An analysis of strategic management in the digital music industry in a Chinese context

Zhang, Siqi (2020) An analysis of strategic management in the digital music industry in a Chinese context. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria Univesity.

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Abstract

There are elements of cultural innovation only partly articulated in managing the business of Digital Music within academic research in a Chinese context. This thesis research into one question, how far management and operational systems developed with a western background can be applied efficiently to the Chinese context within the field of the Digital Music Industry?

The study adopted a chronological approach. It followed the development history of three timelines, the development of management theories and logic in China and the West, the development of global Digital Music, the development of China's Digital Music Industry, which including understanding a critical introduction to management in its historical and intellectual context which provided a useful expansion of the issues raised.

This research analyses China's Digital Music Industry from the perspective of the insider, with a people-oriented research angle and a comprehensive methodology based on an interpretive approach combined with dialectical thinking. The research distinguishes China's Digital Music Industry from other mature Digital Music industries and highlights the contemporary challenges it presents in the current context.

This thesis begins by building a theoretical framework of Western management and its development, contrasting this with a Chinese experience of theories and philosophy of management. It tested these theories by analysing the changes and growth of Digital Music management in China from the external environment perspective and a case study of QQ Music.

The research compares the similarities and differences between China's Digital Music Industry and others which include definitions of Digital Music, historical developments, people's concept of consumption, attitude, and behavioural habits around Digital Music. It reviews the literature on management research to conceptualise Western theories combined with the case study of QQ music, to make explicit how they apply or do not apply in China, and to be more specific, within the Chinese Digital Music Industry.

The research defines the mission and goal of Digital Music in a Chinese context. More importantly, based on the analysis to understand the Chinese Digital Music management logic, makes clear the unique attributes (service as the core competitiveness), the development pattern of China's Digital Music Industry (an online and offline interactive digital business ecosystem) and offers a way to extend existing theories (the collision of fan economy, experience economy and the Long Tail theory).

The research has collected a lot of valuable first-hand data, including many hard-to-reach groups and includes non-public data from the company and local government. The study concludes that Western management theories are distinct from China's experience in the Digital Music Industry. This lies in, particularly, the core profit model and consumer habits of Digital Music in China and their difference to the West. Consumers have different perceptions of the value of music content and service. It is valuable to seek new insights into advanced business models and management theories which is set to enhance the study of China's Digital Music Industry and which may provide the practical assessment of good practice in a Chinese context to inform management practice from non-Western models.

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