Simon Mowatt

Consumer-driven innovation networks and e-business management systems

This paper examines the use of consumer‐driven innovation networks within the UK food‐retailing industry using qualitative interview‐based research analysed within an economic framework. This perspective revealed that, by exploiting information gathered directly from their customers at point‐of‐sale and data mining, supermarkets are able to identify consumer preferences and co‐ordinate new product development via innovation networks. This has been made possible through their information control of the supply‐chain established through the use of transparent inventory management systems. As a result, supermarkets’ e‐business systems have established new competitive processes in the UK food‐processing and retailing industry and are an example of consumer‐driven innovation networks. The informant‐based qualitative approach also revealed that trust‐based transacting relationships operated differently from those previously described in the literature.

Revolutions from Grub Street: A History of Magazine Publishing in Britain

This book provides a study of magazine publishing in Britain from the perspective of the entrepreneurs and commercial enterprises that created its history. Convulsed by social, political, and technological revolutions, the industry has proved both adaptable and resilient. Using a range of source materials, the study traces magazine production from the earliest examples of individuals seeking to earn their living as Grub Street hacks, hawking popular reading matter around eighteenth century London, through to the global multi-media conglomerates that produce and distribute a vast range of modern consumer titles, utilising digital age technologies. This 300-year study in business history seeks to explain why the economic activity of magazine publishing has assumed such a diverse range of organizational forms over time. In doing so, it pays particular attention to the changing technologies of publishing enterprises, and the working practices which they have engendered. The role of Britain’s powerful printing trade unions is thus afforded detailed attention. Our study shows how, during the nineteenth century, the rise of mass-circulation consumer magazines and related systems of mass production eventually led to a period of extreme firm concentration. By the 1960s the vast enterprise of IPC had emerged as the dominant producer of consumer magazines in Britain, prompting political concerns over the issue of press monopoly. However, from the mid-1980s the twin impacts of globalization and digital technologies began to transform the industry, sparking the challenge of a new generation of customer-driven magazine publishing enterprises benefitting from desktop publishing systems and the ICT revolution.

Technological change and forms of innovation in consumer magazine publishing: a UK-based study

Abstract This paper presents the results of research undertaken between 2002 and 2004 into the impact of technological change on the UK consumer magazine industry. The findings highlight patterns of innovation, both in the range of products (most notably monthly magazine titles) and the structure of organisations and work practices, which have tended to elude much of the contemporary debate within the ‘cultural industries’ approach adopted in the media studies discipline. Instead, our analysis makes use of insights from the innovation literature to highlight the impact of technological discontinuities on the capabilities of both incumbent firms and new entrants. It also highlights the important and growing role that is being played in innovation-led industries through the adoption of organisational practices that find their origins in the traditions of project-based firms.

Vogue in Britain: Authenticity and the creation of competitive advantage in the UK magazine industry

By 1914 the leading British magazine publishers had successfully launched a range of popular weekly titles for female readers which focused on everyday womens fashions. In contrast, the British operations of American publishers Hearst and Condé Nast sought to develop high-quality magazines designed to attract affluent consumers – and the advertisers who sought to reach these readers. This paper argues that the success of Condé Nasts Vogue depended on two main factors: gaining authenticity in the world of high fashion and forming close relations with their customers – both readers and advertisers – using market research and promotion techniques transferred from the United States.

Innovation and organisation in the UK magazine print publishing industry: a survey

This paper examines innovation within the UK magazine publishing industry. We find that publishers are able to engage with niche interest groups in order to supply a high value-added product. The paper attempts define the characteristics of the industry and to examine the drivers of innovation through a survey and an exploratory approach to data analysis. We suggest that the frequently employed simple output measures of innovation do not adequately capture the innovation process in this industry or the range of activities carried out by firms. We find that groups of firms engage different patterns of innovative behaviour depending on the drivers of innovation. Firms that are more responsive to consumer trends are more likely to engage in a wider range of associated activities in order to add value from their consumer knowledge.

National image as a competitive disadvantage: the case of the New Zealand organic food industry

Abstract This article examines why organic agriculture and food consumption developed more strongly in some countries than others between the 1970s and the 2000s. The focus is the limited growth of the New Zealand organic sector, which contrasts with countries such as Denmark which were similar in size and shared significant export agri-business sectors, but whose organic food sector became significantly larger. While the power of incumbent vested interests and unsupportive public policies emerge as major explanatory factors, the article argues that the long-established national image of New Zealand as a clean and green country may have been the major constraint.

New perspectives on the supply chain and consumer-driven innovation

This paper considers the interrelationship between innovation and the control of the supply-chain in two UK-based consumer-driven industries, supermarkets and magazine publishing, where competitive advantage is driven by constant innovation dependent on satisfying quickly changing consumer fashions, trends, tastes and patterns of demand. Innovation in this environment depends on the close interaction between firms and their customers, and this relationship includes information exchange as well as the control of the physical logistics-chain. In order to examine the relations between partners and the process of innovation the paper employs the concepts of control and innovation networks as analytical frameworks. The paper suggests that whilst the close collaboration between partners in the supply-chain is usually viewed positively, control networks allow the hub firms to identify and appropriate value-adding activities and acquire a much stronger bargaining position relative to other actors. The paper argues for a more sophisticated understanding of the relative positions of the actors with the value-system and suggests further research is needed to understand innovation in industries where there have been similar changes to the supply-chain.

Horatio Bottomley and the Rise of John Bull Magazine: Mobilizing a mass audience in late Edwardian Britain

This paper emphasises the significance of John Bull magazine as part of the media history narrative of Britain in the period leading up to World War I. Launched by Horatio Bottomley in 1906, the magazine was able to generate a significant readership among working class men by offering an appealing mixture of topical political, social and economic content in a relatively high quality penny magazine. The magazine’s success in this period is partly explained by the support received from its publisher Odhams Press. In addition, innovative features of the magazine stemmed from the high profile of Bottomley himself, the role it played in providing early initiatives in consumer protection, its facilitation of small-scale betting, and the creation of the John Bull League, an affiliated organisationin which readers were able to subscribe for membership and which was effectively utilised to garner support for a new form of Business Government.

The Management of Subcontracted Networks as an Alternative to Internalisation: The Shift from the Standardised to the Specialised in Frozen and Chilled Foods

This paper is to highlight the management of subcontracted networks as an alternative to internalisation. The contrasting examples of the frozen food sector and the chilled ready meals sector are employed to examine the different economic relationships. The paper draws upon transaction costs economics, interdisciplinary literature from organisation studies, network theory, and sociology to contextualise the functioning of network relationships. The paper examines the shift in the role of the firm from producer, to the firm as co-ordinator of information flows. In contrast to the vertically integrated frozen food sector, the chilled food industry manifests plural organisational forms, with close-knit trust based inter-organisational networks and arms-length subcontracting.