1
Beyond Organizational Learning: How do Firms Unlearn?
A Case-study Research
Master’s Thesis Martijn Spee
MSc Business Administration - Strategic Innovation Management
Student no. S 2589419
m.a.spee@student.rug.nl
First supervisor: Drs. A. Geurts
Co-assessor: Dr. T. Broekhuizen
University of Groningen
Faculty of Business and Economics
July 6, 2015
Word Count: 12.414
Abstract: Organizational unlearning is vital for firms that deal with new market disruptions. However, not
much is known about this phenomenon in the current literature. This case study research examines how firms unlearn organizational practices to deal with a disruptive innovation. By comparing different types of Dutch music firms, this study reveals that firms unlearn organizational practices through an adjustive unlearning process. Whereas organizational routines and knowledge are fundamentally changed to deal with the disruption, traditional cultures and beliefs remain the same. Firms unlearn their existing routines and knowledge by stressing on the learning of new ones, indicating that organizational learning and unlearning occur simultaneously. The new practices give firms the ability to adopt new market innovations next to traditional business activities. As the learning of new practices continues after the adoption of the market innovations, the traditional organizational practices unintentionally disappear over time. Furthermore, this study suggests that the organizational unlearning process differs per firm. During a disruptive innovation, firms with an informal business culture and structure unlearn their existing practices earlier compared to other firms, and experience less difficulty during the unlearning process.
2
Introduction
Firms are successful as long as the nature of the marketplace, that is the technology, competition, customer demand and so on, remains relatively mature and static (McGill & Slocum, 1993). However, many contemporary business environments experience rapid changes and new technology developments, making the environment turbulent and unpredictable (Akgün et al., 2007). Firms present in such environments experience that disruptive innovations, the introduction of radically new products or services, make their existing propositions, values and cultures ineffective (Christensen & Overdorf, 2000; Tushman & Anderson, 1986; Yang et al., 2014), making it difficult to compete. In order to stay competitive, these firms need to learn new knowledge and skills that did not previously exist within their organizational practices. The organizational learning theory has been extensively researched by prior literature to reveal how firms cope with learning new knowledge and skills (Crossan et al., 1990; Levinthal & March, 1993; Lichtenthaler, 2009; March, 1991).
While organizational learning is largely discussed in the academic literature, there are more challenges firms face when dealing with disruptive innovations. Literature on organizational change notes that firms first need to unlearn established methods and beliefs which have created rules and competency traps in order to be receptive to new market and technology information (Akgün et al., 2007). This process is referred to as organizational unlearning. Unlearning organizational practices can bring state-of-the-art knowledge into a firm, facilitating its ability to adapt to new environments and respond to innovations (McGill & Slocum, 1993; Yang et al., 2014). However, changes in organizational practices temporarily paralyzes the firm because the existing way of doing business is less likely to be consistent with the new sets of beliefs (Yang et al.2014). Therefore, in case of a disruptive innovation, firms and their employees tend to stick to their traditional practices, leading to perception rigidity. This indicates that organizational unlearning is an important, yet risky and difficult process.
Surprisingly, research to date has revealed very little about the underlying structure and processes by which firms actually unlearn their practices to deal with a disruptive innovation. A reason for this limited acceptance is due to the difficulty of conceptualizing, operationalizing and testing this concept in the current scholarship (Akgün et al., 2007). The current organizational unlearning theory looks at the process of organizational change and memory literature (Akgün et al., 2007). Even though this descriptive literature helps one to better understand the phenomenon in theory, it remains unclear how firms actually unlearn organizational practices to deal with a disruption. How do organizations approach this process? What do firms unlearn, and how does this process look like? The purpose of this study is to cover the observed research gap. The following research question has been developed in order to do so:
3 To answer this research question, the intention of this study is to explore how Dutch music firms have unlearned their organizational practices to deal with the emergence of digital music innovations. Reason for choosing this industry as the setting for this study is that prior research revealed that turbulent market environments trigger organizational unlearning (Wong & Lam, 2011). The Dutch music industry can be described as turbulent since it has dealt with a number of disruptive innovations such as the introduction of the CD and the emergence of digital music.
The primary contribution of this study is clarification how firms in reality unlearn organizational practices to deal with a disruption. Mainstream literature did reveal that organizational unlearning is a vital process. However, insights about the approaches and difficulties of this process in reality is lacking. Through the use of case studies, this study is the first to explore the organizational unlearning process in practice, thereby contributing first-hand insights to the literature field on organizational change and disruptive innovations. Furthermore, by revealing the role organizational unlearning plays during disruptive innovations, this study can set the stage for developing strategies to effectively change and renewal. This is useful for both theoretical and managerial applications.
4
Theoretical Background
In the contemporary business world, the need for firms to innovate is revolutionary rather than evolutionary (Assink, 2006). Firms that innovate have a higher chance to survive dynamic and complex markets and expand their business in the long run. However, even though innovations provide potential prosperity, they increase the level of uncertainty and market pressure for other firms in the industry (Assink, 2006).
The mainstream literature makes a distinction between sustaining and disruptive innovations (Christensen, 2013; Christensen & Overdorf, 2000). Sustaining innovations improve the performance of products or services that customers in the mainstream market already value (Christensen & Overdorf, 2000). Disruptive innovations create entirely new markets through the introduction of new products or services (Christensen & Overdorf, 2000). These new products or services usually have worse quality performance and are commercialized in emerging or insignificant markets (Charitou & Markides, 2003; Christensen, 2013). Over time, they improve to a performance which is similar or better than existing products in the market. While sustaining innovations enhance existing competencies of firms in the industry (Tushman & Anderson, 1986), disruptive innovations emerge sporadically and contain different value propositions, requiring knowledge and skills that are usually unfamiliar to established firms (Macher & Richman, 2004). For that reason, disruptive innovations, rather than sustaining innovations, force established firms to learn new knowledge and skills.
The organizational learning theory has been addressed by a number of literature to explain how firms can generate new knowledge and skills to learn and innovate (Fiol & Lyles, 1985; Levinthal & March, 1993; Levitt & March, 1988). Organizational learning is defined as a routine-based, history-dependent and target-oriented process which helps a firm to encode experiences from history into routines that guide behavior (Levitt & March, 1988). The more a firm is capable of acquiring, disseminating and integrating information and knowledge, the better it is able to learn and innovate (Levitt & March, 1988). New organizational practices, such as routines, emerge from organizational learning. For example, a new routine is likely to become part of the firm when it is associated with success, removed when it is linked to failure (Levitt & March, 1988).
