Innovation in World Music Sector: Model of
Analysis and Indicators of Innovation in Firms
and Territories.
Óscar Blanco Sierra
Chwan Li
Pau Rausell Köster.
([email protected])
PhD. Student at Econcult
([email protected])
PhD. Student at Econcult
([email protected])
Professor at Econcult
Abstract:
World music is a sector of the global market of popular music specialized on music with
ethnological and traditional value, and it comprises a group of firms that promote, record,
product and distributes live or recorded music, and it is directly affected by the major changes
faced by the music industry in the last years.
There is a growing recognition about the creative potential in the music industry, as a sector
historically linked to technological changes and high generation capacity of new business
models and transformation after crisis, and, also, as a sector that mobilizes the, maybe, closest
artistic form of expression to society. World Music case is a specific market within the music
industry and it is especially linked to local identities. Despite this high recognition of creative
potential of the music industry in general, and World Music in particular, there are not
systematic attempts to understand how these innovative processes occur and how affects the
socioeconomic reality.
Regarding its creative potential and immerse in a highly competitive and uncertain scenario
configured by digitization, what is the specific nature of innovation process in the sector of
music industry known as World Music?
In the last years research on innovation in cultural and creative industries has focused in the
recognition of its specific nature, typologies and impacts wherein traditional definitions and
measurement systems of technological innovation are insufficient. The music industry is an
emblematic case of this reality, although is well known its high creative potential not only as an
industry but, also, as a factor to develops society.
The aim of this paper is to present an analytical model and a scheme of main variables and
indicators to analyze the nature of innovation in world music sector both in the industrial and
market and territorial levels.
This model analyzes innovation at micro and macro levels by combination of an input-output
model and Sectorial Systems of Innovation (SSI) approach. The resulted model includes the
innovation at the organizational level and the systemic performance of innovation which
depends on heterogeneity of agents, firms and non-firms, and its formal or not-formal
interactions. These analytical tools have been developed based on semi-structured interviews to
World Music agents, observation of sectorial trade fairs, and document review.
The result is a matrix of variables and indicators for a World Music innovation survey that will
be applied to specific agents of this sector (booking agencies, concert promoters and festivals)
based mainly in Europe.
Keywords: Innovation System, Music Industry, World Music, Social Innovation, Local
Music
1
1. Intro
World Music appears at the end of the 80´s as a sector of the global market of popular music
specialized on music with ethnological and traditional value and it comprises a group of
companies that promotes, records, produces and distributes live or recorded music. But World
Music has changed over time and this traditional definition coexists with a wide diversity of
actors, origins, rhythms and sounds from local territories that make part of global musical
circuits, usually know as world beat, global pop or World Music 2.0. In other words, “…the
World Music category lumps together a wide diversity of music, for which the common
denominator is a social and territorial location in the world system rather than a musical
genre” (Pietilä et al., 2009). This music category, that may sound exotic to western, is actually
popular music in the local levels of creation and production, for instance, urban mestizo from
Johannesburg or Mexico D. F. neighborhoods, traditional sounds from Italy and France, the
music of immigrants to cities of rich countries, Spaniard flamenco or Burmese religious music.
The music industry is well known for its creative potential, both as a business and as a creative
provider. As globalized individuals, all we knew the discographic business crisis and the
technological, normative and business strategies of the music industry to overcome the
challenges in this century. In turn, there is a growing recognition of music as a factor of
development not only of economy, but also, of the rest of social context, several initiatives like
the governmental Venezuelan program “El Sistema”, the Associaçao Pracatum of Carlinhos
Brown and recently, the Music Cities convention, are some examples of this idea.
Crisis in World Music has its own manifestations and it generates his own strategies to
overcome. Similarly, World Music as a source of new sounds, rhythms and identities, is
particularly close to local contexts, therefore, this condition give it a privileged position as
vector of social change. Despite this high recognition of creative potential of the music industry
in general, and World Music in particular, there are not systematic attempts to understand how
these innovative processes occur and what dimensions of socioeconomic reality affect.
