relevanz im Werbemarkt (Newzoo 2020), bietet einerseits Chancen für die traditionellen Akteure aus Sport und Medien. Andererseits etablieren sich auch neue, aufstrebende Akteure, wie z. B. die Streaming-Plattform Twitch, welche die angestammten Marktteilnehmer*innen mit innovativen Geschäftsmodellen herausfordern. Der nachfolgende Beitrag soll E-Sport überblicksartig als Wirtschafts- und Forschungsbereich vorstellen sowie als neue Sportdisziplin und abgrenzbares bzw. abzugrenzendes Segment der Medienwirtschaft verorten.

This study strives to shed light on the potential impact of technological advances on specific aspects of corporate and marketing communication. It is based on an international survey among experts from different professional backgrounds (n=470) and a follow-up group discussion of the survey results with selected media industry experts to identify required actions by companies to cope with various aspects of change. Our foresight approach with a time horizon until about 2030 suggest that artificial intelligence (AI), virtual, mixed, or augmented reality, new human machine interfaces in general as well as internet of things (IoT) and blockchain will have the most substantial effects alongside with the increasing complexity and need for integration of various communication activities. Furthermore, content creation will become automated to a considerable extent in this decade and thus will require process innovation to get it organized. As a result, companies should build internal expertise on AI at decision-making level to avoid dependencies on external consultancy and set up a proactive partnering with suppliers of the other key technologies.

Developments in online retailing are putting pressure on companies to keep up with rapidly changing market environments and growing customer expectations. A way to cope with these challenges is to transform the online shopping experience by augmented reality (AR). AR is an emerging interactive technology that supplements the real-world environment with virtual objects. Retailers increasingly use AR as an experiential marketing tool to create additional value for their customers through experiences. This paper examines the effect of AR experiential marketing (AREM) on brand equity — assessed through the dimensions brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality and brand loyalty — as well as on consumers’ buying intention. Furthermore, the level of involvement is investigated as a moderator affecting the relationship between AREM and brand equity, as it has been found to influence the consumers’ shopping experience in earlier studies. A survey was carried out under controlled framework conditions, and 100 valid questionnaires on test persons’ experiences were obtained. The data were investigated by principal component and multiple regression analyses. Findings indicate that AREM positively affects brand equity through the dimensions brand awareness, brand associations and brand loyalty. Moreover, through increased perceived quality, AREM has a greater impact on brand equity under high involvement than under low involvement. The results further suggest that brand equity stimulates buying intention via increased brand awareness and brand loyalty. In addition, AREM also has a direct positive impact on buying intentions.

An analysis of newspaper industries in their national contexts exhibits strategic clusters of similar challenges, imposed by digital transformation and socio-economic change. While growth of media in general, newspaper reach, and Internet penetration are dominant factors framing the prosperity of newspaper publishing, dynamics of digital revenues from advertising and circulation still vary substantially also within such clusters. Only in very few countries, publishers achieve to collectively combine (still) growing overall revenues with advanced digital transformation.

Information and cultural goods have received attention for their relevance in academic and policy debates. Their characteristics give directions for media economics theorizing and for developing adequate methods to its empirical foundation. While some of the discourses on their properties have lasted for decades, also new issues have emerged. They are mainly driven by digital transformation and the generally increasing importance of information as a production factor. User generation has added new facets to the modes of production and “platforms” or “ecosystems” became a new type of economic entity. Most fundamentally, artificial intelligence (AI) challenges the role of human creativity as resource.

Today’s economic success of video games is paralleled by a debate on presumed correlations of certain game play with problematic motivations and personalities, respectively. To shed light on a potential relation between personality, motivations and game choice we conducted an online survey (n = 1612). It confirms the applicability of the five-factor OCEAN model of personality in a German-speaking gaming context. Here, Yee’s gamer motivation model as a longer-term psychological concept, contrasting rather short-term motives and incentives, is replicated. Motivations are derived from a principal component analysis of over 40 items and found to form clusters that correlate with specific personalities. Additionally, with ‘motivational footprints’ and related ‘gamer personalities’ certain games are favoured. The results suggest that games should be seen as identity management tools rather than means to assume alternative personas. Knowing the particularly enticing combinations of motivations met, may guide the development of future games for selected personalities.

Previously unknown online users posting videos have recently achieved a kind of stardom. Such “Social Media Celebrities” (SMC) are “influencers” impacting on content consumption as well as on purchase decisions. By producing new types of content based on their creativity and monetizing it via social media platforms in innovative ways, they also became digital media entrepreneurs. This explorative study draws from global audience data as well as from video content in international comparison and a representative survey on gratifications sought by its consumption and quality criteria is applied. The findings suggest that a perceived quality is based on the celebrities’ credibility and the sympathy that users feel for them, with gratifications sought much like for traditional media. Users are aware that advertising is an integral part of the content, leading to stronger affiliation of them with SMCs and brands alike, providing challenges and opportunities for users themselves but also for the incumbent media.

Interaktivität als wesentliches Charakteristikum von Online-Medien wird heute auf verschiedenen technischen Übertragungsplattformen und Endgeräten ermöglicht. Durch Online-Medien wandelt sich die Mediennutzung, aber ebenso die Akteure der Medienwirtschaft und ganz generell die Art und Weise, wie wir in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft kommunizieren. Auch Online-Medien selbst verändern sich weiterhin sehr dynamisch auf oft unabsehbaren, „emergenten“ Pfaden. Der stete, sich gegenseitig bedingende Wandel auf technischer wie Angebots- und Nutzerseite ist geradezu charakteristisches Element. Wesentlicher technologischer Treiber ist die Digitalisierung, die die Unabhängigkeit der Inhalte von einem Träger und deren Rekombination gewährleistet sowie zusammen mit der kontinuierlichen Leistungssteigerung der Hardware eine Integration von immer mehr Funktionen in ein einziges Endgerät ermöglicht. Hinzu kommt die weltweit fortschreitende Konnektivität von Menschen untereinander und mit zunehmend ,intelligenten‘ Artefakten. Kommunikationsmedien spielen dabei im Innovationsgeschehen eine Doppelrolle: Als Innovation sowie als Träger von Kommunikation über Innovationen. Die Genese wie die Adoption von Innovationen erweisen sich nicht mehr als separierbare Ereignisse, sondern als nur diachron zu verstehende Koevolution von Technologieentwicklung, Aneignungsprozessen und Geschäftsmodellen. Unterdessen können sich neue Inhalte, Formate, Endgeräte bis hin zu ganzen Bereichen der Medien- und Kommunikationswirtschaft ausdifferenzieren und damit divergieren, aber auch konvergieren. Sie koexistieren so konstruktiv aber ebenso disruptiv mit traditionellen Medien und treiben schließlich deren Substitution an.