5
Organizational Unlearning Theory
The organizational change theory defines organizational unlearning as the process of getting rid of certain things from a firm (Tsang & Zahra, 2008). As summarized in table 1, prior studies suggest a number of practices that firms should unlearn in this process.
Table 1: Overview of proposed organizational practices
Study Organizational practice
Akgün et al. (2007) “Elimination of beliefs, routines, and physical artifacts in organizations” Brunsson (1998) “the discarding of knowledge, or organizational oblivion”
Becker (2010) “System of letting go previous methods and approaches that accommodate changing environments and circumstances”
Holan & Phillips (2003) “Process of discarding old routines and understandings that are nog longer useful and which are blocking much-needed learning”
Tsang & Zahra (2008) “The discarding of old routines to make way for new ones, if any” Weber & Antal (2003) “The process of discarding obsolete and misleading knowledge” Wong & Lam (2012) “Discarding obsolete beliefs and routines”
What appears from table 1 is that most studies refer to unlearning organizational routines, beliefs and knowledge. However, literature on disruptive innovations state that existing propositions, values and cultures become ineffective during a disruption (Christensen & Overdorf, 2000; Tushman & Anderson, 1986), indicating that these practices should also be included in the unlearning process. Through the comparison of the various organizational unlearning definitions, this study defines organizational unlearning as the process of eliminating existing organizational routines, beliefs, culture and knowledge to be receptive to new market innovations. What these four practices have in common is that they all have evolved over time, and are influenced by the history and experience of the firm. In order to refer to these elements in a way that is easy to understand for the reader, this research will make use of the term ‘Organizational Practices’. Organizational practices are defined as particular ways of conducting organizational functions that have evolved over time under the influence of a firm’s history, people, interests, and actions that have become institutionalized in the organization (Kostova, 1999).
6 familiar domains (Akgün et al., 2007). Formative unlearning is the creation of new belief structures in firms, with incremental changes in the routines (Akgün et al., 2007). Adjustive unlearning occurs when firms promote the introduction of new product lines and new strategic business units and results in new organizational routines (Akgün et al., 2007). Operative unlearning involves only minor adjustments to organizational systems, processes or structures (Akgün et al., 2007).
Besides purposefully eliminating organizational practices, firms can also forget their traditional functions (Holan & Phillips, 2004; Yang et al., 2014), making organizational unlearning an unintentional process. Organizational forgetting is referred to as the involuntary or unintentional loss of memory (Tsang & Zahra, 2008). To give an example, firms that continuously adapt to new changes may, over time, forget how previous routines used to work. In their study on organizational forgetting, Holan & Phillips (2004) identify three ways that explain how firms forget their practices. The first type of forgetting occurs when a firm is unable to retain a piece of knowledge that has recently entered the organization (Holan & Phillips, 2004). One could think of a firm which has successfully launched a product, but is unable to repeat this process for a second time. The second type of forgetting occurs when knowledge that has been stored in the memory of a firm is lost over time (Holan & Phillips, 2004). Organizational forgetting also occurs when some knowledge of the firm is removed before it becomes deeply embedded (Holan & Phillips, 2004). Personnel turnover is an example of how firms may remove practices before it is deeply embedded.
Organizational Learning and Unlearning
Current literature offers an overview how organizational learning and unlearning relate to each other (Akgün et al., 2007; Tsang & Zahra, 2008). However, the link between these two concepts remains rather complex. The complexity is first observed when identifying whether organizational learning and unlearning occur simultaneously. The paper of Tsang & Zahra (2008) argue that organizational learning and unlearning occur at the same time since unlearning often involves the replacement of existing practices by new ones. Others state that firms first need to discard practices before they try out new ideas (Nystrom & Starbuck, 1984), indicating that unlearning occurs before learning takes place.
7 At last, Tsang & Zahra (2008) also reveal that unlearning could be associated with relearning. Relearning occurs when a firm is experimenting with a new practice and experiences that it is less effective compared to the previous one. In this case, it is likely that the firm moves back to the original practice. However, organizational members may have become used to the new way of working, and thus need to relearn the original practice. Also, in case a firm moves back to an original practice after personnel turnover, it is likely that the firm needs to deal with learning (new members) and relearning (existing members) at the same time.
Difficulty of Organizational Unlearning
The study of Autio et al. (2000) state that unlearning organizational practices becomes more difficult as firms get older. Reason for this is that mature firms, in comparison with younger firms, have more deeply embedded practices which take up more time to unlearn (Lei et al., 2000). As firms grow older, traditional ways of executing organizational practices become entrenched (Tsang & Zahra, 2008). Also, mature firms tend to have a high number of members who have been part of the business for a long period of time. They are generally older and less receptive to change since they have made old practices their work habits (Tsang & Zahra, 2008). This makes organizational unlearning a time-consuming process (Lei et al., 2000). Organizational unlearning is usually not a problem for newly established firms because their practices are new, and thus no existing practice needs to be discarded (Tsang & Zahra, 2008).
Prior studies discuss a number of strategies to speed up the unlearning process. In their paper on power of learning and unlearning, Lei et al. (2000) argue that changing reward systems may trigger organizational members to put more effort in unlearning entrenched practices. Changing decision-making processes is a second key driver that is discussed by this paper (Lei et al., 2000). Nystrom & Starbuck (1984) argue that replacing existing organizational members should be considered as an effective way to erase organizational memory, thereby contributing to a faster unlearning process. Overall, the literature identifies the elements of organizational unlearning, describes in what way firms can unlearn organizational practices and suggests strategies which could be used to guide this process. Previous studies furthermore explain that organizational unlearning is difficult for incumbent firms due to deeply entrenched organizational practices. Yet, research to date has revealed very little about the way firms actually unlearn their practices when dealing with a disruptive innovation.
8 far has explored organizational unlearning through the use of case studies. New findings about this rarely explored phenomenon can be useful for existing firms to develop unlearning strategies to deal with disruptive innovations.