Research on innovation in creative and cultural sectors is one attempt to understand how these
sectors could transform economic and social reality, and following this trend, this study aims to
analyze innovation in World Music both at industrial level and territorial impacts.
This paper shows the first steps toward this aim that comprises a model of analysis and the main
variables and indicators derived of this from which, in next stages of the general research, to
generate a World Music innovation survey.
The first section of this paper shows the context of the music industry, which is featured for
change that introduction of innovations generates. All the development of music industry in XX
century is a sequence of structural breaks determined for innovations, and the last one caused
for digitization, has generated a post-digital scenario that defines the strategies of firms in the
sector.
Second section presents conceptual framework based on three theoretical axis: First, economic
research on cultural and creative sectors that contributes to an evolution of aspects of innovation
not included in traditional systems of measuring; second, Sectorial Systems of Innovation
approach to analyze the learning process that emerges from interplay of market and non-market
agents and, finally, input-output model of innovation in cultural organizations and its impacts on
territory.
Below is a deep analysis of innovation as a driven force of music industry and the particularities
of this in the post-digital scenario.
2
2. Context: Music Industry, Innovation and Post-Digital Scenario
It is well known that music industry is undergoing an interesting stage after the serious crisis
that had to face with the digitization, given the progressive economic recovery and the
explosion of heterogeneity of business models. This fact determines the strategic scenario
within which firms and agents of music sector must develop his economic activities.
But Alongside technical advances occur changes in model business, in the legislation to protect
intellectual property and in the esthetic. This body of changes set up the music industry
evolution and determines the strategic scenario.
The music industry response to the digitization is following two apparently paradoxical tracks:
streaming distribution or live performance. In other words, the death of physic format has
emerged a business wherein music exists virtualized either in the physic contact between artists
and public.
In this post-digital scenario, we found other paradoxical reality. On the one hand, the growing
sales figures and impacts suggest an increase of power and size of big actors that give the
impression of an impenetrable market. But, on the other hand, we find that the Internet and the
new technologies in music record and production allow the rise of small actors, like independent
record labels or artists, with more ability to access to the market than before the digitization.
Under this dual polarity the firms in the sector must take action into a scenario characterized by
high levels of uncertainty, that obligates them to adopt dynamics of continuous renewal, to
constant new ideas and business model generation, to test their capacities of mobility, to
identify and recombines new resources and strategic alliances, both inside and outside market.
The following section present a further analysis of relationships between innovation and the
music industry, specifically, the way that digitization configures the scenario within firms of the
sector must develop his activities.
2.1. Innovation as the driving force of music industry.
Music has been always linked to innovation. Not only the modern music industry but even from
historic beginnings, where first musical instruments meant, at the time of its emergence,
significant technical advances.
Studies in the develop of music industry along history stablish a transformation process defined
by a set of structural breaks as a result of the introduction of innovations like the phonograph,
record, production, broadcasting and reproduction technics, that transformed every stage of the
value chain of music. We can say that innovation is inseparable from music, and nowadays the
last break is determined by digitization. (Hitters, E. & van de Kamp, M., 2011) present a
complete analysis that collect the different approaches about the changes of the music industry
after digitization.
From phonograph to MP3, the music industry has been driven by innovation. However, we
have to consider that, although usually the changes in the music industry are associated with
technological change, is necessary to move away from this technologic determinism and
recognize that innovation operates within a framework of cultural, economic and normative
transformations. The profound economic, normative and aesthetic transformations work
together to set up the evolution in the music industry. In this regard, Tschmuck describes “two
3
large structural breaks. The first is that of the jazz revolution in the 1920´s, and the second one
is the Rock ´n Roll revolution in the early 1950´s.” (2010: 207), where each of them is the result
of the conjunction of technological advances with new model business inside the framework of
the consumer economy, deep transformation in the intellectual property protection and the
social and cultural changes that defined the XX century.
