IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i6p2381-d334079.html

Media Innovation Strategies for Sustaining Competitive Advantage: Evidence from Music Download Stores in Iran

Author

Listed:
  • Afshin Omidi

    (Institute of Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Neuchâtel, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland)

  • Cinzia Dal Zotto

    (Institute of Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Neuchâtel, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland)

  • Esmaeil Norouzi

    (Faculty of Management, University of Teheran, Tehran 1417466191, Iran)

  • José María Valero-Pastor

    (Department of Human and Social Sciences, Faculty of Human and Legal Sciences, Miguel Hernandez University of Elche, 03202 Elche, Alicante, Spain)

Abstract

This study explores the value of media innovation strategies for driving business success within the Iranian e-market of music downloads. It argues that the context of music e-markets in emerging countries differs markedly from that of developed economies by highlighting the political and cultural challenges that local e-music platforms in Iran are continuously facing. As literature is scarce in this specific area, and this study is one of the first attempting to gain a comprehensive understanding, a qualitative approach has been applied, and 14 digital music industry experts were interviewed in Iran. Data were collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews and then analyzed with a qualitative coding approach. This paper revealed that issues such as copyright challenges and governmental permission barriers are limiting the capabilities of digital music distributors to reach a sustainable competitive advantage.

Suggested Citation

  • Afshin Omidi & Cinzia Dal Zotto & Esmaeil Norouzi & José María Valero-Pastor, 2020. "Media Innovation Strategies for Sustaining Competitive Advantage: Evidence from Music Download Stores in Iran," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-17, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:6:p:2381-:d:334079
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/6/2381/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/6/2381/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Youn Kue Na & Sungmin Kang, 2018. "Effects of Core Resource and Competence Characteristics of Sharing Economy Business on Shared Value, Distinctive Competitive Advantage, and Behavior Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-17, September.
    2. Tsao, Wen-Yu, 2014. "Enhancing competitive advantages: The contribution of mediator and moderator on stickiness in the LINE," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 933-941.
    3. Young Sik Cho & Kevin Linderman, 2020. "Resource-Based Product and Process Innovation Model: Theory Development and Empirical Validation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Ogden, James R. & Ogden, Denise T. & Long, Karl, 2011. "Music marketing: A history and landscape," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 120-125.
    5. Maury, Benjamin, 2018. "Sustainable competitive advantage and profitability persistence: Sources versus outcomes for assessing advantage," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 100-113.
    6. repec:cup:jechis:v:7:y:1947:i:02:p:149-159_05 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Brian J Hracs & Doreen Jakob & Atle Hauge, 2013. "Standing out in the Crowd: The Rise of Exclusivity-Based Strategies to Compete in the Contemporary Marketplace for Music and Fashion," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(5), pages 1144-1161, May.
    8. Vasco Eiriz & Filipe Pinto Leite, 2017. "The digital distribution of music and its impact on the business models of independent musicians," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(13-14), pages 875-895, October.
    9. Afuah, Allan N. & Bahram, Nik, 1995. "The hypercube of innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 51-76, January.
    10. Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli & Lorenzo Ardito, 2019. "Firm Size and Sustainable Innovation Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-5, November.
    11. Yang, Zhiyong & Wang, Jingguo & Mourali, Mehdi, 2015. "Effect of peer influence on unauthorized music downloading and sharing: The moderating role of self-construal," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 516-525.
    12. Sinclair, Gary & Tinson, Julie, 2017. "Psychological ownership and music streaming consumption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-9.
    13. Mirvis, Philip & Herrera, Maria Elena Baltazar & Googins, Bradley & Albareda, Laura, 2016. "Corporate social innovation: How firms learn to innovate for the greater good," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 5014-5021.
    14. Bitsch, Vera, 2005. "Qualitative Research: A Grounded Theory Example and Evaluation Criteria," Journal of Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics Association of Georgia, vol. 23(01), pages 1-17.
    15. Gamble, Jordan Robert & Brennan, Michael & McAdam, Rodney, 2017. "A rewarding experience? Exploring how crowdfunding is affecting music industry business models," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 25-36.