Methodology
Literature to date has revealed very little about how firms in reality unlearn their practices to deal with a disruption. In order to explore this process, this research made use of a multiple-case study approach aligned with the work of Eisenhardt (1989). This type of research method is especially helpful for developing theoretical insights when a business phenomenon has not been clearly explained by prior literature (Aken et al., 2012; Eisenhardt, 1989). Furthermore, this study analyzed multiple cases since they enable the collection of comparative data, and thus are likely to yield more accurate, generalizable theory (Eisenhardt, 1989). The study treated the cases as independent experiments and then compared them through a cross-case analysis.
Case Description
The setting for this study was the Dutch music industry. This setting is appropriate for a number of reasons. First, the previous section showed that the need to unlearn organizational practices is the highest in case of a disruptive innovation. The Dutch music industry has been dealing with a number of market-shifting technological disruptions for over 50 years and thus an attractive one to explore the concept of unlearning (Bhattacharjee et al., 2009; Moreau, 2013). Second, the characteristics of disruptive innovations given by prior literature were easily identifiable in the Dutch music industry. The following section will clarify this.
Disruptive innovations share a number of characteristics (Charitou & Markides, 2003; Christensen, 2013). Disruptive innovations include different product or service attributes compared to traditional products or services, they start out as small or low-margin businesses and generally have a worse product performance in the near term (Christensen, 2013). Over time, the innovations improve in such a way that they become good enough in the old attributes that established companies emphasize, and superior in the new attributes (Charitou & Markides, 2003). As a result, the disruptions start capturing a large share of the established market. As more customers embrace the innovations, the new business receives increased attention from others in the market (Charitou & Markides, 2003). When this happens, established firms can no longer ignore the new way of doing business.
9 to the traditional CD, but were available at no cost and provided the consumer music portability and flexibility (Bhattacharjee et al., 2009). In 2006, the first legal download services emerged in the Dutch music industry with iTunes as the most well-known platform. These legal platforms were interesting for both the consumer and record companies: the available music files were of better quality and a sufficient business model was attached to the platforms. The quality of digital music kept increasing after the introduction of music streaming platforms Spotify and Deezer. A recent industry report about the Dutch music industry shows that currently [2015] 45,7% of the industry is captured by digital music (NVPI, 2015). This indicates that a large sum of customers has embraced the innovations, putting established music firms in a position in which ignoring the digital music is no longer possible. Comparing the emergence of digital music with the disruptive innovation theory, it can be stated that the digitization of the music industry has the characteristics of a disruptive innovation.
Case Selection
At this moment, there are over 200 music firms active in the Benelux (entertainmentbusiness.nl, 2015), divided in two segments, namely majors and independents. This study used the following criteria to select case studies. First, only independent music firms were included in the selection. Besides the fact that the majority of the Dutch music industry consists of small independent firms, it is given that smaller firms are more interested in disruptive innovations compared to larger firms (Kassicieh et al., 2002). Therefore, it is more likely that such firms can relate to the need to unlearn practices. Also, independent music firms often consist of only a select number of members, making it easier for this study to distinguish the processes and outcomes the firms experienced during the organizational unlearning process. Only independent firms that, to date [2015], are active in the industry were taken into account. This made the findings better for theoretical and managerial implications.
10 Table 2: Case study selection
Firm Year of establishment No. of employees No. of interviews
Interviewee1 Secondary Sources
Today’s Music2 1967 6 1 Mr. Music3
(CEO)
NVPI Industry report 2013 History webpage Today’s Music
www.businessentertainment.nl
Approval of transcript & Summary
Challenge Records 1994 11-50 2 Ms. Faas (PM)
Mr. De Jong (F/CEO)
NVPI Industry Report 2013
www.businessentertainment.nl
Feedback and approval Transcript & Summary
Berk Music Productions
1997 11-50 2 Mr. van den Berk
(F/CEO) Mr. de Vries (P)
NVPI Industry Report 2013
www.berkmusic.nl
Approval transcript & Summary
Coast to Coast BV 1996 5 1 Mr. Klop (GM) NVPI Industry Report 2013
www.businessentertainment.nl
Approval transcript & summary
PAN Music 1976 1
(Formerly 5)
2 Mr. Kleikamp (CEO) NVPI Industry report 2013
www.businessentertainment.nl
Data Sources
Combining multiple sources of evidence can remedy specific shortcomings and biases by complementing and correcting each other (Aken et al., 2012; Eisenhardt, 1989). This study reached out to the following data sources in order to create this triangulation.
Semi-structured interviews with Dutch music firms were the primary source of data. This type of data collection gives one the ability to obtain retrospective and real-time information by those individuals experiencing the phenomenon of theoretical interest (Gioia et al., 2012). The interviews were conducted with members of the management teams. Prior research stated that management teams act as organizational decision-makers (Eisenhardt & Bourgeois, 1988), indicating that they are the most aware of any organizational changes. By only including members that were part of the management team before the emergence of digital music, it was assured that the interviewees were able to relate back to the research topic. Since not all firms had the same type of management structure, some interviews were held with the founder of the firm, in other cases the general manager took part in the interview. As summarized in table 2, some case studies included interviews with two types of respondents. These respondents held different organizational positions, resulting in data from multiple perspectives. This reduced the level of respondent bias, as well as potential interview bias.
1
Abbreviations: CEO: chief Executive Officer / PM: Product Manager / GM: General Manager / P: Publisher 2
11 Prior to the interview, the interviewees received a document including the interview questions and further clarification about the research. In this way, the interviewees were given the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the research topic before the interview took place. After the interview was conducted, the interviewees were contacted with the question to give feedback and approval on the interview-transcript and case summary. Asking the interviewees for approval verified the interpretation of the interviewer. This approach, in which the interviewee was contacted at three different times during the data collection stage, increased the reliability concerning the circumstances bias.
Since the digitization of the Dutch music industry emerged in the late 90’s, this study had a retrospective view. In order to eliminate any potential retrospective biases, an organizational timeline for each case study individually was developed. In this way, the interviewer was able to (a) verify information that emerged from the interviews (b) and go deeper into details during the interview. These organizational timelines were developed by the use of online music platforms, corporate websites and industry reports from the NVPI (Nederlandse Vereniging voor Platen Industrie).
