Graham William Goode: “Creativity is king: an exploration of the role of brand orientation in the collaborative strategies of UK broadcast media organisations”
Abstract
Although media brands possess distinct characteristics that differentiate them from commercial brands, their strategic management has only recently been recognised as important in the field of media management research.  Organisations with a strategic orientation around the brand, known as a brand orientation, place the brand at the heart of the organisation’s activities, guiding its strategies through a common vision and set of behaviours. Collaborative strategies, where organisations cooperate to compete, have been a prevalent feature of UK broadcast media organisations’ strategies in the last decade. This study explores the role of brand orientation in the collaborative strategies of UK broadcast media organisations from 2010 to 2017.
A mixed methods methodology is employed using an explanatory sequential research design. In the first phase, quantitative content analysis of reported instances of collaboration in the UK broadcast was carried out to identify and categorise the nature, form and motivations of collaboration. In a second exploratory phase, interviews with senior managers and qualitative content analysis of the reported statements of senior managers were conducted to explore the role of brand orientation and shared values in collaborations.
The findings suggest that organisations in the UK broadcast media industry increasingly employed a form of collaboration that nurtured creative relationships and recognised the importance of creative individuals in developing collaborative strategies. The shared values espoused by these organisations around creativity and creative people suggest that a creative orientation played an important role alongside brand and market orientations in the collaborative strategies used. The findings point to a lack of focus on brands as a strategic resource and an absence of strategic brand management, which may be seen as evidence of a weak brand orientation. This study makes an original contribution to knowledge on strategic hybrid orientations by introducing the concept of 'creative orientation' alongside brand and market orientations; it adds to knowledge on media brands, their strategic management and the role of strategic orientations in collaborative strategies in the specific context of the UK broadcast media industry.
Research data
There are two (2) data sets for the PhD:
1. Reported instances of collaboration
2. Interview transcripts

1. Reported instances of collaboration
These are public documents gathered from different sources:
1) Broadcast magazine news article database
The main source used was the trade magazine Broadcast, which contains articles and opinion pieces on developments and news in the broadcast industry. Access to these articles was obtained through the Dow Jones Factiva database portal (subscription required) and through the online version of the magazine, broadcastnow.co.uk (subscription required). This access enabled specific search terms and time periods to be used. The terms used related to the units of analysis or coding schedule shown in Appendix 2 of the thesis, for the broad term collaboration and more specific terms relating to the forms of collaboration such as acquisition, equity participation, strategic alliance or alliance, joint venture, merger, consortia or consortium, partnership and network.  To capture a year’s results start and end dates of 01/01/20xx and 31/12/20xx were used from 2010 to 2017. In a two-stage process, the initial search results were filtered to eliminate non-relevant and duplicate search results and the full article for relevant results was downloaded for detailed analysis. 
2) Organisational press releases and annual accounts
In addition to the use of the Broadcast article database, reported instances of collaboration were examined using organisation annual reports and press release statements. These documents were located on organisation web sites, using archived investor information and press or media centre pages.
Results from Dow Jones Factiva searches were captured in a consolidated file of all results for the search named as form of collaboration/year, for example: joint venture 2010 file 1. These results can only be replicated through the Factiva database using the search terms described above. Other search results were tagged, where possible, with a URL to link to the relevant article. The ‘Research data - reported instances’ document contains details of the search results with links and URLs to the related article where available.
2. Interview transcripts
Interviews were conducted with senior managers across a range of strategic and operational roles such as general managers, channel managers, business development and strategy manager, brand managers and growth fund managers. 
The anonymised transcripts are made available as separate documents.
All research data was qualitatively analysed in Nvivo 11.
Graham Goode
March 2021


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