Nowadays, we find an industry that 15 years after big crisis, have started to show recovering
signals after a process of restructuration that consists, on the one hand, in the emergence of
streaming and live music, and on the other hand, in the coexistence of big and small players
thanks to the possibilities opened by internet and new technologies that allow consolidate the
big ones and the access to the market for the small ones. Figure 1 illustrates a synthesis of the
scenario that emerges for the crossroads between players size and business model in music
industry.
Size of players
Business Model
Big
Players
Small
Players
Online
Live
Itunes
Spotify
Youtube
Live Nation
Ticketmaster
World Music
Independent
Media
BlockchainType
Figure 1. Post-digital scenario: size of players and business model of music industry.
Jim Rogers, in a deep analysis of music business, raise that music industry is composed by three
subsectors: record industry, music publishing and live music sector, and its reaction to
digitization were the falling of first of them and the restructuration based on the other two. The
falling in sales figures of the industry was the reflection of the death of record music, not of the
whole music industry. Digitization is represented as an evolution of music business in his
words“…the broader music industries landscape paints a significantly healthier picture tan the
digitally induced Armageddon suggested by record sales data and popular media reports”
(Rogers, 2013). Graphic 1 shows the evolution of music industry that reveals these arguments.
20
18
17,9
16,2
16
14
14
12
11,8
10,3
10
8
8,9
6
4
2
1,1
1
0
2005
2006
2,9
2,3
1
1,2
2007
2008
Physical
3,7
4,1
4,3
1,3
1,3
1,4
2009
2010
Digital
2011
8,1
4,9
1,4
2012
7,5
5,5
6,7
5,8
6,1
6,7
5,8
1,6
1,8
2
2,1
2013
2014
2015
Performance rights
Graphic 1. Global recorded Music Industry Revenues 2005-2015 (US$billions). IFPI
4
Technically, music publishing sector refers to business around the control and sales of
copyrights, which in the internet era, generates revenues from streaming or download services.
This model is more in line with bigger players because the impacts of releases are increasingly
larger and they have the capacities to manage it. Whilst small players like independent labels,
new artists, or non-trending genres, live performance represent its main revenues. This does not
mean that they ignore the online distribution or blocking off the avenues to signing a contract
with big players.
An important feature of this dynamic between big and small players is that, despite the growing
impacts and revenues of music business, they are not free of globalization logic where big
economic flows are very sensitive. This outlines a very unstable and changing scenario where
the largest in the structure are subject to the characteristics of an economy in the risk society
(Beck, 1992).
Although big majors of record industry have fallen, the hierarchical structure of music industry
remains with other big players heading the emerging sectors. A special example is live music
sector where firms like Live Nation or Ticketmaster keep a concentrated structure of business.
Figure 2 illustrates this structural change.
NOW
THEN
Secondary
Tickets
Merchandise
Sponsorship
Broadcast
DVD
RECORDING
VIP Tickets
Fan Club
Publishing
Sponsorship
CONCERTS
Merchandise
Tickets
Concerts
Recordings
DVD
Figure 2. Music industry change according to Live Nation. Slide from Live Nation investor
presentation, 2008. In (Marshall, 2013)
In short, innovation is the driving force of music industry, and in its last structural break caused
for the digitization, has spurred the emergency of online distribution and live performance. This
configures a scenario with a high level of uncertainty but, also, with wide opportunities to enter
to market for small players. These two features force the firms to a permanent new ideas
generation process, adaptation to changing conditions, to test its mobility and negotiation
capacities, to identification and recombination of new resources and new types of strategic
alliances.
The following section defines the object of this research by placing it into this scenario. We will
see that the main role in World Music sector is interpreted by live music agents: booking
agencies, promoters and festivals.
3. World Music Sector and Intermediary Agents in the Value Chain: Presentation of
the Object of Study.