Data Collection
The interviews were conducted in a timeframe of three weeks. Due to the willingness of the firms and time restrictions of this study, all interview data were collected through telephone interviews. Interviews typically lasted 45 to 60 minutes. All phone-interviews were taped and transcribed. After the transcription process, the interviewees received the transcript together with a brief summary. To reduce research bias, an interview guideline was used during each telephone interview, consisting of three sections. At first, the interviewee was asked to provide information about his or her professional background, and the background of the organization it was currently working for. The second part focused on the organizational response to the emergence of digital music. In order to deal with the retrospective view of this study, the interviewer made use of an organizational timeline that let the interviewee relate to the specific disruptions and market situations. This section especially included open-ended questions about the organization’s reactions, feelings and strategies. The third section concentrated on the learning and unlearning aspect. Because existing literature mentioned that firms have trouble identifying when they actually learn or unlearn, a combination of open-ended and closed questions were asked. The fixed guideline made sure that less personal characteristics of the researcher could influence the results, thereby decreasing the level of researcher bias (Aken et al., 2012).
12 the nature of the change in organizational practices was assessed. Did the practice change because of unlearning, or was there another reason for this change? It could occur that firms explained an organizational practice which was difficult to identify for the interviewer. Therefore, the mentioned organizational practices were compared to definitions given by existing literature. An overview of these definitions is displayed in appendix II.
Data Analysis
In line with the case-study approach of Eisenhardt (1989), this study analyzed the data by first building individual case studies, followed by a cross-case analysis. During the within-case analysis, the data of the case studies were entered in a database indexed by case, interview number and question number. Next, a case summary was developed and compared to the earlier created case study timeline. The overall idea of this standardized process was to become intimately familiar with each case as a stand-alone entity, which in turn improved the cross-case comparison (Eisenhardt, 1989).
After completing the within-case analysis, the study moved to the cross-case analysis approach to develop conceptual insights. The categorization method proposed by Eisenhardt (1989) and Yin (2009) was used for the cross-case analysis. The paper of Gioia et al. (2012) on organizational research methods was used as a guideline for this approach. As a first step, the interview database was screened via a 1st-order analysis. In the 1st-order analysis, little attempts were made to extract categories from the great amount of informant terms and statements that were present in the interview database (Gioia et al., 2012).
As the cross-case analysis progressed, similarities and differences between the case studies became apparent. The next step was to reduce the great amount of categories found in the 1st-order analysis to a select number of themes that could be used for further investigation (Gioia et al., 2012). This was the start of the 2nd-order analysis in which the emerging themes were evaluated and compared to existing theory to explain the phenomena that was observed. Themes that emerged from the case studies that were not discussed by prior research were set apart for further clarification. This was an iterative process in which the data from the cases were continuously re-evaluated and compared with each other.
13
Results
The following section reveals the results that emerged from the case studies. First, an overview is provided how the Dutch music firms responded to the emergence of digital music. Next, the way the firms unlearned their organizational practices to deal with the disruption is discussed.
Organizational Responses to the Disruption
The digitization of the music industry started around the new millennium (Bhattacharjee et al., 2009). Illegal peer-to-peer networks such as MP3.com and Napster were the first platforms where consumers could download digital music files for free. Most music firms greatly ignored the emergence of P2P networks and remained focused on their traditional business model.
The first reason for ignoring P2P networks was that these platforms did not include any potential business models for music firms. As the CEO of Today’s Music described, “We did not know how to make money via P2P networks and I had a huge amount of inventory at that moment.” A second reason why music firms ignored P2P networks was due to the low quality performance. The product manager of Challenge Records International explained: “Jazz and classical music productions require high play quality. Since the P2P networks only offered bad quality music, our target audience did not make use of these platforms, and thus we remained focused on our traditional business.” Coast to Coast blamed the Dutch legal system for the disruption and argued that it had no choice but to ignore the innovation until a legal download service was developed for the music industry. In contrast, Berk Music Productions (hereinafter Berk Music) was the only firm that saw potential in the emergence of digital music. As Mr. van den Berk, founder of Berk music, explained: “We started to make use of digital music since the day it became possible”.
In 2006, iTunes was introduced in the Dutch music industry as one of the first legal download services that provided potential business opportunities for firms. Consumers were able to download better quality music compared to P2P networks on a per-download fee. This innovation was for many firms the first time that digital music became an acceptable way of doing business. This resulted in a situation in which firms started to add digital music activities next to their original way of doing business. Ms. Faas, product manager at Challenge Records International, described, “The MP3 platforms such as iTunes gave us the opportunity to reach out to a new target audience. ”
14 have to go to the same direction. We found other ways to remain competitive.” Berk Music saw potential in the legal download services. As Mr. van den Berk explained, “We became the first Dutch aggregator for other Dutch music organizations.” An aggregator is a channel between the record labels and the iTunes platform. This channel uploads productions of record labels on iTunes and, in return, receives royalties for every production that is downloaded. Also, Mr. van den Berk mentioned that around the year 2006, Berk Music launched a number of business units that, together, were responsible for the digital productions of Berk Music.
Around 2010, further developments led to online music streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer. These platforms offered higher music quality and were available for free, making it easy for consumers to embrace the new innovation. Similar to the response to the legal download services, the Dutch music firms added the streaming platforms to their daily business activities. Today’s Music explained, “Right now, we are present on iTunes where customers can download our productions, and on Deezer and Spotify where customers can stream the productions. You must be crazy not to be online in the music industry.” A similar view was observed at Berk Music, where Mr. van den Berk and a publisher stated, “We combine digital with physical. It is so much easier to reach out to new customers via digital channels.” In contrast to its previous responses, Coast to Coast BV changed its view on digital music when streaming platforms became popular. “The CD is still our main focus. However, a small portion of our catalogue is now also available on iTunes and we are also active on Spotify.” A similar response was observed at PAN Records.
Thus, the emergence of iTunes in 2006 gave the music firms the first opportunity to bear fruit from the digital music innovations. As summarized in figure 1, most music firms started to add digital music activities next to their traditional business model. A similar response was observed when streaming became popular [2010]. The reason why firms combined their traditional business model with new market innovations had to do with the firm’s flexibility. Berk music explained, “Right now, Facebook and twitter are popular platforms for our customers. This used to be Hyves. The same counts for online music. Right now, online streaming is hot, but who knows what will be next?” The need for organizational flexibility was also argued by PAN Records. In 2013, after a long period of decreasing demand in CDs, the firm experienced an increase in sales figures of CD. A similar trend was seen in the sales of LPs. This illustrates that a disruptive innovation does not necessarily mean that previous market trends do not occur anymore. By adding the digital music innovations next to existing business activities, the established music firms increased their flexibility to deal with the uncertain market environment.
