BRIAN

KAVANAGH

.COM

Art In the Age of its Digital Reproduction

I am currently completing research at Imperial College Business School where I am part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research Group.

Thesis Title: Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction Organisational Response to Digital Music in the Classical Music Industry

Abstract: Technological change results in innovations that can be thought of as either sustaining or disruptive to products and services, firms and industries; such change can be both a creative and destructive force in the growth of enterprise. In the period following a technological disruption, firms, incumbents and new entrants alike, experience a period of uncertainty until a ‘dominant design’ (a single architecture that establishes dominance in a product class) emerges and equilibrium is restored to the technological regime. How and how successfully incumbents adapt to, and innovate with a disruptive technology in the aftermath of a technological disruption forms the central theme of this research. Specifically, it will examine how performing organisations, such as orchestras and opera theatre companies, are adapting digital technologies to mediate, in new and innovative ways, between composer and audience.

Research Setting: The music industry provides a strong empirical setting for a study on organisational response to disruptive innovations, having undergone a dramatic - and at times traumatic - transformation following the emergence of the digital music market, beginning with the introduction of the Compact Disc in October 1982. As a competence-enhancing innovation (Anderson and Tushman, 1986) the compact disc resulted in unprecedented profits for the record industry; however, as profits from CD sales soared throughout the 1990s, so too did levels of inertia within the major record labels. In the words of the current director of EMI Classical Global – Andrew Cordall – “somewhere in the mid 80s/early 90s, in the CD boom, everyone thought, CD? That’s it”. Who, at that time, could have predicted that the music retail chain Tower Records would no longer exist early in the twenty-first century?

With a literature review that spans such issues as resource and routine rigidities and the ability of firms to continuously change, coupled with extensive field-based work, within the classical music industry, my study will show that the specific example of the music industry provides unique insights into the often-complex phenomenon that is organisational response to technological discontinuities.

Research Question: How can performing organisations, such as symphony orchestras and opera companies, best utilise digital media to compete for market share within the new digital paradigm?'

Methodology: Considering the empirical research setting, and the nature of my research question, a case study methodology seems appropriate as a primary research method for this project. Secondary research methods are likely to include archival analysis and history (Robert K. Yin, 2009).