World Music is a specific sector of the music market. Although it comprises a large number of
different music and local contexts of musical creation, it has characteristics that allow its
5
definition and autonomy. According to this more than a genre or a market, we can synthesize all
these differential characteristics under the concept of genre-market, proposed by Dave Laing, in
which autonomy of this sector is defined by its capacity of crossing borders; the presence of
specific representative institutions like “sales charts, radio formats, specialist written media,
festivals, special record companies, trade associations and fairs and audience demographics.”
(Laing, 2009b) and for the prevalence of the controversy around his boundaries and the
discussion about what is and is not World Music, according with Pierre Bourdieu´s sociological
concept of “cultural field”.
Following the post-digital context and trend of the music industry, World Music is constituted
by the interaction of small players aimed to live music sector, however without living aside online distribution nor the intention of achieving a global impact and go into the market with the
big ones. This could be demonstrated by data about the share of the record industry, music
publishing and live music subsectors inside World Music.
Music Industry
World Music
Record music
Music
publishing
44800
540
9600
60
Live Music
20000
800
Total
71900
1400
Table 1. Music Industry and World Music sector revenues in 2006. In Millions of US$. Source:
(Laing, 2009b).
Based on data from 2006 that needs to be updated, we can note that World Music is a market
niche whit a share of 1.4% from music industry total revenues. But also, demonstrates that in
World Music live performance is greater than record and publishing subsectors, in relation to
the whole music industry.
If live music becomes the main business model and source of revenues of World Music value
chain, and if small players are the main role of the sector, so intermediaries between musicians
and public, like booking agencies and concert promoters, becomes the key agents.
Development and production
Record Labels
Managers
Creators
Publishing Companies
Distribution
Channels
Physic
Digital
Channel:
Muisic
stores
Streaming
Booking
Concert
agencies
promoters
Concert
venues
Festivals
Market
Audiences
Creation
Difuson
Figure 3. World Music Value Chain. Source: compilation based on (Wilson & Stokes, 2005) and Cadena de Valor
Industries Creativas I Culturals. Generalitat de Catalunya. Not published document. (2015)
6
Booking agencies offer and negotiates the contracts of live showcases in venue concerts or
festivals. Also important is the organizational and administrative issues related to music travel,
wherein is included the investment of economic resources for travel and lodging and
administrative tasks like issuance of visas.
These agencies fulfill a special function for musicians. While they focus on artistic
development, delegates marketing and promotion services to agencies that offer its wide
knowledge on concert halls circuits and festivals and the logistic and administrative tasks
related to travel to alien territories for musicians, which are necessary since, as usual in World
Music, they have to move from other continents.
First interviews with concerts promoters and bookers allow us to know that the selection
process of a musical proposal in a booking agency obey to a very specific artistic criteria. The
essence of these criteria is to link the context wherein the music comes from, especially social
and cultural process of creation, that is to say, in a musical proposal in World Music, the
process is part of the product and that is the reason why agents must have a deep knowledge of
them.
4. Background:
In the last years, there is a growing academic and strategic interest in the creative and cultural
industries given its potential as a factor of economic and social development and
transformation. This trend has adopted the conceptualization on innovation coming from
economic studies. The development of this conceptual framework has been focused on
technologic and scientific advances, and as a result, a typology of innovation has been
established, which more important findings are established in the Oslo Manual (Mortensen &
Bloch, 2005) and differentiates between product, process, organization and marketing
innovations y manufacture, industry and services sectors.
Analysis in the last decades aims to extend the framework of innovation to cultural and creative
sectors, where typology includes other innovations not visible with traditional
conceptualizations and classifications. These innovations are known as “hidden innovations”
(Miles & Green, 2008), “soft innovations” (Stoneman, 2010) and based on “symbolic
knowledge” (Asheim & Hansen, 2009) and, also, are linked to other fields of knowledge
different to engineering and sciences like humanities and social sciences (Jaaniste, 2009) and
other product, process and impacts like cultural or social fields.
However, although there is a relative academic and politic agree, this complementary
conceptualization around the typologies of innovation are faced with difficulties in its
recognition and measurement, which lies in the lack of basic definitions about culture and
creativity.