15 Response to disruption
Response to disruption
Type of unlearning
Type of unlearning
Emergence of P2P iTunes Online Streaming
‘99 ‘06 ‘15
1967 Music
Ignore Innovation Adopt the innovation by playing both games at once
1996 C2C 1994 CRI 1997 BM 1976 PAN
Ignore Innovation Focus traditional business Adopt innovation by playing both games at once
Adopt innovation by playing both games at once Disrupt
Adopt innovation by playing both games at once
Ignore innovation Adopt the innovation by playing both games
‘10 ‘97 ‘96 ‘94 3 ‘75 ‘67
Formative Unlearning Adjustive Unlearning
Operative Unlearning Adjustive Unlearning
Ignore Innovation
Adjustive Unlearning Reinventive Unlearning
16
Change in Organizational Practices
The previous section revealed that the music firms added digital music innovations as new business models next to their traditional ones as a response to the market disruptions. Current literature argues that firms first need to unlearn organizational practices which have created rules and competency traps to be receptive to new market and technology information (Akgün et al., 2007). The following section reveals what type of organizational practices were unlearned by the case studies. Please refer to table 3 for further clarification of the observed changes in organizational practices.
Today’s Music experienced a tremendous decrease in financial returns during the emergence of P2P networks [1999-2006]. In order to keep the organization in business, the firm was forced to rearrange its current business activities. Whereas Today’s Music used to be proactive in the market, the firm became rather reactive due to the high uncertainty that came along with the emergence of digital music. New budgets and investment procedures were developed to deal with the market uncertainty at that time. Mr. Music explained, “We used to invest in 10 projects at the same time. Right now, we only invest in five or less and have become much more strict in screening new projects.” However, these implementations were not enough to deal with the financial problems. Eventually, Today’s Music fired a number of members to stay in business. The modifications in the firm’s strategies and personnel are similar to what Akgün et al. (2007) describe as formative unlearning. New organizational beliefs (reactive) and routines (investment procedures) were created to develop new sense-making capabilities to deal with the disruption (Akgün et al., 2007). Not long after that, Today’s Music uploaded a number of albums on iTunes in 2006 to experiment and gain knowledge about the new innovations. Adding new product lines is a business activity which Akgün et al. (2007) define as adjustive unlearning.
17 From the beginning, Berk Music had a strong belief in digital music. Mr. van den Berk stated, “Already before the P2P period, I was active in a number of collaborations, and therefore I was close to the latest market trends. That is why I saw the digital music trend coming.” This organizational belief did not change over time. The firm continued to add new digital music activities to its original business, thereby continuously changing organizational routines. By offering students internships, the firm was able to gain valuable market information, thereby enhancing the organizational knowledge. The organizational culture was seen as a key element in the way Berk Music dealt with the disruption. Mr. van den Berk explained, “We have a core team, consisting of six people. I make the final decisions, but we do it as a team. If the informal culture we have here needs to be changed in order to stay in business, I quite. It is that simple.” In other words, Berk Music continuously changed its routines and knowledge to deal with the disruptions, but kept close to their own beliefs and culture. This description is closely related to adjustive unlearning (Akgün et al. 2007).
At Coast to Coast, organizational unlearning became observable after the firm decided to embrace the digital innovations in 2010. By adding platforms such as iTunes and Spotify as new business activities, existing organizational routines were changed. As mentioned before, promoting new product lines is a characteristic of adjustive unlearning (Akgün et al. 2007). Organizational beliefs and culture, however, were not unlearned by the firm. Mr. Klop described, “The CD is still our main focus. In the Dutch music industry, the CD is still the number 1 product. And I have the feeling that this will be the market situation for quite some time.”
PAN Records showed a rather reactive behavior towards the digital music innovations. “I actually started to do research in digital music when it became popular [2006]. It took me a few years to decide how I was going to approach the digital music innovations.” The belief in digital music slowly grew over time, resulting in a collaboration between PAN Records and an aggregator. However, since PAN Records outsourced most of its digital music activities, the changes in the practices were incremental. The organizational culture was not changed to respond to the digital disruption, the knowledge only incrementally. Comparing the organizational changes with theory on unlearning, PAN Records made use of operative unlearning (Akgün et al. 2007).
18 Proposition 2: In case of a disruptive innovation, it is more difficult for firms to unlearn organizational cultures and beliefs rather than routines and knowledge.
The observed unlearning process, in which most music firms made fundamental changes in existing organizational routines and knowledge and only incremental changes in beliefs and cultures is similar to what prior literature referred to as an adjustive unlearning process (Akgün et al., 2007).
Proposition 3: In case of a disruptive innovation, firms are likely to unlearn organizational practices through an adjustive unlearning process.
Table 3: Changes in organizational practices to respond to digital music innovations
Organizational Practices
Case Routine Beliefs Culture Knowledge
Music Yes: radical
“We used to re-invest a part of our profits in new projects. We do not do that anymore.” “We have changed the artist requirements before we take on new music projects.” “Right now, we work according to strict budgets.”
“At this moment, I hire freelancers for projects. I used to have these people in the firm.”
Yes: incremental “We still have faith in the CD, but you must be crazy not to be online in the music industry right now.”
Yes: incremental “We have become a bit more reserved in our behavior since the emergence of digital music.”
“We tend to look for certainties in the market.”
Yes: Radical
“We have experimented with digital music in the beginning of iTunes. We used the outcome of this experimentation in further decisions about the digital music possibilities.”
“I visit the NVPI
congress more frequently to see what is happening in the industry and to talk to other music firms to discuss new
opportunities.”
C2C Yes: incremental “Through the years, we have expanded our business to a number of different platforms.” (Bookstores, museum shops, iTunes, Spotify)
No
“The CD is still our main focus. In the Dutch music industry, the CD is still the number 1 product. And I have the feeling that this will be the market situation for quite some time.”
No
“We expanded our physical business to respond to the disruption. All other things in the firm remained the same (e.g. number of employees).”
Yes: incremental “We learned ourselves how to work with digital music. It was not that difficult.”
CRI Yes: radical
“We switched to a fully automated business.” “We started to make use of new formats and additional information.”
Yes: radical “The people had to change, we were not able to ignore the digital music changes any longer.”
Yes: radical “Our way of doing business is now digitally and much faster.”
Yes: radical
19 “The daily work
activities had to be changed, and this was difficult for the employees that were taught differently.”
