The owner-market fit and responses to competing logics

Figures & data

Figure 1. Ten most pure cases, their governance practices (X-axis) and revenue sources (Y-axis).

Table 1. Summary of Results.

	Investor-owner	Customer-owner	Non-profit owner	Employee-owner
Competing logics	Market & professional	Professional & community	Professional & religious/state	None: Professional only
Primary market	Advertiser	Advertising & Subscriptions	Advertising & Subscriptions	Subscriptions
Degree of institutional complexity	High	Medium	Medium	Low
Response	Decoupling	Selective decoupling	Selective decoupling	No decoupling

Table 2. Comparative table data cases.

	Public investor owner				Private investor owner				Non-profit owner				Customer owner				Employee owner
	A	B	M	N	C	D	K	L	E	F	O	P	G	H	Q	R	I	J	S	T
Statute	-	-	✓	✓	x	✓	✓	✓	x	✓	✓	✓	✓	x	-	✓	✓	x	✓	✓
Council	✓	✓	✓	✓	x	✓	✓	✓	x	✓	✓	✓	x	x	x	✓	x	x	x	x
Voting appointment	x	x	x	x	x	✓	✓	x	x	x	✓	x	✓	x	x	x	✓	✓	x	x
Commercial identity	✓	✓	x	x	✓	✓	✓	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	✓	x
Editor in chief = director	✓	x	x	x	x	x	✓	x	x	✓	x	x	x	x	x	✓	x	x	x	✓
Ombudsman	x	x	x	x	x	x	✓	x	x	✓	x	✓	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Advisory board/council	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	✓	✓	x	✓	✓	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Ads % total revenue	25	100	25	100	100	50	18	20	0	50	50	25	50	0	55	0	10	12	65	0
Subscription % total revenues	75	0	75	0	0	50	80	80	0	50	50	0	50	100	45	0	90	88	45	100
Number of “central” newsrooms	2	1	1	1	1	2	1	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Number of news titles	7	1	9	1	1	2	2	4	1	1	3	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	4	1
Solvability % (balance/equity)	53	71	13	62	-	8	29	43	-	50	−48	17	-	-	53	29	-	-	36	-
Liquidity mln € (current assets – liabilities)	−137	−159	−233	1205	-	−16	−30	44	-	0	−203	−25	-	-	2	−4,2	-	-	−1	-
Dividend mln €	22	45	1,6	880	0	1,1	0	20	0	0	0	0	0	0	0,16	0	0	0	0,4	-
Net result mln €	−16	−46	−261	33	Loss	4,8	5,5	22	-	0,25	−27		−0	−0,3	0,3	0,8	0,5	0,2	0,04	-

- Not provided (unknown).

✓-Present.

x-Not present

Table 3. Examplary quotes from interviews.

Case name	Degree of institutional complexity	Competing logics	Exemplary quote
C	High complexity	Top-down decision making	Hierarchic decision making “I think we’ve got an editorial understanding. There is no written document…there’s no formal document, you know, there’s no ethics board or anything like that … ”
D	High complexity	Top-down decision making	Low support editorial autonomy “Well, yes, court cases – they threaten to pull back advertising; you do not have to count on advertisements for a year. It all happens. No, this does not work, but sometimes campaigns are stopped or not published. That happens and it causes tensions inside the organisation, where they say: listen, should we continue that? How much do you want it – is it very important? Would the newspaper be worse if we did not cover this topic? Hey, so there’s the checks-and-balances inside the organisation.”
F	Medium complexity	Semi-democratic decision making	Semi-hierarchic decision making “The supervisory board oversees the business side … and we have an advisory council that more so spars with the editors-in-chief about the content of the newspaper. So, there is also a certain duality in that… I think that is more a remainder from the episode of employee self-governance… the seventies, yes … not our thing… let me just be clear about that.”
H	Medium complexity	Semi-democratic decision making	Semi-hierarchic decision making “There are A and B shares. The A shares are owned by the founder who have more voting rights than. they always have more voting rights than the B shareholders [owned by readers. Their influence] is good up to a certain degree, but it can also be paralysing. Before you know it, you will be having discussions all day.”
E	Medium complexity	Third logic versus editorial	Academic mission owner “We work quite closely with press teams [of university members], for example, so it might come out of … maybe viewed as their research project or maybe viewed as a communications project – it’s useful for us to use the press teams to find the expertise, but I think mainly every research project it’s really research departments and heads of research that are really driving hard to expose the research that’s strength of research that’s strength of research that’s within their institutions…”
F	Medium complexity	Third logic versus editorial	Religious mission owner “We have the mission and vision to publish Christian media. The paper is an idealistic product.”
G	Medium complexity	Third logic versus editorial	Cooperative mission owner “I guess we are an internal movement organisation so … the people who are our members, are not members for any financial benefit, but for … I guess it’s that social purpose … so they’ll want to see us sustaining as a business … no dividend payments, no, no, it’s just: try not to make a loss please.”
H	Medium complexity	Professional Editorial Ideological	Editorial mission cooperative owner “That is also what we aim for: we do not want to make a profit, that is not our intention. We want to grow into a cost-effective enterprise that eventually makes a profit and reinvests that.”
I	Low complexity	Professional Editorial Ideological	Editorial mission cooperative owner “The editorial mission is that we are a newspaper of the left, so we work for change, we work for improvement of people, of the life conditions of the people. We are activists in this sense … . In the cooperative, workers are also entrepreneurs. If they decide so, they can make it non-profit, leaving all the eventual profits in the cooperative. This is our case.”
J	Low complexity	Professional Editorial Ideological	Editorial mission cooperative owner “One part [of our mission] is we want to offer good jobs in the cooperative. It is very important that we are a cooperative and that everybody has a vote. Besides everybody earns the same.”

Table

Case	Annual reports	Statutes	Total interviews	Dates interviews	Minutes interviews	Pages transcripts
A	3	0	1	15-07-2013	76	36
B	3	0	1	11-07-2013	73	34
C	0	0	1	05-01-2016	71	22
D	3	1	2	10-08-2013	98	35
				29-08-2013	73	30
E	0	0	1	08-03-2016	63	25
F	3	1	2	07-04-2013	90	41
				11-04-2013	68	30
G	3	1	1	08-03-2016	63	26
H	3	0	1	26-11-2013	78	31
I	3	1	1	11-04-2016	97	42
J	3	0	1	05-01-2016	73	36
K	3	1	3	12-05-2013	84	39
				14-10-2013	101	41
				07-09-2013	59	22
L	3	1	4	10-01-2013	88	43
				07-08-2013	64	25
				16-10-2013	57	19
				14-11-2013	76	29
M	3	1	1	27-08-2013	115	49
N	3	1	1	10-09-2013	81	33
O	3	1	1	09-12-2013	76	33
P	3	1	1	12-10-2013	59	26
Q	3	0	1	09-05-2013	74	29
R	3	1	2	15-11-2013	63	31
				11-01-2013	66	27
S	3	1	1	07-04-2013	94	35
T	0	1	1	19-11-2013	66	27
TOTAL	51	13	28		2146	896