On this basis, studies in specific sectors of creative and cultural industries have been developed,
so music industry has been no exception to this trend, adopting this conceptualization but with
the same problems.
Research on music sector innovation is in an early stage of developing, with studies in the
whole music industry or specific subsectors inside it. In this regard, Tschmuck gives an
important contribution in his work “Innovation and Creativity in Music Industry” (Tschmuck,
2010) wherein, more than a historic process, he proposes the analysis of innovation as driven
7
force of the evolutionary development of music industry, taking up the economic theory of
innovation to understand the relationships between creativity, innovation and change in this
industry. On the other hand, Balto and Lane (2015) propose that innovations in the music
industry are “disruptive innovations” and this means that they have capacities to transform
market and technology by affordability, control transfer to consumers and accessibility to
technology.
Among studies carried out on specific levels of music industry Power & Hallencreutz (2002)
analyzes two comparative cases of music industry in Kingston, Jamaica, and Stockholm,
Sweden, and establish that success of music industry depends on differences in the intellectual
property right regimes and local and global inter and intra-firm links. Castro- Martínez et al.
(2013) based on a case study of a music organization specialized in early music, analyze the
innovation system and concludes that in any stage of development of a new musical product
there is a necessity of new knowledge and the success of a new musical release depends
substantially of his performance like a sectoral system of innovation where presence of market
and non- market actors play a determinant role.
Innovation in live music festivals has been analyzed in some contributions. Sundbo (2004)
investigates the relationships between rock festivals and regional business development. As a
part of experience economy, the author analyzes rock festivals as the basis for development in
other industrial sectors, “education, research and other activities” at local level, the
particularities of management of this sector and raises the role of festivals both, as a business
incubator and as a part of regional innovator systems. It is remarkable how this study links
internal dynamics of organization to external impacts in the rest of economy and other regional
issues. Other investigations focused on this internal aspects without linking to contextual
conditions. That is the case of van Limburg (2008), who based on the concept of cocreation,
study the marketing strategies lead user in pop festivals, and as a result proposes a practical
strategy for festival management based on this concept of cocreation. Other case of internal
organization study of music festivals is proposed by Larson (2011). Here internal renewing
processes based on workers encourage new ideas and creative solutions are analyzed, and
identify typologies of renewing processes and “…the demands of potential visitors, the
management’s view on renewal, the team’s view on renewal, the organizational culture, and
change of managers and staff” (Larson, 2011) as factors that promote or hinder innovations.
Another research line wherein this works locates and dialogue is the cultural studies on World
Music. These researches try to make definitions around basic and controversial concepts like the
delimitations of world music and the consequences that capitalist music industry dynamics for
local music. One of those proposals is the recompilation of Pietilä et al. (Pietilä et al., ; 2008)
wherein from different perspectives world music is analyzed from the role of small actors and
its strategies in the globalized music industry. In one of them, Laing (2009a) analyzes the role
of world music within music industry using the concept of genre-market. Other forms of
globalization could be considered in small market niches like World Music, where face to face
contact between agents draws an alternative for impersonal relationships that characterize big
corporations.
In the same research line, since the World Music category came up in 80`s, there is a critical
perspective that in general, raises that the exoticization of this market reproduces the hierarchy
and the scheme of cultural domination in the capitalist and western model of society. Main
contributions in this regarding can be seen in Frith (1991; 2000), Bohlman (2002) and Feld
(2000). This deep and interesting analysis, propose a necessary point of view to warn the risks
of abandon delicate cultural and social manifestation of territories to market. However, this
8
perspective does not contribute to understanding the music as a factor of development and
transformation for local societies.
To our knowledge, there are no specific studies on innovation in World Music sector. Even
though there is a recognition that this sector is in the middle of the changes in technology,
demand and financial aspects, and, like the rest of music industry, it is constantly faced to
incorporate innovative behaviors along all stages of its value chain, or on the other side,
although there is the idea that this music can contributes to generation of social and market
innovations processes, does not exist yet an analysis where this industrial framework of
innovation is embodied in world music, in its economic, technologic, social and symbolic way.
5. Conceptual Framework:
The economic theory of innovation raises that the change of economic cycles is an evolutionary
process of structural breaks caused by the introduction of innovations. This process of change is
named by Schumpeter as the “creative destruction”. Based on this idea, has arisen a body of
analysis that put innovation in the center of the economic development and draw strength in a
knowledge-based economy context.
As noted above, innovation research is expanding conceptualization, typologies and
methodologies to creative and cultural sectors, linking new knowledge fields like research in
social sciences, arts and humanities and exploring its capacities to the generation of changes in
society.
The literature raises that typologies of innovation in Oslo Manual does not allow knowing the
types of innovation in cultural and creative organizations. Facing this academic and political
lack, Miles & Green (2008) propose the concept of “hidden innovation” wherein identify four
types of innovation invisible to traditional measuring systems:
1. Research and development of new products, where taste and preferences are key to
developing new art works and services.
2. New organizational forms and business models.
3. New combinations of technologies and processes
4. Innovations in the internal knowledge management of organizations, which is linked to
solving problems strategies.
Under this idea, Bakhshi and Throsby (2009) establish that cultural organizations are
conditioned by a structural change dynamics defined by technology, demand patterns,
diversified incoming sources and concepts of value creation, and in this changing context
develops cultural innovation process not evident for traditional measuring systems. To
recognize this innovation processes authors propose four dimensions where innovation occurs:
1. Innovation in audience reaches, that are not the same that marketing innovations
2. Innovation in development of new artistic works
3. Cultural institutions develop innovative strategies in value creation that generates not
quantifiable incomes.
4. Model business, that obeys to changing dynamics in both demand and supply side in the
value chain.
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On the other hand, there are studies that note the need of new knowledge in the developing of
products in creative and cultural industries. Regarding that, Asheim & Hansen (2009) raise a
typology of knowledge base: analytic (science based), synthetic (engineering based) and
symbolic (arts based). Each of these categories determines the innovation process in the
different industrial sectors where symbolic knowledge from creative and cultural sectors “is
applied in the creation of meaning and desire, as well as in the aesthetic attributes of products,
producing designs, images, and symbols, and in the economic use of such forms of cultural
artifacts” (2009). In the practice it can be reflected in the presence of actors according to the
type of knowledge, so, in creative and culture, cultural agents and artists are the main providers
of knowledge.
Presence of non- economic agents in the value chain of creative and cultural industries raise the
possibility of exploring innovation in a systemic way. Innovation systems is an approach where
strategic and firms dimension of innovation are interwoven. Sectoral Systems of Innovation
theory is an appropriated perspective to analyze the innovation process in a complex, dynamic
and comparative way. On this framework developed by Malerba (2004; 2002), innovation
process depends on the heterogeneity of actors and its interactions. Actors could be firms and
non-firms that interact in a market or non-market way through processes of competence and
collaboration and formal or informal relationships regulated by institutions. To know the
particularities of a sectoral innovation system the analysis is based on 1. Knowledge base, 2.
Actors and networks, and 3. Institutions role.
“…a set of new and established products for specific uses and the set of agents carrying out
market and non-market interactions for the creation, production and sale of those products.
Sectoral systems have a knowledge base, technologies, inputs and demand. The agents are
individuals and organizations at various levels of aggregation, with specific learning
processes, competencies, organizational structure, beliefs, objectives and behaviors. They
interact through processes of communication, exchange, co-operation, competition and
command, and their interactions are shaped by institutions.” (Malerba, 2002)
Those categories allow us to know the specific actors and its weight within the sector, the kind
of knowledge base, and the role of institutions, but, also the sector´s boundaries and the
direction toward the sector changes.
