What Determines the Size of Private Equity Firms?
Florian Willert/Dodo zu Knyphausen-Aufsess
Although private equity is considered a maturing industry, its players have remained tiny boutiques. We investigate the nature of the drivers and inhibitors of firm growth in the private equity industry. We present the results of a survey on size patterns of European private equity firms. Based on case studies on buyout and venture capital (VC) firms from our sample and a business model concept, we derive three propositions that highlight the importance of the characteristics of the services provided, the decision process, and the metrics of economic return as determinants of firm size.
pp. 32 - 49

Strategic Paths and Media Management – A Path Dependency Analysis of the German Newspaper Branch of High Quality Journalism
Jochen Koch
I examine the difficulties of incumbent firms have in acting and reacting to changing environments and in coping with new strategic challenges. The study focuses on the strategic development of media organizations in the market of national daily produced high quality newspapers in Germany. The analysis takes place at the branch level, and by using path dependency theory, explains the difficulties that newspaper companies face in strategic realignment. I introduce the concept of a strategic path and provide an analytical framework for analyzing strategic processes and their inner dynamics. By means of an explanatory case study design, comprising all incumbent players in the field, the analysis sheds light on how and why a specific strategic pattern has emerged and why it is still maintained in quality newspapers. The analysis reveals the different components of the strategic pattern, their self-reinforcing dynamic, and their complex interplay. The results indicate that strategic patterns explain much of the recent crisis and the difficulties that newspapers have in coping with continuing changes. Thus, the paper contributes to both a better understanding why daily produced quality journalism has to be considered a jeopardized product-market-concept and to better explore the emerging and self-reinforcing character of strategic processes. Insights of the study could also be helpful for discern and disentangle the core assets of a strategy from the problematic set of strategic assumptions they are embedded in.
pp. 50 - 73 

We Don’t Need Another Hero – Implications from Network Structure and Resource Commitment for Movie Performance 
Brinja Meiseberg/Thomas Ehrmann/Julian Dormann
This study offers a new framework for organizing a motion picture in such a way that enhances its chances for box-office success. We combine and expand two strands of research for the moviemaking industry: the economic approach and the social network perspective. Specifically, we integrate the product-inherent categories of the creative sphere and financial resources and the product-induced categories of marketing support and competition with concepts from social network analysis (i.e., connectivity and density). We test our hypotheses on a sample of top ten German movies as to box-office admissions for the period 1990-2004. We find that extensive care and industry knowledge are required when organizing the economic and social framework in which a film project is undertaken, since ultimately, movie success does not depend on individual star power. On the contrary, the real star is the team.
pp. 74 - 98

Knowledge Mobilization through Social Ties: The Cost-Benefit Analysis
Alexander Fliaster/Josef Spiess
Social network ties enable collaborative creation and sharing of ideas between knowledge workers. Thus, these ties play an important role in organizational innovation as well as for the personal success of the innovators. However, scholars tend to focus only on the information benefits, underestimating the costs of interpersonal relationships. Going beyond this one-dimensional perspective, we first suggest a theoretical model that takes into account both, benefits and transaction costs of social ties. Second, based on this model, we examine the advantages and disadvantages of strong and weak ties in the process of knowledge mobilization, the quality of knowledge, and the transaction costs of maintaining and using the ties. Finally, we shift the focus from the dyadic perspective to an integrative view and discuss the implications that our analysis has for a knowledge worker’s portfolio of ties. 
pp. 99 - 117