“A lot of people left the company that had certain (negative) views on the digital music innovations. Younger, IT-focused individuals replaced them.”
“A number of employees were replaced by younger, IT-focused individuals.”
“The management team asked employees that did not want to change their way of working to leave the company.”
“We are now also in close contact with Australia to increase our international market knowledge.”
“An intern and I started to expand our business on social media platforms.”
“We developed manuals for employees to learn new knowledge and skills.”
Berk Yes: radical
“We started working with digital music files since the day it was possible.”
“We had to find new ways to make money, and use the CD more like a promotional tool (e.g. concerts).”
“We eventually started to do 360 deals: taking care of all the activities that are related to an artist.”
No
“Already before the P2P period, I was active in a number of collaborations, and therefore I was close to the latest market trends. That is why I saw the digital music trend coming.”
No
“If the informal culture we have here needs to be changed in order to stay in business, I quite. It is that simple.”
Yes: radical “The number of collaborations has increased. Right now, I am working with 8 other parties at the same time. It is all about the discovery of new opportunities.”
“We offer internships for students to learn and see what the younger generation is doing.” “I occasionally search for people with knowledge that I do not have, and add them to the business.”
PAN Yes: incremental “We used to distribute a hard copy catalogue once a year. Now, the website functions as the catalogue. This saves me a lot of money.”
“The aggregator does all the digital music
activities for PAN Records. I only send him the music productions.”
Yes: incremental “In the beginning [1999] I did not want to look into digital opportunities for the firm because it only meant more work for myself. I started to do research in digital music when iTunes became popular [2006].”
No
“I am the only
organizational member since 2002. I did not fire anyone. Some left because of retirement, others because of a new job”
Yes: incremental “I also experienced the change from LP to CD. I was able to use this experience when responding to the emergence of digital music. Even though it was a new technology, the change was similar to the time that the CD emerged. I combined this knowledge with
20
The Organizational Unlearning Process
Thus, the Dutch music firms unlearned a number of their practices to deal with the digital music disruptions. When evaluating how this unlearning process looked like, the following results emerged. The organizational practices at Today’s Music were unlearned through an increase in management control and firing a number of employees. Mr. Music argued, “I became much more strict in the way the organization was spending money on new projects. I started to approve less investments and developed new budgets for the employees.” The increase in management control forced employees to work according to new budgets and projects. This changed the organizational routines in particular. What became apparent was that the increase in management control was implemented with the intention to learn employees the new way of doing business. Even though this resulted as well in the unlearning of existing practices, it was not the intention to do so. Furthermore, the strategic decision to fire employees to stay in business eliminated existing organizational knowledge. Looking at the way organizational members responded to these changes, Mr. Music mentioned that the members understood why these changes were implemented. Reason for this understanding is explained by the fact that the firm had the characteristics of a family-owned company. Because of the family-like relationship between the CEO and its employees, a high level of shared commitment to keep Today’s Music in business was present in the firm. Instead of merely economic and individualistic goals, employees did what was best for the company. According to Zahra et al. (2008), a high level of shared commitment present among organizational members increases the sense of prosocial and pro-organizational helping behaviors of pro-organizational goals. This explains why the employees at Today’s Music accepted the observed changes. As a result, the unlearning process was enhanced.
21 Whereas Today’s Music and Challenge Records put high emphasis on the learning of new organizational practices, Berk Music rather focused on being involved in new business opportunities to deal with the market disruptions. This approach indirectly generated new organizational routines and knowledge. Mr. van den Berk explained, “Because we were so involved in new business activities, we did not notice that the way we used to do our logistics was changing over time.” The firm was able to continue to seek new business opportunities due to the high level of employee commitment in the firm. Mr. van den Berk explained that Berk Music had a family-like company feeling, in which achievements were shared with every team member. In this way, a strong organizational culture was present in which continuously changes to new routines was perceived as normal. Zahra et al. (2008) confirm that strong commitment may enhance organizational responsiveness.
What these results illustrate is that the unlearning of existing organizational practices occurred unintentionally. Today’s Music and Challenge Records International both implicitly stated that learning new organizational practices was the center of attention during the change process. Employees learned new routines, the firms gained valuable knowledge and new beliefs and cultures were created. As a result, the new organizational practices replaced existing ones without the intention to do so.
Proposition 4: The process of unlearning organizational practices is more likely to be unintentional, rather than intentional.
Furthermore, since the learning of new organizational routines and knowledge resulted in the replacement of existing practices, it was observed that organizational learning and unlearning occurred simultaneously.
Proposition 5: Firms that deal with a disruptive innovation are likely to learn and unlearn organizational practices simultaneously.
22 capacity to act flexible and quickly to new market changes. In other words, because of the informal structure, Berk Music and Today’s Music were able to respond faster to the disruptive innovations, resulting in an earlier unlearning process. In comparison, Challenge Records International and Coast to Coast BV were run by investors and holdings. At these firms, a formal business structure was present in which general managers were responsible for the daily operations and functioned as a channel between the employees and the investors or holding. These managers did not have the freedom to make organizational decisions. Instead, organizational responses or actions first had to be approved by the investors/holding. However, these decision-makers were not actively present in the firm. This means that the implementation of organizational actions developed by employees were depended on the speed of contact between the general managers and the decision-makers. This formal structure resulted in a longer decision-making process, delaying the firm’s capacity to act quickly to market changes. Hence, a later response to the disruptive innovations was observed at firms with a formal business structure.
Proposition 6: Compared to firms with a formal structure, firms with an informal structure are more likely to start earlier with the unlearning of organizational practices.
23 Proposition 7: Compared to firms with a formal business culture, firms with an informal business culture are more likely to have an easier organizational unlearning process.
Discussion
This study explored how firms unlearn organizational practices to deal with a disruptive innovation. The focus was on established firms since prior research stated that the unlearning process becomes more difficult as firms get older (Autio et al., 2000). These type of firms have more deeply embedded practices which take up more time to unlearn. The setting was the Dutch music industry. According to current literature, this type of industry triggers organizational unlearning due to its high market turbulence (Wong & Lam, 2011).
The evidence from this study suggests that firms respond to disruptive innovations by embracing them over time, while at the same time continue with their traditional way of doing business. Reason for this response is that organizational flexibility is key in turbulent market environments. By adding new business activities next to existing ones, firms increase their capabilities to deal with potential market changes. In order to successfully adopt the new business activities, firms change a number of their existing organizational practices.