A large part of literature consider creative and cultural industries are linked to economic and
social development. From this territorial and strategic perspective, it is proposed that culture
active creative processes that contribute to innovation in the rest of economy but, also, in the
social contexts where is produced. European Union efforts in this territorial approach of
creativity are a good example of the growing interest. One of them is the contribution of KEA
(2009) where causal rationality between culture, creativity and innovation is reinforced
underlining its strategic dimension of culture. In another proposal, Potts (2007) raises cultural
and creative industries promote experimentation, production, valorization and transference of
new ideas generating a conducive environmental for innovation. Thus, these economic sectors
can be considered as a creative system that makes part and fulfill a specific function inside an
innovation system.
Other proposal links the territorial and macroeconomic perspective with strategic policies and
management of organizations, identifying the contribution of cultural organizations on
innovation, from a systemic perspective at local territorial level. This is included in Rausell et
al., (2012) and raise cultural organizations as entities that fulfill a function of production which
transforms a set of inputs or resources, into outputs and impacts. This analysis is based on a
model wherein diverse innovative dimensions are recognized in three levels: The innovative
nature of financial, human, symbolic, and relational resources; management, organizational
10
models and objectives, mission and vision internal to the organizations, and products, services
and impacts generated for these organizations.
6. Model for Measuring innovation:
Based on this three conceptual pillars: dimensions and typologies of innovation in Cultural and
Creative Sectors, Sectoral Systems of Innovation and Function of Production Model, an model
of analysis for innovation in World Music is proposed, whose main transversal variables are
typologies of innovation, agents intra and extra markets and their interactions - formal and nonformal- the type of knowledge base, impacts on the rest of economy and territory and drivers
and obstacles to developing innovation.
Such model will be addressed from an input-output scheme, wherein a World Music firm takes
position like an agent that acquire resources and, by a set of internal process, transform them
into products and services that generate impacts in economy and society. This model allows
knowing the level and nature of innovation processes that are present in three levels: Inputs,
function of production and outputs.
6.1. Main Variables:
Based on Function of Production model, raised by Rausell et al , (Ibidem) is possible to suggest
a schema for analysis and measurement aiming to know nature and innovation process of World
Music firms composed of the following variables:
1. Innovative inputs:
Refers to all the resources that enter to firm and based on internal strategies of
management are transformed into cultural products and services. The selection process
itself is part of this strategic management of the firm. These resources are of different
nature:
- Human resources: comprises the level and field of training of staff, and labour
skills.
- Financial resources: levels of diversification of financial sources
- Symbolic resources: knowledge base used in the value creation of cultural products
and services. This esthetic knowledge is formed by social and musicological
contents which are inherent to World Music.
- Social capital: is the set of social links that could become economic revenues.
2. Function of Production:
It refers to internal strategies, objectives, type of organization and mission whereby
firms develops musical products and defines its innovative orientation.
- Mission and Vision: self-perception of the firm. Value that defines its innovative
expectancies. Internal reflexive process conditioning of innovative levels of firm.
- Organizational Model: Type of organization and organizational change capacities.
The logic behind its organizational structure.
- Business Management: Management of accumulated knowledge, role of experience
and problem-solving strategies.
- Business Model: One of the basis of innovative behavior is the capacity to
combination of new elements and this is possible in business model strategy.
- Legal framework: Institutional scheme within firms develops its activities and play
a key role in the innovative performance of firms. Defined by intellectual property
11
-
protection regimes, labour legislation and institutional mechanisms innovation
support.
Technologic strategy: definition in strategic terms about the use of technology in
the stages of developing of a cultural product or service.
Communicative strategy: More than a marketing strategy is the intern rational that
defines audiences reach and contact with clients and customers.
Communication strategy: Internal logic behind the audience reaches strategy.
3. Outputs and Impacts;
This set of variables aims to establish the type and level of innovation in product and
services, and go beyond by recognition of impacts in the whole economy and society.
- The Introduction of new products and services: It includes the capacities of added
value creation based on aesthetic contents.