    16. Sousa, Maria José & Rocha, Álvaro, 2019. "Skills for disruptive digital business," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 257-263.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Afshin Omidi & Cinzia Dal Zotto, 2022. "Socially Responsible Human Resource Management: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Peter M. Bican & Alexander Brem, 2020. "Digital Business Model, Digital Transformation, Digital Entrepreneurship: Is There A Sustainable “Digital”?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-15, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elia Pizzolitto, 2024. "Music in business and management studies: a systematic literature review and research agenda," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 1439-1472, September.
    2. Adrien Vasseur-Tremblay & Christophe M. Elie-Dit-Cosaque, 2025. "Integrating user experience into the development of company-generated content on social media: the role of affordances [Intégration de l'expérience utilisateur dans l'élaboration des contenus générés par l'entreprise sur les médias sociaux : le rô," Post-Print hal-05320080, HAL.
    3. Chandna, Vallari & Salimath, Manjula S., 2018. "Peer-to-peer selling in online platforms: A salient business model for virtual entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 162-174.
    4. Nesij Huvaj, M. & Darmody, Aron & Smith, Robert S., 2023. "Psychological ownership and disownership in reward-based crowdfunding," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    5. Cockrill, Antje & Liu, Yang, 2013. "Western popular music consumption by highly involved Chinese music fans," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 263-271.
    6. Varadarajan, Rajan & Kaul, Rupali, 2018. "Doing well by doing good innovations: alleviation of social problems in emerging markets through corporate social innovations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 225-233.
    7. Zhao, Taiyang & Lu, Yan & Lynette Wang, Valerie & Wu, Banggang & Chen, Zhi & Song, Wei & Zhou, Liying, 2023. "Shared but unhappy? Detrimental effects of using shared products on psychological ownership and consumer happiness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    8. Kishinchand Poornima Wasdani & Abhishek Vijaygopal & Mathew J. Manimala, 2025. "Business Incubators: A Need-Heed Gap Analysis of Technology-based Enterprises," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 26(6), pages 1556-1578, December.
    9. Roberto Villalba & Garima Joshi & Thomas Daum & Terese E. Venus, 2024. "Financing Climate-Smart Agriculture: a case study from the Indo-Gangetic Plains," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 29(5), pages 1-25, June.
    10. Cinzia Battistella & Gianluca Murgia & Fabio Nonino, 2021. "Free-driven web-based business models," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 445-486, June.
    11. Zahoor, Nadia & Zopiatis, Anastasios & Adomako, Samuel & Lamprinakos, Grigorios, 2023. "The micro-foundations of digitally transforming SMEs: How digital literacy and technology interact with managerial attributes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    12. Bong-Goon Seo & Do-Hyung Park, 2020. "The Effective Type of Information Categorization in Online Curation Service Depending on Psychological Ownership," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-13, April.
    13. Hartl, Barbara & Hofmann, Eva & Kirchler, Erich, 2016. "Do we need rules for “what's mine is yours”? Governance in collaborative consumption communities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 2756-2763.
    14. Elena-Mădălina Vătămănescu & Elena Dinu & Mădălina-Elena Stratone & Roxana-Maria Stăneiu & Florina Vintilă, 2022. "Adding Knowledge to Virtual Teams in the New Normal: From Leader-Team Communication towards the Satisfaction with Teamwork," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-17, May.
    15. Tachia Chin & Francesco Caputo & Yi Shi & Mario Calabrese & Chiraz Aouina‐Mejri & Armando Papa, 2022. "Depicting the role of cross‐cultural legitimacy for responsible innovation in Asian‐Pacific business models: A dialectical systems view of Yin‐Yang harmony," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(6), pages 2083-2093, November.
    16. Watson, Rosina & Wilson, Hugh N. & Macdonald, Emma K., 2020. "Business-nonprofit engagement in sustainability-oriented innovation: What works for whom and why?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 87-98.
    17. Maria Roszkowska‐Menkes, 2025. "ESG pay and corporate social irresponsibility: Does culture matter?," Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(4), pages 1860-1885, October.
    18. José Alberto Martínez-González & Eduardo Parra-López & Almudena Barrientos-Báez, 2021. "Young Consumers’ Intention to Participate in the Sharing Economy: An Integrated Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-21, January.
    19. Müller, Felix Claus & Ibert, Oliver, 2014. "(Re-)Sources of Innovation: Understanding and Comparing Innovation Dynamics through the Lens of Communities of Practice," IRS Working Papers 52, Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS).
    20. Dauermann, Angelika & Enneking, Ulrich, 2023. "Views from the country road: A qualitative study on the landscape aesthetic perception of dairy barns in the region of the Osnabrück Region (northwestern Germany)," DARE Discussion Papers 2303, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development (DARE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:6:p:2381-:d:334079. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.