Prior literature argued that firms first need to unlearn organizational practices before they can be receptive to new market innovations (Akgün et al., 2007). Routines, beliefs, culture and knowledge were identified as vital organizational practices that required to be unlearned (Becker, 2010; Holan & Phillips, 2003; Tsang & Zahra, 2008). What emerged from this study was that not all previous mentioned practices were unlearned in reality. Whereas firms changed their routines and knowledge to deal with disruptive innovations, organizational cultures and beliefs remained relatively the same. The changes observed in organizational routines and knowledge were not surprising. Prior studies already revealed that changes in organizational routines and knowledge are normal in times of crisis, and could be a source of flexibility and change (Feldman & Pentland, 2003; Levinthal & March, 1993). Also, prior literature argued that organizational routines and knowledge are the most conflicting in turbulent environments (Akgün et al., 2007). In contrast, even though literature claimed that firms also need to unlearn cultures and beliefs to deal with disruptive innovations, it appeared that in reality, firms do not changes these type of practices. A possible reason for this occurrence is that organizational beliefs and cultures are persistent and unalterable practices (Gagliardi, 1986), therefore they are much more difficult to change.
24 organizational members to adopt these new innovations. Surprisingly, the finding that firms used an adjustive unlearning process was not estimated by prior literature (Akgün et al., 2007). According to Akgün et al. (2007), firms in highly turbulent and unpredictable industries, such as the music industry, are more likely to deal with reinventive unlearning. Adjustive unlearning is more likely to occur in markets with high unpredictability and low uncertainty (Akgün et al., 2007). This contradiction indicates that, in reality, organizations unlearn differently than is proposed by existing literature. Whereas some firms changed their organizational practices to stay in business, others changed their practices to successfully embrace the market innovations. Even though different incentives to change were observed, the evidence of this study shows that firms used a similar approach to change their practices. Firms that were dealing with financial problems emphasized on the learning of new budgets and investment routines. Firms that wanted to embrace the market innovations voluntarily changed their practices by learning the market knowledge and routines required for these innovations. In other words, firms focused on the learning aspect of new organizational practices to deal with the disruptive innovations. As a result, the new practices replaced existing ones. This evidence shows that firms unlearn their practices unintentionally.
The fact that firms unlearn existing practices by focusing on the learning aspect of new ones indicates that organizational learning and unlearning occur simultaneously. Tsang & Zahra (2008) already mentioned this in their paper on organizational unlearning. However, their statement was challenged by Nystrom & Starbuck (1984) who argued that firms first need to unlearn before they focus on new activities. Since this study conducted first-hand insights through case studies, it can be stated that, indeed, organizational learning and unlearning occur simultaneously.
25
Conclusion
This study started out with the research question how firms unlearn organizational practices to deal with a disruptive innovation. Existing literature revealed that organizational unlearning is a vital process for firms to be receptive to new market innovations (Akgün et al., 2007). However, how this process looked like in reality was largely unexplored. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to provide evidence how firms in reality unlearn their organizational practices to deal with a disruptive innovation. By exploring the process, approaches and challenges through case studies, this study contributed new insights to a largely unexplored literature field.
The findings of this case study research reveal that firms unlearn organizational practices through an adjustive unlearning process. Whereas organizational routines and knowledge are fundamentally changed to deal with the disruption, traditional cultures and beliefs remain the same. Firms unlearn their existing routines and knowledge by stressing on the learning of new ones. The new organizational practices give firms the ability to adopt new market innovations next to traditional business activities. As the learning of new organizational routines and knowledge continue after the adoption of the market innovations, the traditional organizational practices are overruled by the new ones. Because the emphasis during this change process is on the learning of new practices, firms are unaware of the fact that existing practices are replaced over time. This indicates that the unlearning of organizational practices is an unintentional process. Furthermore, this study suggests that the organizational unlearning process varies per firm. During a disruptive innovation, firms with an informal business culture and structure unlearn their existing practices earlier compared to other firms, and experience less difficulty during the unlearning process.
Theoretical and Managerial Implications
26 implementation of personnel turnover and internal support tools are strategies used by firms to enhance the unlearning process. This finding provides (a) confirmation that personnel turnover, as suggested by prior literature, is indeed a way that firms use to speed up the unlearning process and (b) adds the increase of management control and implementation of internal support tools as a new unlearning strategies to the existing literature. These findings will help managers by the development and execution of strategies to encounter organizational unlearning.
At last, the results of this study show that organizational cultures and structures influence the unlearning process. As prior studies did not reveal any information on factors that influence the unlearning process, these findings are of great contribution to the current literature field. Also, this implies that managers should consider whether they have beneficial cultures and structures before they begin to deal with a disruption.
Future Research
The findings of this study suggest that organizational unlearning is an unintentional process in times of disruptive innovations. However, this should not discourage future research to investigate the concept of unlearning. This research explored the concept of organizational unlearning mainly from a management perspective. This does not necessarily mean that similar studies conducted at other firm-levels find comparable results. As changes in organizational practices influence the daily work activities of employees, more future research is needed to indicate in what way organizational unlearning is present at other firm-levels. Also, this research found that organizational culture and structure influence the unlearning process. However, these are just two of the many elements present in a firm. Future research could explore if other organizational characteristics, such as leadership and financial resources, also play a role in the unlearning process. At last, besides this study, there is still room to further explore the incentive for firms to change their organizational practices.
Limitations
27 organizational unlearning during the case studies was hampered by the behavior of some interviewees towards this research. A great number of other researchers have used the Dutch music industry as the setting for their studies, meaning that music firms have been approached by numerous researchers for similar research topics. This decreased the level of willingness, as well as the behavior of the interviewees that did agree to participate. Because of this negative behavior towards the research, it is likely that the interviewees were not fully open in their answers during the interviews.
References
Akgün, A. E., Byrne, J. C., Lynn, G. S., & Keskin, H. (2007). Organizational unlearning as changes in beliefs and routines in organizations. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 20(6), 794-812. Assink, M. (2006). Inhibitors of disruptive innovation capability: a conceptual model. European Journal of Innovation Management, 9(2), 215-233.
Autio, E., Sapienza, H. J., & Almeida, J. G. (2000). Effects of age at entry, knowledge intensity, and imitability on international growth. Academy of management journal, 43(5), 909-924.
Barney, J. B. (1986). Organizational culture: can it be a source of sustained competitive advantage?. Academy of management review, 11(3), 656-665.