- Impacts: Creation of transferable value to other sectors of the music industry, the
rest of economy and society.
6.2. Matrix of Indicators:
Variables
Aspects
1.1. Human resources
1.2. Financial resources
1. Inputs
1.3. Symbolic resources
1.4. Cognitive resources
1.5. Social capital
2.1. Mission and Vision
2.2. Organizative model
2.3. Corporate management
2. Function
of
2.4. Business model
Production
2.5. Institutional and legal
framework
2.6. Technologic strategy
2.7. Communication model
3. Outputs
3.1. New products
3.2. Impacts
Indicators
1.1.1. Labour competences of workers in your firm
1.1.2. Professional field of staff
1.1.3. Professional field of founding partners of your firm
1.2.1. Funding sources: own resources, sales, loans, institutional support
1.3.1. Musical repertory of artists your firm works
1.3.2. Inputs from other sectors of world music: music production, record studies
1.3.3. Inputs from other creative and cultural sectors: design, visual arts, video production, advertising
1.4.1. Knowledge from musicological research
1.4.2. Social contents linked to musical productions
1.5.1. Personal links with people from the world music sector, music industry, institutions, etc.
2.1.1. Type of organization: profit, non-profit, institutional, mix
2.1.2. Criteria selection of musical contents: originality in musical proposals
2.1.3. Valuation of main topics of recognition of your firm: professionalism, big projects development
capacity, new musical proposals, focus on social commitment etc.
2.2.1. Main activities of your firm
2.2.2. Organizative structure: staff, territorial presence
2.2.3. Capacity of link other agents in the development of a new project
2.2.4. Merging, outsourcing, collaboration, networking with other firms and agents
2.3.1. Nature of internal knowledge management: problem solving strategies
2.4.1. Generation capacity of new business structures: use of new resources, new ideas, exploration of
new fields
2.5.1. Consultancy of legal services, copyrights management, artistic and labour contracts
2.5.2. Assessment of institutional incentives for innovation
2.5.3. Assessment of cultural atmosphere to development of new ideas
2.5.4. Market competence as a factor of developing new ideas
2.6.1. Role of technology in each stage of the value chain: creation, production, distribution
2.6.2. Role of technology in communication strategy
2.6.3. Use of technology in monitoring of audiences and royalties control
2.7.1. Marketing strategies
2.7.2. Strategies of relationships with clients
2.7.3. Type of markets your firm is targeting: by countries, venues or concert circuits
3.1.1. Number of new products of services: number of tour concerts, new artistic proposals, etc.
3.1.2. Nature of musical proposals: assessment of importance of social and musicological contents in a
new musical work
3.2.1. Links with agents from music industry, institutions, civil organizations and research agents.
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7. Composition of the Sample and Methodology:
Next step is the creation and application of the World Music Innovation Survey applied to
companies that intermediates between world music artists and public: booking agencies, concert
promoters and festival organizers. This sample could have changes given the accessibility to
informants and the composition of an enough representative number.
These companies are based mainly in Europe and participate in thematic trade fairs where direct
contact was plausible. To continue refining the model of analysis a new set of interviews are
planned.
Also, a control test is planned aiming to know the differences of innovation aspects between
World Music and other music sectors, especially the role of technological, musicological
research and social inputs in the value creation of music. This consists in the application of the
survey on a small group of firms with the same characteristics of size or live performance focus
in other sector like indie rock or emergent music bands.
8. Expected Findings of the Whole Research:
The first set of interviews and observation in sectoral trade fairs give us initial approaches to the
findings about nature of innovation in World Music sector. First of them show the systemic
performance of the sector where the success of a musical production is substantially determined
by the participation and interaction with non-economic agents, especially civil organizations,
governmental institutions of support and musicological researchers.
In the creation process of a new musical product, all of those agents active different types of
innovation at market, technological and organizational levels, as well as processes of value
creation based on knowledge generation through musical research and social contents through
integration of inseparable esthetical and social elements from specific nature of world music.
13
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