Becker, K. (2010). Facilitating unlearning during implementation of new technology. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 23(3), 251-268.
Bergek, A., Berggren, C., Magnusson, T., & Hobday, M. (2013). Technological discontinuities and the challenge for incumbent firms: destruction, disruption or creative accumulation?. Research Policy, 42(6), 1210-1224.
Bhattacharjee, S., Gopal, R. D., Marsden, J. R., & Sankaranarayanan, R. (2009). Re-tuning the music industry: can they re-attain business resonance?.Communications of the ACM, 52(6), 136-140.
Brunsson, K. (1998). Non-learning organizations. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 14(4), 421-432.
Charitou, C. D., & Markides, C. C. (2003). Responses to disruptive strategic innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 44(2), 55-63.
Christensen, C. (2013). The innovator's dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail. Harvard Business Review Press.
28 Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of management review, 14(4), 532-550.
Eisenhardt, K. M., & Bourgeois, L. J. (1988). Politics of strategic decision making in high-velocity environments: Toward a midrange theory. Academy of management journal, 31(4), 737-770.
Eisenhardt, K. M., & Zbaracki, M. J. (1992). Strategic decision making. Strategic management journal, 13(S2), 17-37.
Feldman, M. S. (2000). Organizational routines as a source of continuous change. Organization science, 11(6), 611-629.
Feldman, M. S., & Pentland, B. T. (2003). Reconceptualizing organizational routines as a source of flexibility and change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(1), 94-118.
Fiol, C. M., & Lyles, M. A. (1985). Organizational learning. Academy of management review, 10(4), 803-813.
Fredrickson, J. W. (1986). The strategic decision process and organizational structure. Academy of management review, 11(2), 280-297.
Gagliardi, P. (1986). The creation and change of organizational cultures: A conceptual framework. Organization studies, 7(2), 117-134.
Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G., & Hamilton, A. L. (2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15-31.
Holan, P. M., & Phillips, N. (2004). Organizational forgetting as strategy. Strategic Organization, 2(4), 423-433.
Kassicieh, S. K., Kirchhoff, B. A., Walsh, S. T., & McWhorter, P. J. (2002). The role of small firms in the transfer of disruptive technologies. Technovation,22(11), 667-674.
King, A. W., Fowler, S. W., & Zeithaml, C. P. (2001). Managing organizational competencies for competitive advantage: The middle-management edge. The Academy of Management Executive, 15(2), 95-106.
Kostova, T. (1999). Transnational transfer of strategic organizational practices: A contextual perspective. Academy of management review, 24(2), 308-324.
29 Levinthal, D. A., & March, J. G. (1993). The myopia of learning. Strategic management journal, 14(S2), 95-112.
Levitt, B., & March, J. G. (1988). Organizational learning. Annual review of sociology, 319-340. Leyshon, A., Webb, P., French, S., Thrift, N., & Crewe, L. (2005). On the reproduction of the musical economy after the Internet. Media, Culture & Society, 27(2), 177-209.
Lichtenthaler, U. (2009). Absorptive capacity, environmental turbulence, and the complementarity of organizational learning processes. Academy of Management Journal, 52(4), 822-846.
March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization science, 2(1), 71-87.
McEvily, B., Soda, G., & Tortoriello, M. (2014). More formally: Rediscovering the missing link between formal organization and informal social structure. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 299-345.
McGill, M. E., & Slocum, J. W. (1993). Unlearning the organization.Organizational Dynamics, 22(2), 67-79.
Moreau, F. (2013). The Disruptive Nature of Digitization: The Case of the Recorded Music Industry. International Journal of Arts Management, 15(2).
Musselwhite, K., Cuff, L., McGregor, L., & King, K. M. (2007). The telephone interview is an effective method of data collection in clinical nursing research: a discussion paper. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 44(6), 1064-1070.
Nystrom, P. C., & Starbuck, W. H. (1984). To avoid organizational crises, unlearn. Organizational dynamics, 12(4), 53-65.
Poole, M. S., & Van de Ven, A. H. (2004). Theories of organizational change and innovation processes. Handbook of organizational change and innovation, 374-397.
Tsang, E. W. (2008). Transferring knowledge to acquisition joint ventures: an organizational unlearning perspective. Management Learning, 39(1), 5-20.
Tsang, E. W., & Zahra, S. A. (2008). Organizational unlearning. Human Relations, 61(10), 1435-1462.
30 van Aken, J., Berends, H., & Van der Bij, H. (2012). Problem solving in organizations: A methodological handbook for business and management students. Cambridge University Press. Van de Ven, A. H., & Poole, M. S. (1990). Methods for studying innovation development in the Minnesota Innovation Research Program. Organization science, 1(3), 313-335.
Walsh, S. T., Kirchhoff, B. A., & Newbert, S. (2002). Differentiating market strategies for disruptive technologies. Engineering Management, IEEE Transactions on, 49(4), 341-351.
Wang, X., Lu, Y., Zhao, Y., Gong, S., & Li, B. (2013). Organisational unlearning, organisational flexibility and innovation capability: an empirical study of SMEs in China. International Journal of Technology Management, 61(2), 132-155.
Weber, C., & Antal, A. B. (2003). 15 The Role of Time in Organizational Learning. Handbook of organizational learning and knowledge, 351.
Wong, P. S. P., & Lam, K. Y. (2011). Facing turbulence: Driving force for construction organizations to regain unlearning and learning traction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 138(10), 1202-1211.
Yang, K. P., Chou, C., & Chiu, Y. J. (2014). How unlearning affects radical innovation: The dynamics of social capital and slack resources. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 87, 152-163. Yin, R.K. (2009) Case study research: Design and methods: Sage publications
Zahra, S. A., Hayton, J. C., Neubaum, D. O., Dibrell, C., & Craig, J. (2008). Culture of family commitment and strategic flexibility: The moderating effect of stewardship. Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 32(6), 1035-1054.
Internet References
English Dictionary, 2015: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/elimination?s=t Entertainment Business, 2015: http://www.entertainmentbusiness.nl/bedrijvengids
NVPI (2015) Digitaal blijft groeien. Retrieved from: http://www.nvpi.nl/nieuws/digitaal-blijft-groeien (Accessed June 1, 2015)
NVPI (2014). Omzet Nederlandse muziekindustrie 2013 in de plus. Retrieved from:
