Strategies for Achieving Profitability in the Music Streaming Ser

Section 1: Foundation of the Study

In 2016, the global music market grew by of 5.9%, which was the fastest growth

rate in 19 years, and generated total revenues of $15.7 billion (International Federation of

Phonographic Industry [IFPI], 2017). However, leaders in the music streaming industry

have not achieved a sustainable music streaming business model (Aguiar & Waldfogel,

2017; Butz, Stifel, Schultz, & O’Neill, 2017; IFPI, 2017). In this study, I applied

Christensen’s (1997) disruptive innovation theory to examine what elements of the on-

demand music streaming service business model can influence revenues leading to

profitability. This study is of value to music streaming service leaders because their

industry is the most rapidly growing sector of the global music industry (IFPI, 2017). As

such, the financial condition of music streaming services requires a profitable and

sustainable music streaming service business model (IFPI, 2017). Findings from this

study might help music streaming leaders to develop a strategic framework to enhance

profits.

Background of the Problem

Traditionally, the music business model has been ownership based, which

required sales of physical music products through retail distribution networks. Under the

ownership based music business model, when music consumers wanted to listen to their

favorite songs they had to own or purchase those songs from brick and mortar stores on

physical music products, such as compact discs (CDs), cassettes, and vinyl albums

(Aguiar & Martens, 2016; IFPI, 2017; Wlömert & Papies, 2015). However, the

popularization of the Mp3 audio file throughout the late 1990s made the digital copies of

music cheap and easy to obtain through peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks and

download stores such as Apple’s iTunes (Lyubareva, Benghozi, & Fidele, 2014).

Consequently, the ownership based music business model remained in intact until the

advent of cloud computing technology made on-demand music streaming possible

(Lyubareva et al., 2014). On-demand music streaming has resulted in the creation of a

new music business model based on access to, not ownership of, music (Butz et al., 2017;

Lyubareva et al., 2014).

The access based music business model has experienced rapid worldwide growth

because of advances in wireless telecommunications, smartphone technology, and mobile

payment technology (Aguiar & Martens, 2016; Hiller, 2016; Trefzger, Rose, Baccarella,

& Voigt, 2015). With the exception of record labels, the rise in popularity of music

streaming, however, has not generated sustainable revenues for either the music industry

or for the music streaming industry (Butz et al., 2017). Without sustainable revenues, the

music streaming industry creates more problems than solutions for the global music

industry (Wlömert & Papies, 2015). As a result, music streaming leaders need new

strategies to generate sustainable revenues.

Problem Statement

Although the rapid growth of the music streaming industry has led to record

levels of global music consumption, leaders in the music streaming industry have not

developed a financially sustainable business model for music streaming (Aguiar &

Waldfogel, 2017; Butz et al., 2017; IFPI, 2017). Revenues from music streaming

services grew 578% from $0.5 billion in 2010 to $2.89 billion in 2015; by contrast, global

music industry revenues fell from more than $22 billion in 2005 to approximately $15

billion in 2015 (Aguiar & Waldfogel, 2017). The general business problem is that the

developmental and growth-related costs inherent in the Spotify music streaming business

model have resulted in a loss of profitability for leaders of music streaming services. The

specific business problem is that some global music streaming service leaders lack

strategies to generate sustainable profits through their business models.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of the qualitative descriptive single case study was to explore

strategies that some global music streaming service leaders use to generate sustainable

profits through their business models. The specific population for the case study included

the chief executive officer (CEO) and four senior managers of a leading music streaming

service in Southeastern Asia who addressed the sustainability challenges inherent in the

Spotify music streaming service business model. The data from this study could

contribute to positive social change through its use by music streaming service leaders to

identify strategies they can apply to prevent bankruptcy and enhance profits within the

music streaming business. Using study data, academic and practitioner researchers may

be able to develop a strategic framework for achieving music streaming service

profitability. Furthermore, the profitability strategies discussed in this study could aid

music leaders in developing new streaming service analytics that could allow artists to

analyze their music better and music consumers to listen to and support their favorite

artists more easily.

Nature of the Study

A qualitative methodology was appropriate for this study as the purpose was to

explore strategies rather than gather and analyze numerical data. A quantitative

methodology seemed inappropriate for this research. As McCusker and Gunaydin (2014)

noted, researchers use a quantitative method to test hypotheses about differences or

relationships among variables. Researchers use qualitative methods when their objective

is to interpret the meaning of phenomena to gain insights (McCusker & Gunaydin, 2014).

To answer the research question, more in-depth insight into the phenomenon of interest

resulted from a qualitative method than was possible using a quantitative method. I

considered but opted against using a mixed method approach. As noted by Bentahar and

Cameron (2015), researchers analyze both closed-ended data, such as numerical data, and

open-ended data, such as interviews, when using a mixed method approach. The analysis

of numerical data was not necessary to answer my research question. Consequently, I

opted against using a mixed method approach.

The research design selected for this project was a case study. Other researchers

studying the music streaming industry have used this design. Butz et al. (2017) used a

qualitative case study approach to explore the technological and consumer changes in the

music industry. Yin (2014) observed that a single descriptive case study research design

is appropriate when a researcher’s goal is to use a descriptive theory to describe a

phenomenon. A case study research design was suitable for this study because of the

objective of exploring the phenomenon of music streaming service leaders’ strategies to

enhance profitability of the music streaming business market.

I did not select an ethnographic design for this study because such a design

concerns the identification and description of the culture and habits of a selected people

group (Lewis, 2015). Neither narrative nor phenomenological research designs were

appropriate for this study. Neither design aligned closely with the study purpose, which

was to identify and explore profit enhancement strategies music streaming service leaders

use to achieve sustainable profitability through their business models. The focus of this

study, a search for strategies, did not align with phenomenological researchers’ focus on

the lived experiences of participants nor with narrative researchers’ focus on the life

stories of the participants (see Lewis, 2015). Accordingly, the choice of a qualitative

descriptive single case study was the most appropriate research methodology and design

for exploring the phenomenon studied.

Research Question

What strategies do some global music streaming service leaders use to generate

sustainable profits through their business models?

Interview Questions

1. What strategies are you using to develop your company business and revenue

models?

2. What strategies are you using to reduce or manage operational expenses for

your company?

3. What business growth and development strategies are you using to sustain or

increase revenues for your company?

4. What strategies are you using to reduce the cost of content acquisition?

5. What are your company’s growth strategies?

6. What strategies are you using to generate additional and nontraditional

revenue streams for your business and for the stakeholders included in your

business ecosystem?

7. What else could you add to help determine what strategies leaders of similar

music streaming services should use to increase the profits of the music

streaming service business model in the global market?

Conceptual Framework

I applied Christensen’s (1997) disruptive innovation theory to explore what

elements of the on-demand music streaming service business model can affect revenues

and profitability. Christensen noted that the key characteristics of disruptive innovation

are (a) simpler products and services, (b) smaller niche target markets, and (c) lower

gross margins. Furthermore, Christensen explained that high levels of risk, including

financial risk, could result from business leaders introducing a disruptive innovation to

achieve mainstream market success. As such, the on-demand music streaming service

evaluated for this study was useful for describing the subject disruptive innovation.

Chesbrough and Rosenbloom (2002) described a successful business model as the

logical blueprint that links a firms’ product or service offering to economic value. A

business model’s functions include (a) the value proposition, (b) a market segment, (c)

the value chain, (d) the cost structure and sources of revenues, and (e) the profit potential

(Chesbrough & Rosenbloom, 2002). The Spotify music streaming service business

model has been described as an on-demand, access and subscription based business

model that differs from the traditional music business ownership based business model

(Carvalho & Scavarda, 2015; Lyubareva, Benghozi, & Fidele, 2014). The business

model that leaders of on-demand music streaming services use is neither successful nor

economically sustainable because it is unprofitable (Butz et al., 2017; Rayna &

Striukova, 2016).

Operational Definitions

Freemium: Freemium is a combination of the words free and premium. It

describes a business model in which a firm initially gives away a limited, ad-supported

free version of its service to customers. A freemium service is eventually followed by a

premium service offer that includes enhanced and unlimited service features (Wagner,

Benlian, & Hess, 2014; Gunzel-Jensen & Holm, 2015). Firms that use a freemium

business model include (a) Spotify, (b) Dropbox, (c) Skype, (d) Pandora Free, and (e)

NhacCuaTui.

Interactive streaming services: Interactive streaming services is a legal term used

to describe music streaming services that allow music consumers to choose and play the

songs they want to hear (U.S. Copyright Office, 2015). Examples of interactive on-

demand streaming services include (a) Apple Music, (b) Spotify, (c) Deezer, (d) Google

Play, (e) Rhapsody, (f) Tidal, (g) Pandora Premium, and (h) NhacCuaTui.

Internet-radio services: Internet-radio services is a common term used to describe

noninteractive streaming services (U.S. Copyright Office, 2015).

Noninteractive streaming services: Noninteractive streaming services is a legal

term used to describe music streaming services that do not allow music consumers to

choose and play the songs they want to hear (U.S. Copyright Office, 2015). Examples of

noninteractive streaming services, also called internet-radio services, include (a) Sirius

XM, (b) NPR, and (c) Pandora Free.

On-demand music streaming service: The common term used to describe

interactive music streaming services (U.S. Copyright Office, 2015).

Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations

Assumptions, limitations, and delimitations represent the various risks and

weaknesses within the research and must be identified by the researcher (O’Brien, Harris,

Beckman, Reed, & Cook, 2014; Staller, 2014). The assumption section presents essential

but unverified facts that the researcher cannot control (Staller, 2014). The limitation

section presents potential weaknesses in the research that are beyond the control of the

researcher (Bengtsson, 2016). The delimitations section presents the bounds or scope of

the study, which are controllable by the researcher (Bengtsson, 2016).

Assumptions

Assumptions are basic facts accepted by the researcher as true that support the

foundation of the research. Staller (2014) explained that assumptions are basic risks

inherent in the research that are important to identify but are somewhat uncontrollable.

For example, I conducted the research in a way that ensured the participants’ privacy and

confidentiality. As a result, an assumption was that the participants would answer all

interview questions honestly. Another assumption was that my biases would not taint the

research process, gathering of data, analysis of data, and reporting of findings.

Limitations

According to Elo et al. (2014), researchers must identify and discuss the

limitations of a study. Limitations refer to the potential and uncontrollable weaknesses in

the proposed study (Bengtsson, 2016; Elo et al., 2014). Four primary limitations pertain

to this study. First, the native language of the participants, music streaming service

leaders in Southeastern Asia, I interviewed for this study was not English. The language

difference between the participants and myself could have limited the participants’

understanding of the interview questions and could have limited my interpretation and

translation of the participants’ answers. Second, the Southeastern Asian country where

the participants live is a communist country, not a capitalist country, which could have

limited the information that the participants shared during the interviews and could have

limited the applicability of the interview responses to other music streaming services.

Third, uncontrollable, subconscious biases of my own could have limited this study.

Fourth, the qualitative descriptive approach of this study could have limited the nature of

the information shared by the participants during the interviews. For example, some

participants could have chosen to not share private information or information that they

considered to be easily identifiable to their company.

Delimitations

Delimitations refer to the bounds or scope of the study, which are controllable by

the researcher (Bengtsson, 2016). The purpose of this study was to describe the

profitability strategies used by music streaming service leaders in Southeastern Asia who

addressed the sustainability challenges inherent in the Spotify music streaming service

business model within the global music streaming market. Thus, a primary delimitation

of this study was its geographic boundaries. A second delimitation of this study was that

not all music streaming services use the Spotify music streaming business model. A third

delimitation of this study was that my personal interests limited the scope of questions I

planned to ask in the participant interviews. The final delimitation of this study was that

I planned to select managers who held senior or founding positions in the company.

Significance of the Study

This study is of value to music streaming service leaders because the music

streaming industry is the most rapidly growing sector of the global music industry, and,

as such, the financial condition of the music streaming services requires a profitable and

sustainable music streaming service business model (IFPI, 2017). To attract new users,

music streaming service leaders typically employ freemium and premium subscription

business models that lack a sustainable monetization component (Butz et al., 2017;

Gunzel-Jensen & Holm, 2015; Rayna & Striukova, 2016; Wlömert & Papies, 2015).

New strategies are necessary for music streaming service leaders to learn better ways

how to increase the profits of their business model to achieve profitability (Aguiar, 2017;

Aguiar & Martens, 2016; Schaltegger, Hansen, & Lüdeke-Freund, 2015; Rayna &

Striukova, 2016).

Contribution to Business Practice

Global music streaming service leaders have struggled to achieve sustainable

profitability through their business models for their companies. Consequently, music

streaming service leaders must learn strategies to generate sustainable revenues (Aguiar,

2017; Butz et al., 2017; Hiller, 2016; Rayna & Striukova, 2016). Researchers concerned

with profitability have focused on many different aspects of music streaming: (a)

increasing revenues through advertising (Ko & Lau, 2015; Morris & Powell, 2015), (b)

business model manipulations (Aversa, Furnari, & Haefliger, 2015; Lyubareva, 2014;

Trefzger, Rose, Baccarella, & Voigt, 2015), and (c) user data analysis (Parry, Vendrell-

Herrero, & Bustinza, 2014). However, business management researchers focus on

strategies music streaming leaders use to generate sustainable revenues. Music streaming

leaders need new strategies to create sustainable revenues (Butz et al., 2017). Findings

from this study could contribute to the music streaming business by describing a strategic

framework of successful profit enhancing strategies applied by music streaming leaders.

Implications for Social Change

The music streaming industry is the most rapidly changing and impactful area of

the music business. Successful business leaders consistently observe their ecosystem

(Banerjee et al., 2017) and rapidly respond to the changes and demands of their

environment (Christensen, McDonald, Altman, & Palmer, 2016). Banerjee et al. (2017)

posited that business leaders who take a holistic view of their business ecosystem

demands realize that the growth and sustainability of their ecosystem depends on the

cooperation and interconnectedness of all the individual businesses that together make up

the ecosystem. Findings, conclusions, and recommendations from this study could be

valuable to music streaming service leaders who need to generate sustainable revenues

and lack the strategies to do so on their own. The implications of social change for this

study may include the identification of strategies leading to sustainable music streaming

services and job security for artists who contribute to sustaining or increasing local

economies cash flows and taxable incomes.

A Review of the Professional and Academic Literature

The literature review consists of the review of the extant scholarly and

professional literature for the topics (a) disruptive innovation, (b) business model, and (c)

music streaming. I conducted searches for the following keywords or phrases: (a)

disruptive innovation, (b) business model, (c) music streaming, (d) digital music business

model, and (e) music streaming business model. I used the Walden University library

search function, as well as the Google Scholar search function to search for the academic

and the professional literature reviewed for this study. I organized the literature review

contents into six primary headings (a) disruptive innovation, (b) historical background,

streaming business model.

I narrowed my literature search with the following criteria parameters: (a) peer-

reviewed articles with a publishing date of 2014 or later, (b) government reports with a

publishing date of 2014 or later, and (c) relevance to the theory of disruptive innovation,

the business model concept, the music streaming industry, and the music streaming

business model. Of the 210 total references used in this study, 194 (92%) are peer-

reviewed sources, three (2%) are government reports, and 181 (86%) were published

from 2014 to 2017, which is within 5 years or less of my anticipated graduation date (see

Table 1).

Table 1

References Used by Frequency and Percentage in Proposal

Resources Within 5 years Older than 5

years

Total %

Seminal books 3 6 9 4%

Government research 2 1 3 2%

Peer-reviewed articles 179 15 194 92%

Non

-peer-reviewed articles 3 1 4 2%

Total 187 23 210 100%

Of the 106 total references used in the literature review section of this study, 98 (92%)

are peer-reviewed sources, two (2%) are government reports, and 93 (88%) were

published from 2014 to 2017, which was within 5 years or less of my anticipated

graduation date (see Table 2). References published before 2014 included the seminal

works of theory written by influential scholars relevant to the conceptual framework of

this study.

Table 2

References Used by Frequency and Percentage in Literature Review

Resources Within 5 years Older than 5

years

Total %

Seminal books 0 3 3 3%

Government research 2 0 2 2%

Peer-reviewed articles 91 7 98 92%

Non

-peer-reviewed articles 3 0 3 3%

Total 96 10 106 100%

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to explore strategies

that some global music streaming service leaders use to generate sustainable profits

through their business models. The specific population for the case study included the

CEO and four senior managers of a leading music streaming service in Southeastern Asia

who addressed the sustainability challenges inherent in the Spotify music streaming

service business model within the global music streaming business ecosystem. The data

from this study could contribute to positive social change through its use by music

streaming service leaders to identify strategies they can apply to prevent bankruptcy and

enhance profits within the music streaming business.

Disruptive Innovation

Disruptive innovations, especially disruptive business model innovations, change

the previously established values and value chains of industries, which influence a

company’s profitability. The destruction of established market values for incumbent

technologies often occurs after the successful introduction of a disruptive innovation

(Abernathy & Clark, 1985). Thus, a manager’s innovation decisions often determine the

success or failure of a firm (Oh, Cho, & Kim, 2015). The concept of disruptive

innovation, as originally defined and developed by Christensen and Bower (1996) and

Christensen (1997), is the innovation theory that provides an answer for why market

leading incumbent firms fail when nonincumbent firms introduce disruptive innovations

into the business market. Consequently, innovative business leaders who hope to disrupt

the incumbents in their industries must know and be able to implement effective and

profitable strategies of disruption. A summary of the evolution Christensen’s (1997)

theory of disruptive innovation follows.

The theory of disruptive innovation has become one of the most academically and

commercially popular business management theories since the 1990s. Disruptive

innovation theory originated in Christensen's research as a descriptive theory, founded in

the resource based view (RBV) of business management, that focused on responses to

technological change (Christensen, McDonald et al., 2016; Christensen, Raynor, &

McDonald, 2015). Christensen’s (1997) focus of disruption is limited to technological

disruption. According to Christensen, disruptive innovations (a) emerge alongside

incumbents, (b) meet the needs of customers in niche markets, (c) offer new

technological features that niche customers value, and (d) create new markets that

eventually replace the traditional markets previously dominated by incumbents.

For better or worse, managers follow the policies put in place at their companies.

Christensen (1997) argued that good management practices biased the decision making of

managers of incumbent companies to innovate new products, referred to as sustainable

innovations, with higher performance capabilities that satisfied the demands of their

customers with highest profit margins. Christensen (1997) also argued that the

innovation policies in place at incumbent companies dictated that management allocated

company resources to innovations that promised the most reliable profits in the short

term. As a result, managers of incumbent companies who followed company policy

frequently ignored innovations that fell outside of the company's innovation policy

parameters (Christensen et al., 2015). In other words, the strict adherence of incumbent

companies to short-term, profit-maximizing innovation policies made incumbent

companies vulnerable to disruption.

Christensen (1997) explained that disruptive innovations offer simpler functional

technology to low-profit fringe consumers that the customers of incumbent companies do

not want. Consequently, most disruptive innovations fell outside of the traditional

innovation policies of incumbent companies (Christensen, 1997). Christensen posited

that good managers of incumbent companies chose to migrate up-market and pursue

more profitable sustaining innovations and, at the same time, to cede the low-market,

low-profit ground to entrants. In the disruptive innovation model, business managers

contrast two product performance trajectories with the customer demand trajectory: (a)

the incumbent’s sustaining trajectory and (b) the entrant’s disruptive trajectory (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The disruptive innovation model (From “What is Disruptive Innovation?” by C.

M. Christensen, M. Raynor, and R. McDonald, 2015, Harvard Business Review, 93, p.

Understanding the disruptive innovation model and its implications are critical to

understanding the theory of disruptive innovation. In the theory of disruptive innovation,

the existence of two distinctly different performance trajectories for incumbents and

entrants is a fundamental competitive response assumption (Christensen, McDonald et

al., 2016; Habtay & Holmen, 2014). In the disruptive innovation model, entrant

innovators on the disruptive trajectory improve their technologies and products to a level

that attracts up-stream market consumers (see Figure 1). Similarly, managers of

incumbent companies, who made innovation decisions based on predictable short-term

profits, continue to migrate up-market and cede low-market low-profit ground to entrants

(see Figure 1). Disruption occurs when the technologies and products of innovators on

the disruptive trajectory finally attract mainstream market consumers. As a result,

incumbent companies on the sustaining trajectory fail because the managers cannot cede

any additional low-market low-profit ground to the disruptive entrants (see Figure 1).

Christensen et al. (2015) expanded the theory of disruption to include disruptive

product innovations and disruptive business model innovations. Christensen et al. further

expanded the theory of disruptive innovation by adding a predictive framework and

discussing the competition between disruptive innovators and incumbent firms as well as

potential outcomes of those competitions. The theory of disruptive innovation expanded

from the single low-end disruption entry point identified in Christensen (1997) to include

a second entry point after Markides’ (2006) found that some successful disruptive

innovations entered new markets. Gilbert (2005) also expanded the theory of disruptive

innovation and identified that the creation of ambidextrous business units helped some

incumbent firms defend their market share against disruptive innovators. Put differently,

early disruptive innovators entered either the low-end of the market or entered entirely

new markets to compete against incumbent companies because doing so made it more

difficult for incumbents to respond to and defend against the disruption. However, as the

theory of disruptive innovation has evolved over time, the creation of ambidextrous

business units by incumbent companies has proven to be an effective defensive strategy

that incumbent companies can use to compete directly with disruptive innovators.

Many scholars criticized the expanded version of the theory of disruptive

innovation. Specifically, Adner (2002) and Danneels (2004) argued that Christensen’s

disruptive innovation research exhibited a lack of rigor and evidentiary research support.

Similarly, Govindarajan and Kopalle (2006) argued that Christensen’s disruptive

innovation framework worked only when applied retrospectively. Markides (2006)

indicated that Christensen overreached when he applied disruptive innovation theory to

business model innovation and product innovation. In contrast to Christensen (1997),

Markides (2006) argued that the phenomena of business model innovations and the

phenomena of product innovations represented different types of innovation that

warranted separate research categories. In my doctoral study, the theory of disruptive

innovation that I applied to the music streaming industry included insights from

Christensen’s early research as well as Christensen’s later research that expanded the

theory of disruptive innovation. Specifically, I applied the following insights from

Christensen et al.’s (2015) expanded theory of disruptive innovation: (a) disruption is a

process not an event, (b) disruptive innovation is financially unattractive to incumbents,

and (c) disruptive innovations offer new products to new customers for less cost.

Previous researchers have used the term disruptive innovation without any

requisite knowledge of the disruptive innovation theory or its tenets. Denning (2016)

emphasized that many people confuse and misapply the primary tenets of Christensen’s

theory of disruption. Denning blamed the confusion and misapplication on the

commercial success of Christensen published books and other writings on disruptive

innovation theory. For example, Denning explained that some scholars wrongly

understand disruptive innovation as an event instead of as a process. In fact, Christensen

et al. (2015) explained that one of the primary tenets of disruptive innovation theory is

that disruptive innovation occurs as a process and not as an event. Put simply, the

disruptive innovation theory is not a catch all phrase that applies to every successful new

product or innovation. Instead, all disruptive innovations follow a similar path of

success, which begins on the fringes of an industry and over time captivates mainstream

customers. Thus, disruptive innovators deliberately disrupt industries over time with

their disruptive innovations.

Christensen et al. (2015) described three categories of innovation: (a) sustaining

innovations, (b) disruptive innovations, and (c) efficiency product innovations.

Sustaining innovation refers to the incremental improvements to a firm’s products and

services that help to increase a firm’s revenues from an existing customer base

(Christensen et al., 2015; Christensen, Bartman, & Bever, 2016; King & Baatartogtokh,

2015). Christensen et al. argued that most innovations are sustaining innovations because

sustaining innovations carry less risk and cater to the desires of a company’s most

profitable customers. For example, television manufacturers often create sustaining

innovations to improve the picture quality available on televisions, such as (a) the

innovation of color television, (b) the innovation of high definition television, and (c) the

innovation of three dimensional (3D) television (Reinhardt & Gurtner, 2015). In short,

sustaining innovations are characterized by small incremental changes.

By contrast, disruptive innovation refers to a certain kind of new product, new

service, or new business model that creates a new market and simultaneously destabilizes

the traditional market. Christensen (1997) and Christensen et al. (2015) characterized

disruptive innovations as a specific kind of innovation with three characteristics. First,

the innovation is financially unattractive to incumbent market leading companies because

disruptive innovations do not promise acceptable profit margins (Christensen, 1997).

Second, new customers receive new value from the innovation that incumbent products

do not offer, such as (a) meeting the convenience needs and (b) nonavailable

functionality needs desired by niche customers (Christensen, 1997). Third, the

innovation is offered to niche customers at a lower cost than the comparable, mainstream

products offered by incumbent companies (Christensen, 1997). The presence of these

three characteristics distinguish disruptive innovations.

Previous researchers provided numerous examples of disruptive innovations that

influenced the music industry. The portable radio (McCourt & Zuberi, 2016; Rogers,

2014), vinyl albums and cassette tapes (Chiaroni, Chiesa, Franzo, Frattini, & Urbinati,

2016; Rogers, 2014; Sarpong, Dong, & Appiah, 2016), and digital music files, such as the

MP3 (Arditi, 2017; Chiaroni et al., 2016; Corti & Fielding, 2016) are disruptive

innovations from the 20th century. More recent innovations include (a) P2P file-sharing

services, such as Napster, Gnutella, and Kazaa (Arditi, 2017; Chiaroni et al., 2016;

Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf, 2016); (b) digital music stores, such as iTunes (Arditi, 2017;

Chiaroni et al., 2016; Waldfogel, 2017); and (c) music streaming services, such as

Spotify, Deezer, Rhapsody, and Apple Music (Arditi, 2017; Butz et al., 2017; Chiaroni et

al., 2016). Each of these disruptive innovations followed a similar path of disruption.

The disruptive innovations of the 20th century lasted because their innovators learned to

generate profits. However, many 21st century disruptive innovators have not learned

how to generate profits through their innovations. Consequently, many modern

innovations fail to profit and do not last. For instance, many of the music streaming

services listed are deeply in debt and unprofitable (Butz et al., 2017). Whether or not

music streaming innovators learn to generate profits through their innovations remains a

key to the survival of the music streaming industry.

Disruptive innovation occurs in all industries. Previous researchers noted

nonmusic industry examples of disruptive innovations as well. For example, disruptive

products (Christensen et al., 2015; Fenech & Tellis, 2014), such as personal computers,

data storage devices, smartphones, and mobile music devices (Chiaroni et al., 2016;

Vecchiato, 2017) changed both personal and business activities. Other innovations

include (a) cloud computing, also referred to as software as a service (SaaS; Kaltenecker,

Hess, & Huesig, 2015); (b) movie streaming services (Chiaroni et al., 2016; Rayna &

Striukova, 2016); and (c) newly configured business models (Dobusch & Schüßle, 2014;

Tongur & Engwall, 2014) such as Uber and Netflix (Bohnsack, Pinkse, & Kolk, 2014;

Chiaroni et al., 2016; Rayna & Striukova, 2016; Wikhamn & Knights, 2016); (d) Paypal

(Dhewanto, Dellyana, & Simatupang, 2017); and (e) crowdfunding websites (Galuszka &

Bystrov, 2014; Gamble, Brennan, & McAdam, 2017). Each of these innovations

followed the path of disruption. As a result, the innovators of those innovations made

new products for new customers for a lower cost than comparable mainstream products.

Therefore, disruption is a process not an event.

The path of disruption is very specific and not something that can be followed

haphazardly. Disruptive innovations succeed when innovative companies offer new

features to customers in new markets at a low cost (Christensen et al., 2015; King &

Baatartogtokh, 2015). Early adopters of disruptive innovations and early adopters of

sustaining innovations manifest different product needs and different product knowledge

(Reinhardt & Gurtner, 2015). Reinhardt and Gurtner (2015) explained that early adopters

of disruptive innovations possess more domain-specific knowledge regarding the specific

product category than do early adopters of sustaining innovations. Differently put, early

adopters of disruptive innovations manifest an in-depth knowledge of the product niche

as well as an in-depth knowledge of how to use the various new product functions. By

contrast, early adopters of sustaining innovations often manifest mainstream consumer

tendencies as well as an enthusiasm for previous product releases. In addition,

Gerasymenko, De Clercq, and Sapienza (2014) and Reinhardt and Gurtner (2015)

described that monetary resources as a driver and financial risk mitigatory for early

adopters of disruptive innovations. By contrast, Reinhardt and Gurtner explained that

monetary resources did not influence early adopters of sustaining innovations. In other

words, early adopters of disruptive innovations care about the price they will pay for a

product or service. Some may care because they have less money. Others may care

because they want and understand the specific benefits of the product and view their

investment as worth the risk.

Some incumbent companies use leverage and business model adjustments to

disrupt their markets. Christensen et al. (2015) described efficiency product innovations,

such as Walmart, as offering the same customers, in the same markets, the same products,

but at lower costs than competitor companies. Efficiency innovations are less prevalent

because efficiency business models often require the price negotiating power of large

companies, such as Walmart (Christensen et al., 2015). Christensen et al. explained that

the Uber taxi service does not fit the efficiency innovation category because Uber began

as a low-cost service that met the needs of niche customers through the creation of a new

business model that ultimately disrupted the taxi industry. By contrast, Christensen et al.

described Walmart as an incumbent with efficiency innovativeness made possible by

Walmart’s market leading negotiation power. Efficiency innovations may disrupt a

market, but they are not disruptive innovations because efficiency innovations do not

follow the path of disruptive innovation.

Historical Background

The music business is a good industry to find many examples of disruptive

innovation. Traditionally, the music business model was ownership based (Chiaroni et

al., 2016; Hesmondhalgh & Meier, 2017), which required sales of physical music

products through retail distribution networks. Consequently, music consumers who

wanted to listen to their favorite songs had to own or purchase, from a brick and mortar

store, physical music products, like compact discs (CDs), cassettes, and vinyl albums

(Aguiar & Martens, 2016; Grodach, 2014). However, the innovation of the Mp3 audio

file made the digital copies of music cheap and easy to obtain via P2P file-sharing

networks and download stores, like Apple’s iTunes (Bourreau, Lestage, & Moreau,

2016). Even so, the ownership based music business model remained in-tact until on-

demand music streaming, which utilizes cloud computing technology, created a new

music business model based on access to music not on ownership of music (Lyubareva,

Benghozi, & Fidele, 2014; Sinclair & Tinson, 2017). In other words, the lower cost

music drove cost-sensitive customers to adopt music streaming and to stop buying and

owning all the music they listened too.

When lower cost disruptive products and services combine with new technologies

and improved modes of communication, disruptive innovators can take advantage of

those market conditions and rapid growth for their disruptive innovations is possible.

The access based music business model experienced rapid worldwide growth because of

advances in wireless telecommunications, smartphone technology, and mobile payment

technology (Waldfogel, 2017). The rise in popularity of the music streaming industry,

however, has failed to generate sustainable revenues for either the music industry or the

music streaming industry (Butz et al., 2017; Ko & Lau, 2015). Without sustainable

revenues, the music streaming industry creates more problems than solutions for the

global music industry (Wlömert & Papies, 2015). Consequently, music streaming leaders

need new strategies to generate sustainable revenues.

Achieving profitability is a necessity for companies that want to remain in

business. To achieve sustainable revenues, music streaming leaders should generate

sustainable revenue from multiple revenue streams (Ko & Lau, 2015; Rogers, 2014). For

example, some music streaming services generate new revenues from partnerships with

wireless telecommunications services (Arditi, 2017). Some managers make changes to

their firm’s business models to generate new revenues (Babić Rosario, Sotgiu, De Valck,

& Bijmolt, 2016; Massa, Tucci, & Afuah, 2017).

Business Model

The business model concept is a widely accepted new unit of analysis. The

business model concept is different from other units of analysis, such as product, service,

network, firm, or industry (Foss & Saebi, 2016). Nonetheless, practitioners (Foss &

Saebi, 2016; Teece, 2010) agree upon no single business model construct. From the

practitioner view, Teece (2010) explained that a business model is like a blueprint for a

firm that details the core business, marketing, and strategic logics underlying and

supporting the performance of the firm. However, even though all firms use business

models, not all managers of those firms articulate the business model used by their firm

(Foss & Saebi, 2016). Foss and Saebi (2016) explained that many scholars use the

business model concept to examine the firm as a system of individual pieces that function

together as a whole business. To put it another way, scholars tend to focus on the

theoretical aspects and understandings of how a business model works. By contrast,

practitioners tend to focus on the performance of their business with or without knowing

how performance relates to their business model.

Research on the topic of business models is spread across many different

disciplines. Wirtz, Pistoia, Ullrich, and Gottel (2016) as well as Massa et al. (2017)

identified three primary streams of business model research. In the first stream of

research, business models serve as linguistic or cognitive classification schemas (Massa

et al., 2017) or enterprise classification units (Wirtz et al., 2016). The first stream of

research emerged from technology oriented literature. In the second stream of research,

business models represent actual firm attributes (Massa et al., 2017) or the primary

drivers of a firm’s success (Wirtz et al., 2016). The second stream of research emerged

from business organization theory. In the third stream of research, business models

represent conceptual modeling of a firm’s functionality (Massa et al., 2017) or units of

innovation (Wirtz et al., 2016). The third stream of research emerged from business

management strategy literature (Roome & Louche, 2016). Across all three streams of

business model research, scholars agree on a few of the components of the business

model construct, such as (a) strategic components, (b) customer and market components,

Scholars and practitioners use the business model concept as a construct to

organize a wide range of information into more simplified chucks of activity based

talking points. Viet et al. (2014) highlighted the usefulness of the business model

concept to managers and analysts for structural and descriptive purposes. Viet et al.

emphasized the importance of the business model concept to information and

communication businesses. Specifically, Viet et al. identified the business model concept

as a link that connects a company’s business processes and strategy. Further, Viet et al.

indicated that the intermediary aspect of the business model concept is of particular

interest to scholars of business and information systems engineering (BISE), which is a

new field of research that focuses on the impact of information technology in society and

in businesses. Without the business model concept, the elements of business processes

and business strategies are difficult to differentiate. Consequently, conversational

efficiency improves when scholars, analysts, and managers take advantage of the

descriptive usefulness of the business model concept.

For a business model to be a useful tool of communication, the business model

should be easy to understand and should account for all the essential aspects of the

business. Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) explained that a business model is comprised

of nine building blocks, which they described as the business model canvas. According

to Osterwalder and Pigneur, the nine building blocks of the business model canvas are as

follows: (a) customer segments, (b) value propositions, (c) channels, (d) customer

relationships, (e) revenue streams, (f) key resources, (g) key activities, and (h) key

partnerships (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The nine building blocks of the business model canvas (From Business Model

Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers (p. 44), by

A. Osterwalder & Y. Pigneur, 2010, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright

2010 by Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur).

The top right section of the business model canvas (see Figure 2) includes the

following components (a) customer segments, (b) channels, (c) value proposition, and (d)

customer relationships. According to Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010), understanding the

target customer segments is an essential aspect of choosing the most appropriate value

proposition. For example, Spotify’s most profitable customer segment is music

aficionados (Butz et al., 2017). The value proposition of a company refers to what the

company is providing to its customers. For example, Spotify’s value proposition is

unlimited on-demand music for one monthly low cost (Butz et al., 2017). Channels refer

to the variety of ways a company distributes its products or services to the target market

(Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). For example, Spotify’s channels include (a) a mobile

application, (b) desktop, and (c) streaming services (Butz et al., 2017). According to

Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010), customer relationships refer to the ways in which a

company connects with its customers. For example, Spotify’s customer relationships

connect through the Spotify streaming platform, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media

websites (Butz. et al., 2017). Stated another way, the top right section of the business

model canvas identifies the link between customers, the company’s product or service

value, and how those customers connect or engage with the company’s product or

service.

The top left section of the business model canvas includes the following

components (a) key resources, (b) key activities, and (c) key partners. The key resources

of a firm refer to (a) employees, (b) contracts, (c) brand equity, and (d) content

(Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). For example, Spotify’s key resources include (a) over

30,000,000 licensed songs, (b) highly skilled employees, and (c) a world famous music

streaming brand (Butz et al., 2017). According to Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010), key

activities refer to core activities a firm does to increase value and to stay in business. For

example, Spotify’s key activities include (a) content acquisition negotiations, (b) music

streaming, (c) negotiating financing, and (d) music streaming platform maintenance (Butz

et al., 2017). Key partnerships refer to the relationships a firm has with third parties that

serve to increase the value and reach of the firm (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). For

example, Spotify’s key partnerships include (a) telecommunications companies, (b)

automotive companies, and (c) advertising companies (Butz et al., 2017). In short, the

top left section of the business model canvas identifies the link between the company’s

business partners, the company’s essential business activities, and the essential resources

that the company uses to conduct those activities.

Finally, the bottom right and left sections of the business model canvas are

revenue streams and cost structures. According to Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010),

revenue streams refer to the ways a company generates income. For example, Spotify’s

revenue streams include (a) an ad-supported freemium service and (b) a subscription-

based premium service (Butz et al., 2017). Osterwalder and Pigneur characterized cost

structures as all the costs that a company will incur through using a specific business

model. For example, Spotify’s cost structure shows that Spotify’s revenues pay for (a)

content acquisition, (b) debt maintenance payments, (c) company acquisitions, and (d)

various overhead costs, including but not limited to employee compensation, facilities,

product research and development, and product maintenance (Butz et al., 2017).

The three business model components that drive a company’s cost structures are

revenue streams, customer relationships, and the value proposition. Each of those three

business model components require ongoing significant investments to create and

maintain. For example, Spotify’s key activity of music streaming connects to the content

acquisition, debt payments, and customer relationships cost structures. Consequently, a

company’s lack of profitability indicates the existence of a mismatch between the

company’s revenue streams, key activities, customer relationships, and cost structures.

Achieving sustainable and profitable firm performance requires leaders to

innovate new business models that make better use of advances in technology. For

example, Aversa, Furnari, and Haefliger (2015) argued that some companies use multiple

business model configurations at the same time. Some business model scholars have

acknowledged the failure of the traditional music business model to innovate (Foss &

Saebi, 2016). Other business model scholars have acknowledged the failure of the music

streaming business model to generate sustainable profits (Aversa et al., 2015; Rayna &

Striukova, 2016). Importantly, the firm’s value proposition is the business model

element that provides the customers with benefits through special features, desirable

pricing, or unique attributes (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). Some managers opt to

implement new business models in their firms to leverage new technologies for multiple

user groups, thus linking the firm’s economic domain with the firm’s technological

domain.

Music Streaming

Following the rapid growth of music streaming, global music consumption and

revenues are at a record high. The IFPI (2017) reported that the 2016 music streaming

revenues grew by 60.4% and that paid music streaming subscribers grew to more than

112 million. Furthermore, the IFPI (2017) reported that digital music revenue accounted

for 50% of global music revenue in 2016. However, leaders in the music streaming

industry have not achieved a sustainable music streaming business model (Aguiar &

Waldfogel, 2017; Butz et al., 2017; IFPI, 2017). For example, Lee (2017) reported that

the 2016 Spotify financial report showed a 50% increase in total revenues to $3.1 billion,

but also, an increase in operating losses of $205 million in 2015 to between $350 million

and $450 million in 2016. This increase in operating losses indicates that despite

Spotify’s ability to generate more revenues, Spotify’s profitability problems are getting

worse not better. If Spotify’s profitability problem was getting better, the increases in

revenues would over compensate for the operating losses. Nevertheless, Spotify’s

operating losses are drastically increasing despite a 50% increase in revenues. Clearly,

Spotify’s financials point to a business model problem.

Music streaming leaders need new strategies to create sustainable revenues for

their music streaming services. However, music streaming service leaders often employ

freemium and premium subscription-based business models that lack a sustainable

monetization component to attract new users (Gunzel-Jensen & Holm, 2015; Wagner et

al., 2014). Much of the scholarly research related to the business models used in the

digital music industry and the music streaming industry focuses on issues that do not

directly address the problem addressed in this study, which is the inability of music

streaming services to generate sustainable profits through the current Spotify music

streaming business model.

Business Model Innovation

A primary subfield of business model research is business model innovation. The

field of business model innovation includes many aspects of management decision

making regarding a firm’s (a) strategy, (b) organizational setting, (c) financial structure

and risk appetite, and (d) market positioning (Taran, Boer, & Lindgren, 2015). Business

model scholars have asserted that intelligently designed business models can dramatically

increase company and stakeholder value (Zott & Amit, 2017). However, not all firms

and innovation strategies fit together to create a successful innovative company.

Christensen et al. (2016) emphasized many companies that attempt product, service, or

business model innovation fail. Consequently, a manager’s business model innovation

decisions determine the success or failure of a firm (Oh et al., 2015). Therefore, business

model innovation, unlike a business model as a concept, involves more innovativeness

than product or service innovation alone.

Although companies use hundreds of different business model patterns, most of

the components in those business models are neither new nor innovative. Remane,

Hanelt, Tesch, and Kolbe (2017) looked at 22 original articles and six business model

pattern articles to identify 356 business model patterns and develop a business model

pattern database to aid managerial strategic decision making. Remane et al. reduced the

original 356 business model patterns down to 182 patters after categorizing the patterns

according to business model components. Remane et al. pointed out that 90% of business

model innovations include components of already known and used business models.

Remane et al. indicated that business model innovation research has increased in

popularity because, unlike product innovations and service innovations, competitors find

it difficult to copy another firm’s business model innovations. Thus, managers who want

their companies to become more competitive with their peers might experience more

success attempting a business model innovation than a product or service innovation.

The essential activities of a company comprise the basic elements of that

company’s business model. Zott and Amit (2017) explained that an activity system

comprised of three components (a) content, (b) structure, and (c) governance makes up a

company’s business model. According to Zott and Amit, the content component

concerns what activities a firm does to create value. By contrast, Zott and Amit

explained that the structure component concerns how firm activities link firm processes

to increase firm value. Finally, Zott and Amit explained that the governance component

refers to who carries out specific activities of the firm. In short, the activity system of a

company directly relates to that company’s business model.

Zott and Amit (2017) also identified four key components of successful business

model innovation (a) novelty, (b) lock-in, (c) complementarities, and (d) efficiency.

According to Zott and Amit, novelty referred to the level of innovativeness within a

firm’s business model and lock-in referred to the transactional costs that link to the

activities of a firm. Additionally, Zott and Amit characterized complementarities as the

elements of a firm’s business model that combine to generate more value for the firm and

efficiency as elements of the firm’s activity system that interconnect and reduce costs for

the firm. In other words, the task for managers who want a successful business model

innovation is often less focused on innovating novelty and more focused on innovative

cost and value management.

Business model innovations advantage companies with better market positioning,

which occurs sometimes through market fusion. Market fusion occurs when a company

innovates their business model to reach at least two previously unconnected markets

(Taran et al., 2015). For example, Butz et al. (2017) explained that when Apple created

the iPhone, a fusion of at least four different markets occurred (a) the technological

device market, (b) the mobile payment market, (c) the entertainment market, and (d) the

phone service market. Along the same lines, Chiaroni et al. (2016) explained that

widespread internet access and broadband access as well as the diffusion of digital

mobile devices and personal computers, created the technological disruptive environment

in the music industry attributed to Apple’s iPhone success. Thus, managers with

awareness of potentially fusible markets can maximize the success of their business

model innovations by strategically choosing the timing of the innovation.

Business model innovation differs from product and service innovation in a few

significant ways. For instance, business model innovators experience higher operating

profit margins than the competition (Taran et al., 2015). On the other hand, product

innovators, service innovators, process innovators, and market innovators often do not

experience higher operating profit margins when compared to the competition (Taran et

al., 2015). Put differently, successful business model innovators boost firm performance

and can earn higher profits than other kinds of innovators (Heij, Volberda, & Van den

Bosch, 2014; Hu, 2014; Pellikka & Malinen, 2014). As a result, managers whose

companies struggle with profitability are better off innovating their business model than

innovating their products and services.

Common types of innovation include (a) sustaining innovation, (b) radical

innovation, and (c) disruptive innovation (Christensen et al., 2015). Open innovation and

closed innovation are different organizational structures that company leaders use to

innovate new products and new services. However, open innovation is more successful

with decentralized decision making (Braun, 2015; Hu, 2014). Business model innovation

is different from product innovations and service innovations because business model

innovation involves changes in the core logics of the firm (Chesbrough & Rosenbloom,

2002). Importantly, business model innovation is the type of innovation that carries the

highest profit potential (Taran et al., 2015). Future research regarding the field of

innovation management and the topic of business model innovation will focus on

sustainability, the innovation process, and the impact of specific management and

employee roles during the process of innovation (Taran et al., 2015; Vecchiato, 2017).

Therefore, managers must continue to learn better strategies to manage profitable

innovation that sustains competitive advantages for their firm in the second decade of the

21st century.

The Music Streaming Business Model

No consensus regarding the definition of the term business model exists. Many

scholars agree that a firm’s business model refers to the way a firm creates value and the

way a firm captures that created value (Foss & Saebi, 2016; Schaltegger et. al, 2015;

Schneider & Spieth, 2014; Viet et al., 2014). A business model has different sets of

components, such as (a) strategic components, (b) customer and market components, and

business model innovations to gain competitive advantages in the marketplace. In

particular, business model innovators make three types of changes that influence the

profitability of the firm: (a) changes that influence the value created by the firm, (b)

changes that affect the value captured by the firm, and (c) changes in the way the firm

captures value (Taran et al., 2015).

Business model innovation has impacted many industries. For instance, Uber’s

business model innovation impacted the taxi industry (Bashir, Yousaf, & Verma, 2016).

Similarly, Spotify and Netflix innovated their business models and impacted the

entertainment industry (Rayna & Striukova, 2016). Moreover, the mobile payment

industry, through the development of the smartphone, not only impacted but also was a

primary driver for the previously mentioned business model innovations (Gerpott &

Meinert, 2017; Taran et al., 2015). The technological innovation of cloud technology and

the proliferation of smartphone devices were drivers of the business model innovation of

Spotify and Netflix (Rayna & Striukova, 2016). Nonetheless, business model innovation

has not led to the profitability of Spotify’s business model (Butz et al., 2017). Put

differently, innovative business models can be very impactful to an industry and at the

same time be very unprofitable. Consequently, managers who equate industry impact

and company profitability should not attempt a business model innovation for their

companies without consulting more knowledgeable experts.

Spotify and Netflix innovated the first on-demand music streaming and on-

demand video streaming services and remain the global leaders of those industries.

Spotify is an on-demand music streaming company that innovated a business model for

music that offered music as a subscription service instead of the traditional music as a

product (Rayna & Striukova, 2016). Likewise, Netflix is an on-demand movie and

television show streaming company that innovated a business model that allows people to

watch an unlimited number of movies and television shows for a monthly subscription

(Rayna & Striukova, 2016). Both Spotify’s and Netflix’s business model innovation

disrupted the traditional music and movie industries and the previously popular music

technology, the CD, and movie technology, the DVD (Rayna & Striukova, 2016). In

both cases, Spotify and Netflix innovated on-demand access based business models

before any other company in their industry. The subsequent successes of Spotify and

Netflix indicate that pioneering business model innovators may reap significantly more

long-term benefits through the first-mover advantage. Thus, the first companies to

innovate and popularize new business models may yield competitive market benefits that

outweigh the risks associated with business model innovation failure.

Transition

In Section 1 of the study, I introduced the contextual background of the study,

which was that leaders in the music streaming industry have not achieved a sustainable

music streaming business model even though global music consumption reached a record

high in 2016, which was driven by the rapid growth of music streaming industry (IFPI,

2017). In Section 1, I emphasized that the focus of this study is on identifying strategies

music streaming service leaders can use to generate sustainable profits. In Section 1, I

also discussed the appropriateness and suitability of a qualitative methodology and a

descriptive case study design for this study. Other Section 1 highlights included (a) the

problem statement, (b) the purpose statement, (c) the nature of the study, (d) the research

question, (e) interview questions, (f) the conceptual framework, (g) the operational

definitions, (h) the assumptions, limitations, and delimitations; and (i) the significance of

the study.

The literature review substantiated the need to proceed with this study: A lack of

qualitative research regarding strategies global music streaming services leaders can use

to generate sustainable profits through their business model. The scope of the literature

searched, reviewed, and synthesized for this study included academic and professional

articles, books, and reports regarding disruptive innovation theory, the historical

background of the music industry, the development and growth of music streaming, and

the elements of the on-demand music streaming business model that can affect revenues

and profitability.

In Section 2, the highlights are as follows (a) the purpose of the study, (b) my role

as the researcher, (c) the participants of the study, (d) the research method, (e) the

research design, (f) the defined population and sampling method, (g) ethical research, and

(h) the data collection process. Section 2 concludes with a discussion about the

instrumentation I used and the steps I took to collect and analyze the data. In Section 3, I

include discussions of my study findings, the implications for social change, and my

recommendations.

Section 2: The Project

In Section 1, I emphasized that the focus of this study was on identifying

strategies music streaming service leaders can use to generate sustainable profits through

their business models. Additionally, in Section 1, I provided a literature review and

synthesis of academic and professional literature regarding the conceptual framework and

other topics central to this study. In Section 2, I further analyze and draw attention to the

primary research question of this study: What strategies do some global music streaming

service leaders use to generate sustainable profits through their business models?

In Section 2, I reexamine and further discuss the previously stated purpose

statement as well as the suitability of the qualitative descriptive case study research

method and design. Further, Section 2 consists of discussions regarding my role as the

researcher, the participant selection population and sampling requirements, ethical

research considerations, and the data collection strategy, instrumentation, techniques, and

process. Section 2 concludes with a discussion regarding the aspects of reliability and

validity in qualitative research as well as with an overview of the contents in Section 3 of

this study.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive case study was to explore strategies

some global music streaming service leaders use to generate sustainable profits through

their business models. The specific population of the case study included the CEO and

four senior managers of a leading music streaming service in Southeastern Asia who

experienced success in addressing the sustainability challenges inherent in the Spotify

music streaming service business model within the global music streaming business

ecosystem. The data from this study could contribute to social change by identifying

strategies that music streaming service leaders can apply to prevent bankruptcy, and to

enhance profits within the music streaming market. The data from this study could

benefit the academic and practitioner researchers in society through the development of a

strategic framework for achieving music streaming service profitability. Furthermore, the

profitability strategies discussed in this study could lead to new streaming service

analytics that could allow artists to analyze their music better and allow music consumers

to listen to and support their favorite artists more easily.

Role of the Researcher

In qualitative research, the role of the researcher is to act as the primary

instrument for data collection. O’Brien et al. (2014) explained that a full description of

the role of the researcher is a distinctive feature of scholarly research. In this qualitative

descriptive case study, my role as the researcher was to design the study, select the

participants, collect the data, analyze the data, and report my findings and

recommendations. In their seminal work, Lincoln and Guba (1985) described qualitative

researchers as human research instruments. Accordingly, for this qualitative descriptive

case study, I was the primary instrument for data collection.

As the primary instrument for data collection, my breadth of knowledge,

understanding, skills, experience, and perception influenced the quality of the research

findings and recommendations (Eisenhardt, 1989; Stake, 2010). As the researcher, my

knowledge and experience of the topic of the study was extensive. I have been a student

of the music business and participated in the music business for almost 20 years in many

different facets. As an undergraduate, I pursued a music business degree. I have been a

singer, a songwriter, a musician, a publisher, and a financier of multiple music business

ventures. Finally, I have worked as a music technology entrepreneur and consultant.

I did not have a previous relationship with the participants of this study. I

selected participants for this study that were identified and suggested to me as potential

participants by a close friend with many significant international business interests but

none of those interests specifically linked to or competed with any of the participants or

their music streaming service. My relationship to the research topics (a) disruptive

innovation, (b) business model, and (c) profitability enhancement strategies stemmed

from my experience in the banking industry as an entrepreneurial banker who cofounded

the fastest growing community bank in the history of the state of Oklahoma. In fact, the

bank grew rapidly and became profitable due in part to our innovation and use of a

disruptive business model in the banking industry.

The Belmont Report (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 1979)

includes three principles that form the foundation of ethical research: (a) respect for

persons, (b) beneficence, and (c) justice. The three principles heavily influenced the

creation of the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects which governs

research conducted at universities in the United States (U.S. Department of Health &

Human Services, 1979). The principle of respect for person’s means that the researcher

must respect people as independent agents; protect people in vulnerable populations with

decreased autonomy (e.g. prisoners, children, and elderly in Fiske & Hauser, 2014).

The principle of beneficence means that the researcher must (a) do no harm, (b)

minimize the risks and maximize the benefits associated with their research, and (c)

follow an ethically aware participant selection process (Fiske & Hauser, 2014). The

principle of justice means that the society must balance the distribution of the burdens

and the benefits associated with research (Fiske & Hauser, 2014). To establish an ethical

grounding for this study, I adhered to the principles laid out in the Belmont Report (U.S.

Department of Health & Human Services, 1979). Therefore, I (a) practiced informed

consent (Mealer & Jones, 2014), (b) assessed the risks and benefits of the research (U.S.

Department of Health & Human Services, 1979), and (c) followed an ethically aware

participant selection process (Fiske & Hauser, 2014).

According to Patton (2015), an interview protocol serves as a guide and checklist

to the researcher that organizes the interview questions and discussion issues. Patton

(2015) and Ranney et al. (2015) emphasized those researchers who conduct interviews

with multiple participants benefit from the increased organization, interview

systematization, and developed framework provided by an interview protocol.

Accordingly, I used a protocol for audio (see Appendix A).

Researchers use reflexivity as a strategy to protect against personal bias during

qualitative studies (Kornbluh, 2015). Given that reflexivity occurs when researchers

reflect on their own biases that could influence the research (Noble & Smith, 2015), I

practiced reflexivity as another strategy to mitigate my own bias. Specifically, I kept a

reflexive journal (see Noble & Smith, 2015) throughout the duration of the study to

mitigate my own bias.

Participants

The population consisted of the CEO and senior managers of a leading music

streaming service in Southeastern Asia who have addressed the sustainability challenges

inherent in the Spotify music streaming service business model. The participants met

three eligibility criteria. First, the participant had to be an executive or senior manager of

a music streaming service in Southeastern Asia that used the Spotify business model.

Second, the participant had to have an active role in determining the profitability

strategies of the music streaming company. Third, the participant had to have

experienced addressing the sustainability challenges inherent in the Spotify business

model.

I recruited participants through personal conversations with music industry

professionals knowledgeable about music streaming services and through personal

conversations with businesspersons knowledgeable about Southeastern Asian music,

media, and technology businesses. Throughout the recruitment process, I provided

explanations of the purpose, the process, and the expectations of the study. I

communicated to participants that their identities, as well as the information they

provided to me for the study, would remain confidential and private. If, after the

conclusion of the interviews with the CEO and the four senior managers, data saturation

had not occurred I would have recruited and interviewed additional senior managers to

achieve data saturation.

Establishing a working relationship with participants requires trust and

transparency (Caretta, 2015). MacKenzie (2015) explained that the relationship between

the researcher and the interpreter or translator is often one of unequal power. To mitigate

these researcher relationship power imbalances, researchers should (a) establish a

trustworthy relationship with the participants (Caretta, 2015; Gray et al., 2017), (b) use an

interpreter during interviews (Caretta, 2015; Chidlow, Plakoyiannaki, & Welch, 2014;

MacKenzie, 2015), (c) pay attention to the timing of translated information (Santos,

Black, & Sandelowski, 2014), and (d) try to verify the achievement of mutual

understanding and do not assume key terms directly translate into a foreign language

(Dahler-Larsen et al., 2017). Additionally, Mealer and Jones (2014) explained that

conducting virtual interviews (e.g., audio and video interviews over Skype), allowed for

geographic distance between the researcher and the interviewee during the interview,

which helped mitigate any power imbalance. During my research, I followed those

suggested strategies to ensure an ethical and equal power relationship between

participants, interpreters, and myself.

I selected a Southeastern Asian company for this research because of a

recommendation from a personal contact of mine who made an introduction for me. I

considered selecting a music streaming company from America and from Sweden.

However, the American and the Swedish music streaming companies I contacted would

not allow interviews of the same caliber as the Southeastern Asian company.

Research Method and Design

For this study, I used a qualitative methodology. As noted by Choo, Garro,

Ranney, Meisel, and Guthrie (2015). Qualitative methodology is suitable for research in

which the research objective is to interpret the meaning of phenomena to gain insights

(Pearson, Jordan, Lockwood, & Aromataris, 2014). Moreover, researchers employ

qualitative methods to examine complexity, dynamic processes, and context-dependent,

nonnumerical, open-ended data (Fletcher, Massis, & Nordqvist, 2016; Freeman, 2014;

McCusker & Gunaydin, 2014).

Research Method

For this study, I used a qualitative methodology. Three common research

methods used in doctoral studies are (a) quantitative method, (b) mixed methods, and (c)

qualitative method (Choo et al., 2015). As McCusker and Gunaydin (2014) explained,

researchers use a quantitative method to test hypotheses about differences or relationships

among variables. Notably, Graue (2015) explained that researchers structure quantitative

research as opposed to qualitative research that is structured according to the interests of

the research participants. I considered using the quantitative methodology for this

research. However, the purpose of this research was to explore strategies rather than

gather and analyze numerical data. To answer my research question, I required more in-

depth insight into my study phenomenon than would have been possible using a

quantitative method (McCusker & Gunaydin, 2014). Thus, I opted against using a

quantitative method (Choo et al., 2015; Graue, 2015; Morse & Cheek, 2015).

I considered but opted against using a mixed method approach. In mixed method

studies, researchers analyze both closed-ended data, such as numerical data, and open-

ended data, such as interviews (Choo et al., 2015; Kern, 2016; Morse & Cheek, 2015).

The analysis of numerical data was not necessary to answer my research question. In

particular, the extensive time necessary to conduct a mixed method study (Choo et al.,

2015; Flick, 2017; Morse & Cheek, 2015) was not conducive to my time constraints.

Consequently, I opted against using a mixed method approach (Choo et al., 2015; Flick,

2017; Morse & Cheek, 2015).

Researchers use qualitative methods when their objective is to interpret the

meaning of phenomena to gain insights (Austin, & Sutton, 2014; McCusker & Gunaydin,

2014; Pearson et al., 2014). The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive case study was to

explore profitability strategies used by music streaming leaders. The case study design

enables researchers to explore one or multiple instances of a management decision, such

as the business model (Stake, 2010; Yin, 2014). Unlike quantitative methodology, in

which researchers use closed-ended questioning and analysis of numerical data to

confirm hypotheses (Colorafi & Evans, 2016), the researcher’s (a) experience, (b)

perception, and (c) understanding form the foundation of qualitative methodology

(Eisenhardt, 1989; Stake, 2010). Therefore, a qualitative method was appropriate for this

research.

Research Design

The research design selected for this study was a descriptive single case study. I

considered four qualitative research designs: (a) case study, (b) ethnographic design, (c)

narrative design, and (d) phenomenological design. De Massis and Kotlar (2014)

emphasized that a descriptive case study is appropriate when the researcher’s goal is to

discuss the relevance of the phenomenon of interest. For example, Maftei, Gerogiannis,

and Papageorgiou (2016) used a single case study design to explore the critical success

factors of the music streaming service Bandcamp. I chose a single case study design

because single case study designs are appropriate when the research task is to explore

extensively phenomena involving individuals, groups of people, or institutions in a real

life context (Becker & Renger, 2017; Yin, 2014). The enhanced analytical focus of

researchers who use a case study research design makes case study design unique from

other qualitative research designs (Patton, 2015; Stake, 2010). Accordingly, the choice of

a qualitative descriptive single case study was the most appropriate research methodology

and design for exploring the phenomenon under study.

Yin (2014) described two types of case study designs: (a) multiple case studies

and (b) single case studies. Yin observed that a single case study research design is

appropriate when a researcher’s goal is to explore and to describe in rich detail a

phenomenon within its actual context. Likewise, De Massis and Kotlar (2014)

emphasized that researchers use single case studies because of the revelatory nature of

the study findings or when the researcher gains unique research assess or a rare research

opportunity. A single case study research design was suitable for my study because my

objective was to explore and describe the phenomenon of music streaming service

leaders’ strategies leading to sustainable profits within the music streaming business

ecosystem.

I considered but did not choose a multiple case study research design. A multiple

case study design is appropriate when the research task necessitates a broad exploration

of the phenomena of interest (Eisenhardt, 1989) and when the availability of multiple

cases is sufficient for the required data collection process (Yin, 2014). However,

researchers who conduct multiple case studies often incur significant financial and time

costs (Tsang, 2014). Instead, I chose a single case study design because single case study

designs are appropriate when the research task is to examine extensively phenomena

involving individuals, groups of people, or institutions in a real life context (Becker &

Renger, 2017; Yin, 2014). The enhanced analytical focus of researchers who use a case

study research design makes case study design unique from other qualitative research

designs (Patton, 2015; Stake, 2010). Therefore, the choice of a qualitative descriptive

single case study was the most appropriate research methodology and design for

exploring the phenomenon under study.

I did not select an ethnographic design for this study because the aim of

ethnographic research design is to understand the life and experiences of the participants

in a study from the perspective of those participants (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Yin, 2014).

Further, ethnographic researchers often immerse themselves for long periods in the

culture of the participants to maximize the opportunities available in which participant

behaviors and interactions (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Thus, the abundance of fieldwork

necessary to conduct an ethnographic research design would have overrun the time

available to complete my research (see Lewis, 2015; Yin, 2014).

Researchers use a narrative design when the objective of the study is to gain

meaning from describing the life stories of selected participants (Edwards, 2016; Lewis,

2015). Specifically, narrative researchers engage in extensive fieldwork to interview

participants and to learn the participant’s life stories (Edwards, 2016; Labov, 2016).

However, exploring participant life stories necessary to conduct a narrative research

design did not align with the purpose of my study. As such, I did not choose a narrative

research design.

Wagstaff and Williams (2014) suggested the use of a phenomenological design

when little research exists about an experience. Similarly, Lewis (2015) suggested the

use of the phenomenological design when the objective of the study is to examine human

experience through the descriptions provided by selected participants. Accordingly, a

phenomenological research design was not appropriate for this study because it did not

align with the purpose of my study. The focus of this study, an exploration of strategies,

did not align with phenomenological researchers’ focus on the lived experiences of

participants (Lewis, 2015).

In this study, data collection consisted, in part, of interviews with the CEO and

four senior managers until the point of data saturation (Fusch & Ness, 2015). Data

saturation occurs when data relevant to research study is repetitive and no new

information is forthcoming (Fusch & Ness, 2015). If, after the conclusion of the

interviews with the CEO and the four senior managers data saturation had not occurred,

then I would have recruited and interviewed additional senior managers to achieve data

saturation. Data collection also consisted, in part, of collection and analysis of

documents from multiple sources (Ranney et al., 2015). Document data collection did

not conclude until the data collection efforts achieved coding and meaning saturation

(Hennink et al., 2016), that is, I heard and understood everything important on the

phenomena of interest.

In qualitative research, data saturation occurs when the data collection efforts

yield no new information (Fusch & Ness, 2015; Yin, 2014). Fusch and Ness (2015)

identified three ways to achieve data saturation: (a) when the data collected is sufficient

for replication of the study, (b) when the researcher’s data collection efforts produce

nothing new, and (c) when the data coding efforts are exhausted. During interviews, data

saturation occurs when additional interviews will provide no additional information

(Fusch & Ness, 2015). Further, Fusch and Ness explained that researchers could use

triangulation to achieve documentation data saturation. Denzin (2012) described

triangulation as a method of data collection in which researchers collect and analyze data

gathered from multiple sources to provide a significant quality and quantity of data.

Hennink, Kaiser, and Marconi, (2016) differentiated between code saturation and

meaning saturation. According to Hennik et al., code saturation occurs when the

researcher has heard everything important about the phenomena of interest. By contrast,

Hennink et al. explained that meaning saturation occurs when the researcher understands

everything important about the phenomena of interest.

Population and Sampling

In this qualitative study, I chose to use a purposeful sampling strategy, which was

consistent with the qualitative method. Population and sampling refers to the set of

persons and selection methods researchers use to make their research more efficient and

valid (Byrne, 2015; Palinkas et al., 2013). In this study, I focused narrowly on strategies

influencing the profitability of the Southeastern Asian music streaming service business

model. The sample specificity for this study was dense so that the results of the study

would provide significant insight. Christensen’s (1997) disruptive innovation theory,

which is an established theory often applied and discussed in business management

research (Adner, 2002; Christensen et al., 2015; Christensen, Bartman et al., 2016), was

applied in this study.

In this study, the sample size was five participants, which ensured better

communication. Additionally, in this qualitative, descriptive study, I focused the analysis

on a limited and small range of phenomena: Identifying strategies that some global music

streaming service leaders use to generate sustainable profits. Therefore, the small sample

size of this proposed study adhered to the principle of data saturation as noted by Fusch

and Ness (2015), Galvin (2015), and Patton (2015), and the principle of information

power as described by Malterud et al. (2016).

Researchers use sampling methods to make their research more efficient and valid

(Palinkas et al., 2013). Sampling methods must align with the chosen research method

and design of the study (Gentles, Charles, Ploeg, & McKibbon, 2015). Sampling

strategies commonly used in qualitative studies include (a) purposeful, (b) random, (c)

convenience (Ranney et al., 2015), and (d) snowball (Woodley & Lockard, 2016).

In qualitative research, sample sizes are often smaller than in quantitative studies

because, in qualitative studies, a representative sample is not necessary (Macfarlane et al.,

2015). Boddy (2016) argued that when the research project concerns a new topic, a

single case study with a small sample size could yield profound results. The invention

and importance of on-demand music streaming services is very new and under researched

(Trefzger et al., 2015). The topic of this study, which was strategies music streaming

service leaders use to generate sustainable profits, was also a new and under researched

topic. Robinson (2014) indicated that 3-16 participants were an acceptable sample size

for a single case study. Thus, the topical circumstances of this single case study justified

the use of a purposeful sampling method with a small sample size (Boddy, 2016;

Robinson, 2014).

Although purposeful sampling may decrease a study’s generalizability (Robinson,

2014; Yin, 2014), many scholars argue that the use of purposeful sampling in qualitative

case studies results in rich description (Palinkas et al., 2015; Patton, 2015; Yin, 2014).

The purposeful sampling technique refers to the strategy used by researchers to identify

and select individuals or groups with the requisite levels of experience and understanding

specific to the phenomenon under study (Palinkas et al., 2015; Yin, 2014). Moreover,

Patton (2015) described purposeful sampling as a powerful and logical tool available to

researchers to identify and select information rich cases that are essential to the research

inquiry.

I followed a purposeful sampling strategy to guide my identification and selection

of participants (Robinson, 2014). Patton (2015) highlighted the appropriateness of small

sample sizes in single case study research. Similarly, Malterud, Siersma, and Guassora

(2015) argued that information power should determine the appropriate sample size in

qualitative interview studies. The components of information power are (a) study aim,

(b) sample specificity, (c) use of established theory, (d) quality of dialogue, and (e)

analysis strategy (Malterud et al., 2015). According to Malterud et al., a small sample

size is appropriate when (a) the study aim is narrowly focused, (b) the sample specificity

is dense, which means the participants knowledge and experience closely fit the study

aim; (c) the researcher applies an established theory, (d) the quality of dialogue is strong,

which means smaller-sized samples resulted in better communication; and (e) the

analysis strategy is limited to a small range of phenomena.

Ethical Research

Researchers must adhere to an ethical code of conduct when conducting research

(Dongre & Sankaran, 2016; Hardy, Hughes, Hulen, & Schwartz, 2016). No fundamental

difference exists between the essential elements of management research ethics, social

research ethics, and medical research ethics (Greenwood, 2015). The ethical research

guidelines and regulations outline appropriate and legal research activities regarding (a)

researcher conduct and competence, (b) research methods and techniques, (c) participant

protections and rights, and (d) data collection, management, and analysis procedures

(Kara & Pickering, 2017; Mooney-Somers & Olsen, 2016). Universities have

institutional review boards that require researchers to follow ethical research guidelines

as means to ensure researcher competence and to ensure researcher agreement on

essential research procedures and techniques (Hammersley, 2014). Throughout the

research for this study, I established an ethical grounding for this study by adhering to the

principles laid out in the Belmont Report (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services,

1979) through the practices of (a) informed consent, (b) an assessment of the risks and

benefits of the research, and (c) an ethically aware participant selection process.

The principles of respect, autonomy, and the protection of disadvantaged or

vulnerable people or people groups form the basis of informed consent (U.S. Department

of Health & Human Services, 1979). To adhere to the legal and ethical requirements of

informed consent, researchers must provide potential participants of the study with

information about the study (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 1979). The

components of the informed consent form I used included (a) the background

information, (b) the procedures, (c) the voluntary nature of the study, (d) the risks and

benefits of being in the study, (e) statements regarding payment and privacy, (f)

researcher contact information, and (g) the contact information of the Participant Rights

Advocate from the institution associated with the research. However, as Hammersley

(2014) noted, ethical researchers must do more than simply following the practice of

informed consent.

Gray, Hilder, Macdonald, Tester, Dowell, and Stubbe (2017) highlighted that

presupposed within the principle of informed consent is an equal power in the

relationship between the researcher and the participants. Along the same lines, Gray et

al. (2017) and Kara and Pickering (2017) explained that in cross-cultural, cross-language

research, the relationship between the researcher and the participants is often one of

unequal power. Furthermore, MacKenzie (2015) explained that the relationship between

the researcher and the interpreter or translator is often one of unequal power.

To mitigate these researcher relationship power imbalances, researchers should

(a) establish a trustworthy relationship with the participants (Caretta, 2015; Gray et al.,

2017), (b) utilize an interpreter during interviews (Caretta, 2015; Chidlow,

Plakoyiannaki, & Welch, 2014; MacKenzie, 2015), (c) pay attention to the timing of

translated information (Santos, Black, & Sandelowski, 2014), and (d) try to verify the

achievement of mutual understanding and do not assume key terms directly translate into

a foreign language (Dahler-Larsen et al., 2017). Mealer and Jones (2014) explained that

conducting virtual interviews (e.g., audio interviews over Skype), allowed for geographic

distance between the researcher and the interviewee during the interview, which helped

mitigate any power imbalance. During my research, I followed those suggested measures

to ensure an ethical and equal power relationship between participants, interpreters, and

myself.

The participants in this study were on a voluntary basis. Therefore, all

participants could have withdrawn at any time from this study through email or phone

communication of their desired withdrawal. I did not offer incentives to participants to

participate in this study. No participants in this study were under the age of 18. After the

transcription of the recorded interview, I engaged in member checking to ensure the

accuracy of my transcription (Harvey, 2015; Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2014) and

provided all participants with the transcript of their interview for review, comments, or

edits (Mealer & Jones, 2014).

To ensure compliance with Walden’s ethical research requirements, I followed

four specific guidelines. First, I obtained consent from each study participant with an

informed consent form. Second, I included the Walden institutional review board (IRB)

approval number in the final doctoral manuscript for this study. My IRB approval

number for this study is 06-25-18-0567906. Third, I did not include any identifying

details, such as names or locations, or any other identifying information of individuals or

organizations. For example, I replaced the names of the participants with generalized

labels such as, P1, P2, and P3. Additionally, I did not identify the exact location of the

subject company. Instead, I identified the location more generally as a music streaming

service located in Southeastern Asia. Fourth, I will keep all the data collected for this

study for 5 years in password protected, encrypted files that only I can access to protect

the rights of participants.

Data Collection Instruments

In qualitative research, the researcher is the primary instrument for data collection

(Choo et al., 2015). Thus, I was the primary data collection instrument for this study. De

Massis and Kotlar (2014) and Yin (2014) explained that qualitative case study

researchers use multiple means to collect data, such as (a) interviews, (b) direct

observations, (c) company documentation, (d) archival documentation, and (e) media

documentation. The researcher’s purpose of multi-data source utilization through a

process referred to as method triangulation is to provide a complete and rich description

of the phenomenon of interest (Fusch & Ness, 2015; Patton, 2015) and to enhance study

validity and reliability (De Massis & Kotlar, 2014; Morse & Cheek, 2015).

In qualitative studies, a primary method for data collection is for the researcher to

engage in face-to-face interviews with the participants of the study (Patton, 2015;

Redlich-Amirav, 2014). However, when conducting face-to-face interviews would be

less efficient and costlier (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014; Ratislavová & Ratislav, 2014),

some qualitative researchers choose to conduct interviews through technological means

that better fit their research circumstances. Alternative options to face-to-face interviews

include (a) telephone interviews (see Mealer & Jones, 2014), (b) email interviews (see

Ratislavová & Ratislav, 2014), (c) video call interviews (see Weller, 2017), and (d)

Skype interviews (see Janghorban, Roudsari, & Taghipour, 2014; Lo Iacono, Symonds,

& Brown, 2016; Quartiroli, Knight, Etzel, & Monaghan, 2017).

Regarding the interview setting for this study, I lived and worked in the United

States and the participants for this study lived and worked in Southeastern Asia. I

alleviated the otherwise significant time and money costs necessary to conduct face-to-

face interviews through the means of audio interviewing. Therefore, I conducted audio

interviews with the study participants.

McIntosh and Morse (2015) identified the use of semistructured interviews as an

effective strategy that researchers use to discern the perspective of the participants about

the phenomena of interest. According to Patton (2015), an interview protocol serves as a

guide and checklist to the researcher that organizes the interview questions and

discussion issues. Patton (2015) and Ranny et al. (2015) emphasized those researchers

who conduct interviews with multiple participants benefit from the increased

organization, interview systematization, and developed framework provided by an

interview protocol. I utilized a protocol for audio interviews (see Appendix A).

Researchers ask open-ended interview questions to elicit in-depth participant

answers with rich detail and insight about the phenomena of interest (Patton, 2015; Yin,

2014). After the interviews, qualitative researchers synthesize their observations and

interpretations to give meaning and provide revelatory insight about the phenomena of

interest (Denzin, 2012). In the interviews, I asked open-ended questions (Choo et al.,

2015) about the strategies some global music streaming service leaders use to generate

sustainable profits (see Appendix C).

The first participant contact was an asynchronous email to obtain essential

participant permissions and to arrange audio interviews. Researchers who use

asynchronous email to connect with participants benefit from lower costs, increased time

efficiencies, increased interview structure, increased interview question clarity and depth,

and increased participant attention (Ratislavová & Ratislav, 2014). I emailed an

informed consent form to the participants and obtain their consent to participate in the

study before engaging in the asynchronous email to collect demographic information.

During the asynchronous email stage of the study, I followed the email contact protocol

(see Appendix B; Patton, 2015; Ranney et al., 2015; Robinson, 2014).

The second participant interviews I engaged in were semistructured telephonic

and computer based audio interviews. Researchers who used telephonic and computer

based audio interviews listed the following common benefits (a) lower costs, (b)

improved time efficiencies, and (c) improved travel and scheduling flexibility (Deakin &

Wakefield, 2014; Weller, 2017). Additionally, Farooq and de Villiers (2017) identified

some unique benefits of telephonic and computer based audio interviews (a) enhanced

interviewee perception of confidentiality, (b) increased interviewee comfortability, and

office during the interview) relevant to the interview questions. I emailed an informed

consent form to the participants and obtain their consent to participate in the study before

engaging in the telephonic and computer based audio interviews. During the telephonic

and computer based audio interview stage of the study, I followed the protocol for audio

interviews (see Appendix A).

In qualitative research, the practice of member checking allows the researcher to

make sure the intended meaning of each participant is represented in the interpretations

of the researcher. Member checking is the practice of the researcher interacting with

each participant to verify the accuracy with which the researcher interprets the interview

responses (Harvey, 2015). Austin and Sutton (2014) noted that researchers who engage

in member checking improve and confirm the accuracy and trustworthiness of their

interpretations and transcriptions. Some scholars view member checking as the primary

technique qualitative researchers use to establish the credibility of their studies (Lincoln

& Guba, 1985). Accordingly, I used member checking by asking participants for their

review of the accuracy of my interpretations of what was said during the interview. If a

participant indicated that my interpretation was incorrect, then I discussed with the

participant what I needed to change to convey their meaning.

Researchers collect secondary data for the purposes of gaining a contextual

understanding of the subject of interest (Johnston, 2014) and for triangulation (Fusch &

Ness, 2015). Secondary data refers to data that a third party collected, such as

professional reports and publications, government reports, journal articles, and company

documentation (Johnston, 2014; Yin, 2014). I collected secondary data for this research

from the following sources:

• The IFPI, which publishes many professional reports and publications on the

global music business, 2017 Global Music Report;

• The U.S. Copyright Office, which published in 2015 a government report

entitled, Copyright and the music marketplace: A report of The Register of

Copyrights;

• Any company documentation offered to me during my interviews related to

profitability strategies used by the participants and the impact of those

strategies on the company;

• Various peer-reviewed journal articles relevant to the music streaming

industry and the Spotify business model.

Data Collection Technique

Qualitative data collection techniques include (a) in-depth interviewing, (Deakin

& Wakefield, 2014; McIntosh & Morse, 2015), (b) focus groups (Cyr, 2016), (c) pilot

studies (Westlund & Stuart, 2016), (d) observations and audio recordings (Neal, Neal,

Vandyke, & Kornbluh, 2014), and (e) surveys (Sutton & Austin, 2015; Walsh, 2017).

When the conducting face-to-face interviews would be less efficient and costlier (Deakin

& Wakefield, 2014; Ratislavová & Ratislav, 2014), some qualitative researchers choose

to conduct interviews through technological means that better fit their research

circumstances, e. g. (a) telephone interviews (Mealer & Jones, 2014), (b) email

interviews (Ratislavová & Ratislav, 2014), (c) video call interviews (Weller, 2017), and

(d) Skype interviews (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014). Regarding the sources of data for this

study, I collected in-depth interview data, company documentary data, professional

reports, and media documentary data. I lived and worked in the United States and the

participants for this study lived and worked in Southeastern Asia. I alleviated the

significant time and money costs necessary to conduct face-to-face interviews through

the means of audio interviewing. Consequently, I conducted audio interviews with the

study participants.

McIntosh and Morse (2015) identified the use of semistructured interviews as an

effective strategy to discern the perspective of the participant about the phenomena of

interest. According to Patton (2015), an interview protocol serves as a guide and

checklist to the researcher that organizes the interview questions and discussion issues.

Patton (2015) and Ranny et al. (2015) emphasized that researchers were the beneficiaries

when they conducted interviews with multiple participants because of the increased

organization, interview systematization, and developed framework provided by an

interview protocol. I utilized one protocol for audio interviews (see Appendix A) and a

different protocol for emailing my participants (see Appendix B).

Semistructured interviews and audio interviews. Semistructured interviews,

whether done face-to-face or through audio and video means, allow researchers to gain

deeper understanding from participants. Face-to-face interviewing is the traditional

method used by qualitative researchers to collect data (Patton, 2015). In descriptive

interpretative qualitative studies, McIntosh and Morse (2015) explained that (a) discovery

is the purpose of semistructured interviews, (b) the epistemological privilege extended to

the participant is as a knower, (c) the role of the participant is as informant, and (d) to

reach understanding is the objective of the outcome. In-depth face-to-face interviews

provide researchers many benefits, such as (a) contextual information, (b) an easier

establishment of rapport, and (c) no technological breaks in communication (Deakin &

Wakefield, 2014). However, face-to-face interviewing can be expensive, time

consuming, and geographically inefficient (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014). Moreover,

qualitative researchers use semistructured interviews, whether done face-to-face or

through audio means, to discover and understand more about the participants.

Asynchronous email contact. Asynchronous emails have many benefits in

qualitative research. Ratislavová and Ratislav (2014) noted that researchers who use

asynchronous email to connect with participants benefit from lower costs, increased time

efficiencies, increased interview structure, increased interview question clarity and depth,

and increased participant attention. Asynchronous email contact also allows participants

to be more accessible (Deakin & Wakefield, 2014). However, participant responses to

asynchronous emails lack in the moment researcher follow-up question spontaneity and

thus, may not fully address the phenomena of interest (Ratislavová & Ratislav, 2014).

Consequently, asynchronous emailing allows researchers to communicate with

participants more efficiently but with less spontaneity.

Documentary data. De Massis and Kotlar (2014) and Yin (2014) explained that

qualitative case study researchers use multiple means to collect data, such as (a)

interviews, (b) direct observations, and (c) documentary data. Yin identified that

documentary data includes (a) company documentation, (d) archival documentation, and

(e) media documentation. In this study, the purpose of multi-data source utilization

through a process referred to as triangulation was to provide a complete and rich

description of the phenomenon of interest (Fusch & Ness, 2015; Patton, 2015) and to

enhance study validity and reliability (De Massis & Kotlar, 2014; Morse & Cheek, 2015).

Member checking. Member checking improves the credibility of qualitative

research. Member checking, rich description, participant transcript review, triangulation,

and interpretation are validity procedures that qualitative researchers go through to ensure

that their research is reliable and trustworthy (Austin & Sutton, 2014; Elo et al., 2014;

Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Morse, 2015). Additionally, researchers can use reflexivity to

protect against personal bias during qualitative studies (Noble & Smith, 2015). Annink

(2017) explained that researchers of cross-cultural qualitative business research enhance

the reliability and validity of their studies by keeping personal reflexivity journals about

their observations. Put differently, qualitative researchers use a variety of procedures,

such as member checking, to ensure their research is valid and without personal bias.

Member checking refers to the practice of returning the researcher’s notes or

interpretations to participants for their review (Harvey, 2015). Researchers who engage

in member checking improve and confirm the accuracy and trustworthiness of their

interpretations and transcriptions (Austin & Sutton, 2014). Some scholars view member

checking as the primary technique qualitative researchers use to establish the credibility

of their studies (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Accordingly, I used member checking and

asked participants for their review and correction of my notes and interpretations. For

example, once I completed each interview, I gave each participant a brief review of what

I wrote down in my notes. I asked each participant to clarify and correct any wrong

interpretations of mine in my notes. Then, again, after I transcribed the interviews, I

returned the transcripts for review and asked for further clarification and correction

regarding my overall interpretation of each participant’s responses. Importantly, the

purpose of member checking is to ensure that the research is valid and without the

personal bias of the researcher.

Data Organization Technique

Qualitative data organization refers to the systems and procedures the researcher

uses to organize and keep track of the collected data. Importantly, all raw data that I

collected will be maintained in a locked container for 5 years. The organization of

qualitative data is in a way that the theory and data collection methods used (a) capture

the essential meaning of people with similar real life experiences and (b) contributes

meaningful insights about that experience that align with accepted social scientific

theories (Gehman et al., 2017). Codes can refer to individual words, to groups of words

and full sentences, and to multiple paragraphs (Hilal & Al Abri, 2013; Miles et al., 2014;

Saldaña, 2016). Researchers use codes to organize, to label, and to condense the collected

data in meaningful data chunks that symbolize the emergent relationships and themes

within that data (Austin & Sutton, 2014; Bengtsson, 2016; Hilal & Al Abri, 2013;

Zamawe, 2015).

When researchers code the data, they are also engaging in data analysis. During

the coding process, researchers can create and assign deductive codes and inductive

codes to the data (Bengtsson, 2016; Mayer, 2015; Miles et al., 2014). Deductive coding

occurs when researchers formulate a provisional list of codes that they plan to use to code

the data before they engage in fieldwork (Mayer, 2015; Saldaña, 2016). By contrast,

inductive coding occurs when researchers create new unanticipated codes during the data

collection and data organization processes (Mayer, 2015; Saldaña, 2016). Miles et al.

(2014) explained that researchers code data in two cycles: (a) first cycle coding and (b)

second cycle coding. According to Miles et al. (2014) and Saldaña (2016), researchers

initially focus on individual meaningful chunks of words, phrases, or paragraphs within

the data during first cycle coding. Then, during second cycle coding, researchers focus on

the patterns within the data chunks during second cycle coding (Miles et al., 2014;

Saldaña, 2016). In other words, coding and data organization is a deliberate process

wherein the researcher codes the collected data, first, into topical chunks of words,

phrases, and paragraphs. Secondly, the researcher codes the topical data chunks into

meaningful patterns. Thus, researchers practice a strategy of big picture coding and then

individual issue coding.

In the first cycle coding of the data for this study, I adhered to the instructions in

Saldaña (2016) and coded the data according to attributes and descriptions. For example,

during the first cycle coding stage, I gave each participant a unique code ranging from P1

through Px. I gave each practitioner document a unique code ranging from DP1 through

DPx. Similarly, I gave each journal article a unique code ranging from DJ1 through DJx.

For each company document, I assigned a unique code ranging from DC1 through DCx.

In the second cycle coding of the data for this study, I adhered to the coding

refinement instructions in Saldaña (2016) and coded the data according to patterns.

According to Saldaña, pattern coding involves coding data into similar groups of themes

and constructs. For example, during the second cycle coding stage, I grouped the data

into various themes, such as (a) profitability strategies, (b) disruptive innovations, (c)

business model strategies, and (d) business model elements.

During the coding process, I used both deductive and inductive codes to

summarize the data as discussed in Mayer (2015), Miles et al. (2014), and Saldaña

(2016). Further, I followed the two-cycle coding process discussed in Miles et al. (2014),

and Saldaña (2016). The purpose of the first coding cycle is to summarize the data into

meaningful data chunks (Miles et al., 2014; Saldaña, 2016). Accordingly, during the first

coding cycle, I formulated a deductive list of codes according to the major words,

phrases, and themes that I identified in the conceptual framework and the literature

review. As I completed the interviews and reviewed the documents, I began the first

cycle of coding when I transcribed each interview, document, and field note according to

the deductive list of codes to organize initially the interview data by categories of

important words, phrases, and themes. However, I also progressively created and

summarized the data according to new inductive codes I identified from the themes that

emerged during the interviews.

The purpose of the second coding cycle is to identify patterns within the data

chunks (Miles et al., 2014; Saldaña, 2016). Miles et al. (2014) and Saldaña (2016)

explained that researchers use pattern codes to identify (a) theoretical constructs, (b)

causes and explanations, (c) relationships among people, and (d) categories and themes.

Accordingly, during the second coding cycle, I recoded and reorganized the data coded

during the first cycle according to patterns of (a) theoretical constructs, (b) causes and

explanations, (c) relationships among people, and (d) categories and themes.

Data Analysis

The purpose of qualitative data analysis is for researchers to organize the gathered

data in a way that allows them to draw meaningful insights and realistic conclusions

(Bengtsson, 2016). Sutton and Austin (2015) emphasized that conveying accurate and

honest interpretations of the participants’ viewpoints is of paramount importance to

researchers during data analysis. After the second cycle of coding the documents, the

interviews, and the field notes, I followed the recommendation of Miles et al. (2014) and

used the NVivo software to create a map of the pattern code linkages from which I drew

insights and conclusions about the phenomenon of interest. Accordingly, I used the

NVivo 11 software and method triangulation during the data analysis stage of this

research to ensure an accurate and honest interpretation of the participants’ viewpoints.

Qualitative researchers use computer assisted qualitative data analysis software

(CAQDAS), such as NVivo, ATLAS.ti, and MAXQDA, to enhance their efforts to

organize data, to code data, and to analyze data (St. Pierre & Jackson, 2014; Woods,

Paulus, Atkins, & Macklin, 2016). Researchers benefit from using CAQDAS software

that can quickly organize and reorganize coded data (Bengtsson, 2016; Neal, Neal,

VanDyke, & Kornbluh, 2015; Zamawe, 2015). Bengtsson (2016) explained that

researchers who use CAQDAS software could more easily transform data expressed as

words instead of numbers into meaningful qualitative analyses. Put simply, researchers

who develop a coding system as a reliability strategy can make coding decisions that are

systematic and numerically organized. Moreover, researchers who use CAQDAS can

often run coding statistics to determine reliability.

I used the NVivo 11 software during the organization, coding, and analysis phases

of my research. In the NVivo 11 software, I was able to import and code all the articles,

reports, and interviews that I used for this research. The NVivo 11 software allowed me

to directly code audio files (Woods et al., 2016). Further, I had previous experience in

using the NVivo 11 software to code an interview transcript. Using the NVivo 11

software, I organized the data I collected according to key themes generated from the

reviewed academic literature, the conceptual theory, disruptive innovation (Christensen,

1997). I also searched for new studies published since writing this proposal and used

NVivo 11 to generate new themes. The NVivo 11 software also has code mapping

functionality that I used to generate a node system for the data I collected. This allowed

me to organize the data into (a) nodes, (b) cases, (c) relationships, and (d) node matrices.

Finally, as I used the NVivo 11 software to correlate and categorize the interview data

according to key themes, I drew comparisons between the participant responses and

looked for new themes as well as relationships within the data. All the raw data that I

collected for this research will be stored securely for 5 years.

Triangulation refers to the validity procedures researchers follow when collecting

and analyzing data from multiple sources (Denzin, 2012; Flick, 2017; Fusch & Ness,

2015). To confirm data, researchers can triangulate interview data with data collected

from other sources, such as archival documentation, company documentation, and media

documentation (De Massis & Kotlar, 2014; Yin, 2014). Case study researchers also use

triangulation to ascertain the completeness of the collected data (Anney, 2014). To

confirm data, researchers can triangulate interview data with data collected from other

sources, such as archival documentation, company documentation, and media

documentation (De Massis & Kotlar, 2014; Yin, 2014). Denzin (1978) and Patton (2002)

discussed four types of triangulation that researchers use when analyzing case study data:

(a) theory triangulation, (b) data source triangulation, (c) investigator triangulation, and

(d) method triangulation. To enhance the validity and reliability of the study, I (a)

conducted audio interviews after obtaining informed consent, (b) collected data from

multiple data sources for the purposes of triangulation, (c) transcribed the recorded

interviews, and (d) provided notes and conclusions to interviewees for member checking.

Theory triangulation occurs when researchers use multiple theories to explore the

phenomena of interest (Carter, Bryant-Lukosius, DiCenso, Blythe, & Neville, 2014;

Patton, 2002). For example, researchers who use theory triangulation might choose two

or more theories to analyze the collected data. I did not use theory triangulation because

disruptive innovation theory was the most applicable theory to analyze the phenomenon

of interest.

Data source triangulation occurs when researchers gather data from many

different sources (Carter et al., 2014; Patton, 2002). For example, researchers who use

data source triangulation might gather data from many different individuals and different

types of people groups. I did not use data source triangulation because of the small

number of participants necessary for the research.

Investigator triangulation occurs when multiple researchers work together on a

research project (Carter et al., 2014; Patton, 2002). Researchers who use investigator

triangulation benefit from multiple points of view and interpretations (Carter et al., 2014).

However, the doctoral study requirements of Walden University did not permit multiple

doctoral student researchers to work as a group. Consequently, I did not use investigator

triangulation.

Method triangulation occurs when researchers gather data about the phenomena

of interest through multiple methods. Method triangulation is the most common type of

triangulation used by qualitative researchers (Carter et al., 2014; Graue, 2015; Patton,

2002). Researchers who use method triangulation might gather data through interviews,

field notes, pilot studies, and other observations. In accordance with the aforementioned

insights (Carter et al., 2014; Graue, 2015; Patton, 2002), I used method triangulation to

analyze the collect data for this research.

To enhance the validity and reliability of the study, I used multiple methods to

collect and analyze data. I conducted audio interviews after obtaining informed consent.

Regarding member checking, after each participant was interviewed, I debriefed each

participant on the notes I took during the interview. During the debriefing, I asked each

participant to correct and clarify any errant interpretations of mine. Then, after I

transcribed the interviews and returned the transcriptions for review, I followed up with

each participant to ensure that I had fully understood the participant responses.

Additionally, I collected secondary data in the form of government reports, professional

reports, and company documentary evidence. This secondary data allowed me to

confirm, contrast, and add context to the information that surfaced during the interviews.

I also collected data in the form of field notes throughout the research process. I will

keep all the raw data pertaining to this research secure for 5 years.

Reliability and Validity

Qualitative research should be both reliable and valid to be trustworthy and thus,

useful to others. Morse (2015) highlighted the difficulty of distinguishing between the

often intertwined concepts of reliability and validity in qualitative research. Reliability

and validity are both concepts that pertain to the rigor and trustworthiness or rigor of the

research findings (Elo et al., 2014; Kornbluh, 2015; Noble & Smith, 2015). In their

seminal article, Lincoln and Guba (1985) identified four primary aspects of qualitative

trustworthiness: (a) dependability, (b) credibility, (c) confirmability, and (d)

transferability. Member checking, rich description, participant transcript review,

triangulation, and interpretation are validity procedures that qualitative researchers go

through to ensure that their research is both credible and trustworthy (Austin & Sutton,

2014; Elo et al., 2014; Morse, 2015). In other words, qualitative research must be

trustworthy to be useful, which means that the research is dependable and credible.

Reliability

Qualitative researchers use reliability to ensure that their research findings are

dependable. Dependability refers to the stability or constancy of the data (Austin &

Sutton, 2014; Bengtsson, 2016; Elo et al., 2014). Researchers use the following

strategies to achieve reliability in their research: (a) transcript review, (b) member

checking, (c) thick description, and (d) the development of a coding system (Morse,

2015). Other scholars include reflexivity and triangulation among the strategies to

achieve reliability in qualitative research (Carter et al., 2014; Noble & Smith, 2015). To

ensure dependability, I asked clear, unbiased questions. I asked the same questions in

each interview, transcribed the responses accurately, and provided copies of my notes and

interpretations to research participants to ensure that my conclusions represented their

responses. Onwegbuzie et al. (2010) stated that all forms of communications, including

body language, are important in interpreting participants’ meaning. Therefore, my notes

included any nonverbal communication I observed that may have influenced the

meaning.

Thick description allows the participant’s voice to be understood within the

research. Thick description is an internal reliability strategy and refers to the practice of

researchers providing detailed explanations about the research design, collected data, and

findings (Morse, 2015; Noble & Smith, 2015). According to Morse (2015), the

researcher’s discussion of participant interviews must convey significant meaning that

combines the participant’s experiences and how the researcher interpreted those

experiences. Put differently, qualitative researchers use thick description to present the

participant’s viewpoint in a way that conveys the indispensable meaning to the reader.

Reflexivity occurs when researchers reflect on their own biases that could

influence the research. Researchers can keep reflective journals (Noble & Smith, 2015)

or leave audit trials (Houghton et al., 2013) that identify their ongoing research design

and decision making rationale as a reliability strategy. Reflexive journals and audit trails

indicate researcher self awareness and help researchers identify personal biases that

influence the research findings (Houghton et al., 2013). I kept detailed notes on dates and

times of the scheduled interviews, method of interview, and detailed notes on which

documentation each participant provided in order to triangulate responses with

documentation.

Establishing the reliability and dependability of this research was essential.

Accordingly, I used the following reliability strategies in this research (a) member

checking, (b) thick description, and (c) reflexivity. I also used the NVivo 11 software to

assist me in developing a coding system to manage the data for this research.

Validity

Validity refers to the trustworthiness of the collected data, research design, and

research findings (Anney, 2014; Austin & Sutton, 2014). Although the in-depth

descriptive value of a case study is one of its distinctively positive research design

attributes, the external validity of the findings of a single case study is often a research

design weakness (De Massis & Kotlar, 2014). Lincoln and Guba (1985) emphasized that

without the establishment of validity, researchers cannot achieve reliability. To enhance

the validity of this study, I used (a) triangulation, (b) reflexive journaling, (c) member

checking, and (d) thick description as strategies to achieve credibility, transferability, and

confirmability of the research findings.

Credibility refers to the trustworthiness or confidence other readers can have in

the research process and findings (Anney, 2014; Bengtsson, 2016). Researchers use

many strategies to establish credibility in their research. For example, Anney (2014)

identified the following credibility strategies (a) prolonged field experience or persistent

observation, (b) reflexivity or keeping a field journal, (c) member checking, and (d)

triangulation. Cope (2014) explained that researchers could keep audit trails, use

multiple observation methods, and remain engaged as credibility strategies. Accordingly,

I ensured the credibility of the study by ensuring the participants were knowledgeable

about the phenomenon of the study. Each participant met minimum eligibility criteria. I

elicited relevant answers through carefully constructed interview questions. I enhanced

the findings’ credibility by using member checking, a specific interview protocol, and

methodological triangulation.

Transferability refers to how applicable the research findings are to others in a

similar context (Bengtsson, 2016; Houghton et al., 2013). Cope (2014) and Houghton et

al. (2013) described that transferability occurs when a researcher can apply the findings

of one study to another study in a same or similar context or circumstance. Importantly,

the findings of a qualitative study need to be meaningful to others who did not participate

in the study. Houghton et al. (2013) explained that the use of thick description as an

effective strategy for enhancing the transferability of research findings. Although I

sought to achieve data saturation with a sufficient sample size and knowledgeable

participants, future researchers have the responsibility of transferring the findings to other

situations (Houghton et al., 2013).

Confirmability refers to research that is comprised of authentic, nonbiased data

and authentic, nonbiased interpretations of that data (Cope, 2014; Houghton et al., 2013).

Thus, researchers need to demonstrate truthfulness in the collected data and the research

findings to prove that personal bias does not overtly influence the collected data or

research findings. Houghton et al. (2013) explained that researchers enhance the

confirmability of their research findings using reflexive journaling, audit trails,

triangulation. To ensure confirmability of the study results, I probed for additional

information during interviews, followed up interviews with member checking, and

conducted methodological triangulation of the literature, documentation provided by

participants, my notes, and transcripts of semistructured interviews.

Researchers achieve data saturation when their data collection efforts return no

new information. Data saturation refers to the presentation and completeness of the data

and the completeness of the qualitative inquiry (Bengtsson, 2016; Houghton et al., 2013;

Morse, 2015). Qualitative researchers engage in data collection until they reach data

saturation (Fusch & Ness, 2015; Yin, 2014). Fusch and Ness (2015) explained that data

saturation occurs when the data collection efforts reach one of three different outcomes

(a) the data collected is sufficient for replication of the study, (b) the researcher’s data

collection efforts produce nothing new, and (c) the researcher’s data coding efforts are

exhausted.

Researchers can enhance the validity of their research and achieve data saturation

through triangulation. Regarding data saturation, Houghton et al. (2013) identified

confirmation and completion as the two primary reasons why researchers use

triangulation. Researchers achieve saturation when they have heard and understood

everything important about the phenomena of interest and further investigation reveals

nothing new about the phenomenon of interest (Houghton et al., 2013).

To enhance the validity of this study, I used (a) triangulation, (b) reflexive

journaling, (c) member checking, and (d) thick description as strategies to achieve

credibility, transferability, and confirmability of the research findings. Had I needed

additional data to reach saturation after the conclusion of the interviews with the CEO

and the four senior managers, then I would have recruited additional senior managers to

interview until data saturation was achieved. Data collection also consisted in part of

collection and analysis of secondary data in the form of professional reports, government

reports, and company documents. Secondary documentary data collection did not

conclude until my data collection efforts achieved coding and meaning saturation.

Transition and Summary

In Section 2, I reexamined and further discussed the previously stated purpose

statement, as well as, the suitability of the qualitative descriptive case study research

method and design. Further, Section 2 consisted of discussions regarding my role as the

researcher, the participant selection population and sampling requirements, ethical

research considerations, and the data collection strategy, instrumentation, techniques, and

process. Section 2 concluded with a discussion regarding the aspects of reliability and

validity in qualitative research as well as a discussion of the strategies I used to achieve

reliability and validity in the findings of this research.

In Section 3, I restate the purpose of the study and present the research findings.

Additionally, Section 3 consists of discussions concerning the application to professional

practice and the implications for social change. Section 3 concludes with a discussion

regarding my recommendations for action, my recommendations for further reading, and

my final reflections.

Section 3: Application to Professional Practice and Implications for Change

Introduction

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive single case study was to explore

strategies some global music streaming service leaders use to generate sustainable profits

through their business models. I used Christensen’s (1997) disruptive theory as the

conceptual framework for this study. The study results revealed strategies that some

global music streaming leaders use to generate profits. The population for this study was

the CEO and four senior managers of a leading music streaming service in Southeastern

Asia who addressed the sustainability challenges inherent in the Spotify music streaming

service business model. Once I received IRB approval to conduct the study, I obtained

consent from each study participant.

During data analysis, I used NVivo 11 software to assist me in coding the

collected data. I conducted methodological triangulation of the semistructured interviews

and archival records to maintain the validity and reliability of the research. Transcript

review and member checking ensured the accuracy of my interview interpretations and

helped clarify any imprecise or confusing statements. I found that leaders of the

participant music streaming service used four primary strategies and eight minor

strategies to generate sustainable profits through their business model. The four primary

strategies were (a) optimize dynamic capabilities, (b) optimize the subscription business

model, (c) focus on the niche of local music, and (d) optimize the freemium business

model.

Presentation of the Findings

The overarching research question for this study was, what strategies do some

global music streaming service leaders use to generate sustainable profits through their

business models? I used Christensen’s (1997) disruptive theory as the conceptual

framework for this study. Semistructured interviews and reviewed archival records

allowed me to gain a deep understanding of those strategies. I conducted semistructured

interviews on Skype and recorded the interviews on an audio device. During the

interviews, participants responded to open-ended questions regarding their experiences,

values, viewpoints, and strategies. The interview protocol (Appendix A) allowed me to

organize and standardize the interview process.

After the interviews, I expressed my appreciation for the participants’ willingness

to participate in my study. Then, I transcribed each interview and used transcript review,

as well as used member checking to ensure the accuracy of my interpretations and to

clarify any imprecise or confusing statements. In accordance with the invitational letter

and consent form, after I transcribed the interviews, I deleted the audio recordings of the

interviews to ensure participant confidentiality. Additionally, the participants were coded

as P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5 to ensure confidentiality.

I collected secondary data to gain a contextual understanding of the profitability

strategies used by leaders of music streaming services and for triangulation (Johnston,

2014; Fusch & Ness, 2015). I triangulated the participants’ semistructured interview

responses with (a) company documentation, (b) initial public offering (IPO)

documentation from music streaming industry competitors, Spotify and Tencent Music,

articles. The company documentation I used for triangulation were the Personnel

Information Guidelines and the Core Values Statement. The Personnel Information

Guidelines contained descriptions and explanations of company policies. The Core

Values Statement identified and described the five principle goals of the company. The

professional reports I used for triangulation were the Global Music Report 2017: Annual

State of the Industry (IFPI, 2017) and the Global Music Report 2018: Annual State of the

Industry (IFPI, 2018). Additional documentation included IPO documentation: (a) Form

F-1 Registration Statement (Spotify Technology S.A., 2018) and (b) Form F-1

Registration Statement (Tencent Music Entertainment Group, 2018). The government

report I used for triangulation was Copyright and the Music Marketplace: A Report of

The Register of Copyrights (U.S. Copyright Office, 2015). I reached data saturation

when my data collection efforts failed to produce new information.

During data analysis, I used the Nvivo 11 software to assist me in organizing,

coding, and analyzing the data. Four major themes emerged from the data: (a) optimize

dynamic capabilities, (b) optimize the subscription business model, (c) focus on the niche

of local music, and (d) optimize the freemium business model. Under the major themes,

eight minor themes also emerged from the data. Under the optimized dynamic

capabilities theme, three minor themes emerged: (a) improve employee and task

efficiencies, (b) outsource less, and (c) hire and retain skilled workers. Under the

optimized the subscription business model theme, three minor themes emerged: (a) create

the best platform features, (b) design the best music discovery system, and (c) develop a

dynamic personalized experience. Under the focus on the niche of local music theme, two

minor themes emerged: (a) offering direct artist to fan merchandise sales and (b) directly

license local music. Under the optimized the freemium business model theme, two minor

themes emerged: (a) improve the conversion to subscription rate and (b) increase

advertisement revenue. Figure 3 is a mind map of the relationships between the major

and minor themes.

Figure 3. The relationships between the major themes and minor themes.

The findings of this study revealed strategies used by some music streaming

leaders to generate sustainable profits through their business models. The major and

minor themes that emerged from the data during my analysis were consistent with the

information identified in the peer-reviewed articles discussed in Section 2. Accordingly,

the findings of this study convey a general agreement with the body of knowledge

regarding the topic of business model innovation as it fits within the larger conceptual

framework of disruptive innovation.

In the following discussion, I present the findings of the study in relation to the

emergent major and minor themes. Additionally, I tie the study findings to the

conceptual framework of this study: Christensen’s (1997) theory of disruptive innovation.

For each major and minor theme, I describe what study findings confirm, disconfirm, or

extend the body of knowledge on disruptive innovation as represented in the peer-

reviewed articles in the literature review as well as in peer-reviewed articles I reviewed

since writing the proposal.

Theme 1: Optimization of Dynamic Capabilities

Participants revealed the importance of optimizing the firm’s dynamic

capabilities. The theme of optimizing the firm’s dynamic capabilities emerged from

Interview Questions 2, 3, 4, and 5. All of the participants (100%) indicated that the

generation of sustainable profits required the optimization of dynamic capabilities. Teece

(2018) confirmed that a firm’s profitability depends on the firm’s dynamic capabilities to

implement the strategies laid out in the business model that create and capture value.

Broekhuizen, Bakker, and Postma (2018) and Christensen et al. (2016) emphasized the

need of business or departmental freedom to experiment, develop, and implement

disruptive business model strategies.

P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5 agreed on the importace of optimizing the firm’s dynamic

capabilities to generate sustainable revenue. The minor themes related to optimizing the

firm’s dynamic capabilities were (a) improve worker and task efficiencies, (b) outsource

less, and (c) hire and retain skilled workers. Participant statements are provided

illustrating these minor themes.

For operating expenses, our strategy is to work more efficiently. For example, we

need to have very skilled employees to do our product research and development

to make the best user experience and personalized experience. I do not know

about every company department. I know about the business development

department. We work on developing strategic partnerships with other companies

that connect with our service. (P1)

Since our main goal has been to increase the number of paid subscribers, we have

invested in research and development to optimize and increase features to enjoy

music. In addition, we have invested in recruiting profound and professional

product developer and tech personnel. (P5)

The interview responses aligned with similar statements in the documents used

for triangulation regarding the importance of optimization of an organization’s dynamic

capabilities. For example, the company’s Core Values Statement lists the following five

core values and descriptions:

1. Responsibility: Each employee must work with the highest sense of

responsibility, create products that satisfy the user, always carry out

commitment and honesty, and commitment to customers.

2. Quality: Each employee must always give our customers the simple products

with the best quality. From the beginning, this has been our goal.

3. Passion is the driving force, the key to each individual success, contributing to

the success and development of the company.

4. Creativity: Each employee must always create a favorable environment that

promotes the creativity of each individual.

5. Teamwork: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go

together. Team spirit is one of the core factors that determines the our

company’s success. Each individual holds the same beliefs and goals for the

company’s development: Help, mutual support, and concern for each other.

Similar statements regarding the importance of optimization of an organization’s

dynamic capabilities were found in the Spotify and Tencent IPO documentation used for

triangulation. According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Our rapid growth has placed, and will continue to place, significant demands on

our management and our operational and financial infrastructure. In order to attain

and maintain profitability, we will need to recruit, integrate, and retain skilled and

experienced personnel who can demonstrate our value proposition to Users,

advertisers, and business partners and who can increase the monetization of the

music streamed on our Service, particularly on mobile devices. Continued growth

also could strain our ability to maintain reliable service levels for our Users,

effectively monetize the music streamed, develop and improve our operational

and financial controls, and recruit, train, and retain highly skilled personnel.

(Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 31)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

We compete with our competitors based on a number of factors, such as the

diversity of content, product features, social interaction features, quality of user

experience, brand awareness and reputation. Some of our competitors may have

greater financial, marketing or technology resources than we do, which enable

them to respond more quickly to technological innovations or changes in user

demands and preferences, acquire more attractive content and devote greater

resources towards the development, promotion and sale of products than we can.

Also, they may provide their users with content that we do not have the license to

offer. If any of our competitors achieves greater market acceptance or is able to

provide more attractive content offerings than we do, our user traffic and market

share may decrease, which may result in a loss of users and a material and adverse

effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. (Tencent

Music Entertainment Group, 2018, p. 33)

According to the Global Music Report 2018: Annual State of the Industry,

The evolution of streaming has not just been embraced by the music industry, it

has been proactively driven by it. Streaming’s growth is just one chapter in the

story of a business that is focused on maximising the opportunities offered by

advances in technology and has developed relationships with the biggest and most

forwardthinking companies in the tech sector. Warner Music’s Obermann sums it

up succinctly: “We have become the disruptors, not the disrupted.” Universal

Music’s Dworkin has a similar take: “We cannot be afraid of perpetual change,

because that dynamism is driving growth. There’s going to be so much disruption

and so much new technology, we’re just going to have to fasten our seat belts and

show a high degree of sensitivity and willingness to listen. Whilst disruption is

challenging, it’s also going to be very exciting and create a lot of value”. (IFPI,

2018, p. 19)

According to Christensen (1997), disruptive innovations succeed by meeting the

needs of niche customers. As disruptors, music streaming service providers must expand

their market share by attracting new users in niche markets. However, profitability

cannot be achieved without also optimizing the dynamic capabilities of their employees.

Generating sustainable profits requires optimizing a music streaming service’s

dynamic capabilities. The responses from P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5 reflected a general

agreement that the optimization of dynamic capabilities positively influenced their

company’s profitability. However, the participant’s reponses varied on which dynamic

capabilities influenced profitability the most. The following three minor themes highlight

the participants’ varied responses regarding the optimization of dynamic capabilities: (a)

improve worker and task efficiencies, (b) outsource less, and (c) hire and retain skilled

workers.

Improve worker and task efficiencies. The first minor theme under optimizing

dynamic capabilities is improving worker and task efficiencies. According to Teece

(2018), when a company has strong dynamic capabilities, that company efficiently senses

and seizes new opportunities by adapting and aligning their business model with the

needs and desires of the customers. P1, P2, and P5 emphasized specifically the

importance of improving worker and task efficiences to growth and profitabilty.

Our company employees are told to be efficient with our use of time to do our

tasks. We are even given incentives when we meet or do better than the boss’s

expectations. To be efficient in our jobs, we must be skilled in the area we work

in. Workers cannot do a task efficiently if they do not understand how to do the

task. So our company takes time to hire the best talented people with skill to do

important jobs to help our company grow. (P1)

Our company must grow by knowing the Southeastern Asian local music market

the best and we must be able to attract and convert music listeners with our

freemium and our subscription services. We can only affect certain operating

expenses. For example, we can work more efficiently, and we can research and

design our new features better and faster. (P2)

Our company’s strategies to reduce expenses for our company have focused on

lowering the cost of content copyright, minimizing expenses on marketing by

using our company’s media and advertisement’s slot on the website in exchange

with partners, and focusing on research and development to optimize technology

to decrease the number of servers from 10 to 5. (P5)

The interview responses echoed similar comments on the topic of employee and task

efficiencies within Tencent Music’s and Spotify’s IPO documentation used for

triangulation. For example, according to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement,

“We focus on continually improving our technology to deliver superior user experience

and enhance our operating efficiency.” (Tencent Music Entertainment Group, 2018, p.

151). According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Our business is growing and becoming more complex, and our success depends

on our ability to quickly develop and launch new and innovative products. We

believe our culture fosters this goal. Our focus on complexity and quick reactions

could result in unintended outcomes or decisions that are poorly received by our

Users, advertisers, or partners. (Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 26)

Improving worker and task efficiencies positively influences a music streaming

service’s profitability. The response from P1 emphasized that the efficency efforts of

empolyees necessitates proper job training as well as result based incentives. In contrast,

the response of P2 focused on converting freemium users to subscription users by

designing the best platform features as the primary way employees could influence the

firm’s profitability. By contrast, P5 highlighted that both lowering the costs of content

acquisition and marketing and investing more in research and development positively

influenced the firm’s profitability.

Outsource less. The second minor theme under optimizing dynamic capabilities

is outsourcing less. The responses given by P3 and P4 confirmed what Lahiri (2016)

found, which was that outsourcing alone does not necessarily save money for the firm,

but, instead, the value of outsourcing depends on management’s perception and execution

of outsourcing. In this study, P3 and P4 perceived that outsourcing less helped increase

profitability by reducing expenses.

No, we do not outsource work to people who do not work at our company. It is

less expensive for us to work in-house to research and develop our products and

to make our own marketing campaigns. Some of our company’s departments

cooperate with each other. For example, the our content editor curates the music

for the playlists and that takes cooperation with the content developer. (P3)

For the marketing, we try to use internal people for marketing and try to

maximize the efficiency of our marketing dollars. Some music streaming

companies pay many people both internally and in other companies to do the

marketing campaigns and this is very expensive. At our company we use our own

people to make our marketing campaigns or we also use some of our partners to

market our music service. This makes the cost lower than if we use many people

outside our company to market. (P4)

The interview responses reflected a basic agreement with the statements made

regarding the necessity of hiring skilled workers in the documents used for triangulation.

For example, the company’s Personnel Information Guidelines indicates that “we only

offer interviews to knowledgeable applicants that are relevant to our business model and

job requirements.” Similar statements were found in Spotify’s and Tencent Music’s IPO

documentation used for triangulation. According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration

Statement:

As our operations grow in size, scope, and complexity, we will need to improve

and upgrade our systems and infrastructure, which will require significant

expenditures and allocation of valuable technical and management resources. If

we fail to maintain efficiency and allocate limited resources effectively in our

organization as it grows, our business, operating results, and financial condition

may suffer. (Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 31)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

We believe that our future success depends significantly on our continuing ability

to attract, develop, motivate and retain our senior management and a sufficient

number of experienced and skilled employees. (Tencent Music Entertainment

Group, 2018, p. 36)

Outsourcing less positively influences a music streaming service’s profitability.

The responses from both P3 and P4 highlighted that the firm’s profitability was postively

influenced more by in-house departmental cooperation than by outsourcing. However,

P3 believed that the cooperation of the research and development departments to create

the best curated playlists was the most important. By contrast, P4 emphasized that the

firm’s profitability was most influenced by outsourcing less in the marketing department.

Hire and retain skilled workers. The third minor theme under optimizing

dynamic capabilities is to hire and retain skilled workers. The responses of P4 and P5

reaffirmed the findings of Bello, Radulovich, Javalgi, Scherer, and Taylor (2016), in

which employees with specific expertise were identified as essential human capital

required for firms in emergent markets to achieve profitability. P4 highlighted the

necessity of highering professional employees. P5 highlighted the importance of

highering employees to modernize marketing efforts, as well as, the importance of

retaining employees by rewarding them with incentives for meeting and exceeding the

expectations placed on them.

I think, first of all, about the people, the personnel inside the company. We try to

hire professional employees to maximize our working performance. (P4)

Our company’s employees have attempted to reduce costs by (a) modernizing

marketing efforts, such as networking more, developing strategic corporate

partnerships, cutting marketing costs by doing more in-house, increasing social

media, and reducing traditional marketing; (b) using efficient time strategies like

setting expectations for a reasonable amount of time to complete certain types of

tasks and offering incentives for meeting or exceeding those expectations; and (c)

maximizing employees’ skills. (P5)

Table 3

Optimization of Dynamic Capabilities

Minor Themes Frequency of Occurrence

Improve employee and task efficiencies 11

Outsource less 8

Hire and retain skilled workers 11

The interview responses aligned with similar statements on hiring and retaining

workers in the documents used for triangulation. For example, the company’s Personnel

Information Guidelines stated that “we have a stock incentive program for our key

employees and senior staffs. The success of employees is not just about career

advancement, but also a solid financial foundation (p. 5).” Similar statements regarding

hiring and retaining were found in Spotify’s and Tencent Music’s IPO documentation

used for triangulation.

According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Our future success depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate,

and retain highly qualified and skilled employees. All of our employees, including

our senior management, are free to terminate their employment relationship with

us at any time, and their knowledge of our business and industry may be difficult

to replace. Qualified individuals are in high demand, particularly in the digital

media industry, and we may incur significant costs to attract them. (Spotify

Technology S.A., 2018, p. 27)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Qualified individuals are in high demand, particularly in the online music

industry, and we may have to incur significant costs to attract and retain them.

Additionally, we use share-based awards to attract talented employees, and if the

ADSs decline in value, we may have difficulties recruiting and retaining qualified

employees. The loss of any key management or executive could be highly

disruptive and adversely affect our business operations and future growth.

(Tencent Music Entertainment Group, 2018, p. 37)

A firm’s profitability depends on the firm’s ability to create and capture value

through its dynamic capabilities, business model, and strategies. By optimizing the

firm’s dynamic capabilities, business leaders sense and seize the opportunities that

emerge in the market and influence profitability. Key strategic activities that help leaders

optimize the dynamic capabilities of their firms include, improving employee and task

efficiencies, outsourcing less, and hiring and retaining skilled workers.

Theme 2: Optimize Subscription Business Model

Participants indicated the need to optimize the subscription business model. The

minor themes related to optimizing the subscription business model were (a) creating the

best platform features, (b) designing the best music discovery system, and (c) developing

a dynamic personalized experience. The responses of P1 and P5 tied subscription fee

revenues to music streaming service profitability, which confirmed the findings of

Wlomert and Papies (2016). Additionally, Tencent Music Entertainment Group (2018)

confirmed the responses of P1 and P5 by emphasizing that both their current profitability

and future growth depends on the revenues generated through their subscription holders.

The theme optimizing the firm’s subscription business model emerged from Interview

Questions 1, 3, 4, and 5. Three of the five participants (60%) emphasized that generating

sustainable profits requires an optimized subscription business model.

To sustain and increase our revenues, our company must continue to have the best

music streaming service and the most convenient music streaming experience for

the users. Part of what makes our company the best is that we give the

subscription users benefits like higher quality music, free download music to

listen too offline, no commercial interruptions, the best platform features, and the

most personalized experience. We also give the subscription users the

recommendation and discovery system that our company has to help users find

the music they want to hear. (P1)

The subscription model gives our company higher profit margin revenues that we

need to generate profits. That is why our company focuses on converting the

huge number of free users that we have acquired over to subscription account

holders. Our subscription accounts now add up to approximately 20% of total

revenue. (P5)

The interview responses showed agreement with statements regarding the revenue

value of subscription holders in Spotify’s and Tencent Music’s IPO documents as well as

in the IFPI Global Music Report used for triangulation. For example, in Copyright and

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the Music Marketplace: A Report of The Register of Copyrights, Spotify states that its

subscription service “aims to regenerate this lost value by converting music fans from

these poorly monetized formats to our paid streaming format, which produces far more

value per listener.” (U.S. Copyright Office, 2015, p. 74).

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

We also offer certain privileges and benefits that are only available to paying

subscribers to encourage user spending and paying user conversion on our

platform. We will continue to explore alternative subscription models and

products, such as streaming-based fee models, to maximize the conversion and

monetization potential of our user base. (Tencent Music Entertainment Group,

2018, p. 149)

According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

As consumer tastes and preferences change on the internet and with mobile

devices and other internet-connected products, we will need to enhance and

improve our existing Service, introduce new services and features, and maintain

our competitive position with additional technological advances and an adaptable

platform. If we fail to keep pace with technological advances or fail to offer

compelling product offerings and state-of-the-art delivery platforms to meet

consumer demands, our ability to grow or sustain the reach of our Service, attract

and retain Users, and increase our Premium Subscribers may be adversely

affected. (Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 14)

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According to the Global Music Report 2018: Annual State of the Industry,

Driven by fans’ engagement with streaming – especially paid subscription audio

streaming – digital revenues now account for more than half (54%) of the global

recorded music market. Total streaming revenues increased by 41.1% and, for the

first time, became the single largest revenue source. By the end of 2017, there

were 176 million users of paid subscription accounts globally, with 64 million

having been added during the year. (IFPI, 2018, p. 10)

Generating sustainable profits requires optimizing a music streaming service’s

subscription business model. P1and P5 both believed that the optimization of the firm’s

subscription business model positively influenced their company’s profitability.

However, P1 and P5 differed on the type of optimizations of the subscription business

model that influenced their firm’s profitability the most. The following three minor

themes highlight the participants’ different perspectives on the optimization of the

subscription business model: (a) creating the best platform features, (b) designing the best

music discovery system, and (c) developing a dynamic personalized experience.

Create best platform features. The first minor theme under optimizing the

subscripton business model is to create the best platform features. The responses of P1

and P5 confirmed what Holm and Gunzel-Jensen (2017) found, which was that managers

of streaming services generate sustainable profits by continuously improving their

product and service value offerings through adding newer and better features.

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To accomplish our growth strategy, we invest in our research and development

department to build better features into the streaming service interface. If our

music streaming service has all the music that the users want to listen to and has

features for them to find new music to listen to that is easy to use, then we will

keep the subscription users we have and we will grow. For example, subscription

holders of our service stay because our service is the most convenient music

streaming experience. They can listen on any device and on any operating

system. (P1)

Since our company’s main goal now is to convert free users to paid subscription

users, we have attempted to increase and optimize the features of our music

streaming service to bring a dynamic and personal music streaming service to

users. (P5)

The interview responses reflected an agreement with similar statements regarding

the importance of product features in Spotify’s IPO documentation and in the IFPI Global

Music Report used for triangulation.

According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Investing in the User experience has and will continue to generate significant

benefits for our platform. As our personalization becomes more refined and music

discovery becomes more seamless, we believe we will increase our current Users’

engagement and will attract new Users to our platform. (Spotify Technology S.A.,

2018, p. 3)

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According to the Global Music Report 2017: Annual State of the Industry,

The global digital market is now seeing unprecedented competition, with

streaming services developing and extending their offerings around the world.

Rather than cannibalising the existing streaming base, these developments are

expanding it, providing fans with a more varied, richer experience and bringing

streaming to new audiences and new territories. (IFPI, 2017, p. 10)

Creating the best platform features positively influences a music streaming

service’s profitability. Both P1 and P5 beieved that the firm’s profitability was postively

influenced by creating the best platform features. P1 believed that the subscription

business model was most postively influenced by the development of more convenience

features for subscription users. By constrast, P5 emphasized that the firm’s profitability

was most influenced by the personalization features of the subscription business model.

Design best music discovery system. The second minor theme under optimizing

the subscripton business model is to design the best music discovery system. The

statement of P5 confirmed what Morris and Powers (2015) found, which was that the

primary goal and profitability of a music streaming service depends on the quality of the

discovery experience of new music. Additionally, the response of P5 reaffirmed Kjus

(2016) by tying the success of curated playlists on music streaming services to the users’

potential discovery of new artists.

A subscription account holder can enjoy high quality music, listen to music

without interruption from advertisements, enjoy free download, and enjoy a song

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discovery system which is a smooth and efficient way for music users to find out

the name of a particular song or artist when listening to music. (P5)

The interview responses aligned with similar statements regarding music

discovery in Spotify’s and Tencent Music’s IPO documentation used for triangulation.

According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Spotify has become an essential partner to both aspiring and established artists by

enabling their music to be discovered. Our playlists have become a key discovery

tool for Users to find new artists and new music from their favorite artists. Given

the success of our playlists in driving music discovery, they have become one of

the primary tools that labels, artists, and managers use in order to boost artists and

measure success. (Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 4)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Our ability to continue to grow our user base and engagement is driven by various

factors, including our ability to increase the breadth and attractiveness of our

content offerings; deliver differentiated user experiences; encourage users to use

multiple services across our platform; improve the social interaction features of

our platform; and enhance our brand reputation. However, certain factors may

cause the actual results to be materially different from our expectations. If we fail

to anticipate user preferences to provide online music entertainment content

catering to user demands, our ability to attract and retain users may be materially

and adversely affected.” (Tencent Music Entertainment Group, 2018, p. 96)

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Designing the best music discovery system positively influences a music

streaming service’s profitability. P5 emphasized that designing the best music discovery

system was an important factor to preventing the churn of subscription users. In other

words, users of music streaming services value the discovery of new music. All market

leading music streaming services provide users with access to millions of songs.

Consequently, users value the music discovery features on music streaming services more

when those features simplify their discovery of new songs and artists.

Develop dynamic personalized experience. The third minor theme under

optimizing the subscripton business model is to develop the dynamic personalized

experience. The responses of P1 and P5 confirmed what Prey (2017) found, which was

that music streaming services offer personalized music experiences because users

prioritize personalization features on music streaming apps and because music streaming

services use the data generated through personalization freatures to create narrow

advertising customer segments that demand higher advertisement rates. In this study, P1

highlighted the need of personalization features to match the contextual circumstances of

the customer with the customer’s preferred style of music. By contrast, P5 attributed the

overall success of the streaming service in the Southeastern Asian music market to the

streaming platform’s personalization features.

Personalized content that fits the moods and the type of music the users like is

very important to growth and profit because music streaming is both about access

to music and about discovery of more music that the listeners would like. (P1)

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Our music service is a leader in the music streaming industry because we offer a

music streaming service with extraordinary, dynamic and personal music

streaming experiences for users. Our service has become a famous and popular

music platform with music users in Southeastern Asia over the last 10 years of

foundation and development. We will stay the leader by giving the users the best

personalized music experience. (P5)

Table 4

Optimize Subscription Business Model

Minor Themes Frequency of Occurrence

Create best platform features 10

Design best music discovery system 12

Develop dynamic personalized experience 8

The interview responses reflected agreement with similar statements regarding

personalized experience in Spotify’s and Tencent Music’s IPO documentation as well as

in the IFPI Global Music Report used for triangulation. According to Spotify’s Form F-1

Registration Statement:

We have a large and growing base of Users that are highly engaged on Spotify,

which enables us to continuously learn about their listening behaviors throughout

the day. We use this information to create a more personalized and engaging

experience for each incremental visit to our platform. We believe this

personalized experience is a key competitive advantage as Users are more likely

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to engage with a platform that reflects their real-time moods and activities and

captures a unique understanding of moments in their lives. (Spotify Technology

S.A., 2018, p. 3)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Furthermore, our key and long-term priority of optimizing user experience and

satisfaction may limit our ability to significantly grow our advertising revenues.

For example, in order to provide our users with an uninterrupted online music

entertainment experience, we limit the amount of advertising on our streaming

interface or pop-up advertisements during streaming. While this may adversely

affect our operating results in the short-term, we believe it enables us to provide a

superior user experience which will enable us to expand current user base and

strengthen our monetization potential in the long-term. However, this philosophy

of prioritizing user experience may also negatively impact our relationships with

advertisers and may not result in the long-term benefits that we expect, in which

case the success of our business, financial condition and results of operations

could be materially and adversely. (Tencent Music Entertainment Group, 2018, p.

39)

According to the Global Music Report 2017: Annual State of the Industry,

A widening of streaming’s demographic is highlighted as key to the growth of all

industry sectors by Glen Barros, CEO of Concord Music Group. “Streaming

growth to date has not been uniform; it ran a little lopsided, weighted towards

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certain genres and appealing to a younger demographic. We don’t want to leave

anybody behind. We want all genres to be represented and all types of consumers

to feel comfortable in the streaming environment.” (IFPI, 2017, p. 19)

According to Christensen (1997), disruptive innovators create products and

services for niche customers that have been ignored by the industry leading incumbents.

In the music streaming industry, disruptive companies have a more precise understanding

of the specific musical interests of local music consumers. Incumbents are at a

disadvantage over the disruptors because incumbents do not have as clear of an

understanding of the local market. The interviewed participants highlighted that their

company was able to maintain their market share because of their local music market

knowledge, even after the entrance of incumbents like Spotify and Apple music.

Optimizing the subscription business model is important because the subscription

business model is the highest profit margin aspect of a music streaming service. By

optimizing the subscription business model, business leaders increase the perceived

monetary value of their subscription service and improve the capture of that value

through subscription fees, which influences the profitability of the firm. Key strategic

activities that help leaders optimize the subscription business model include, creating the

best platform features, designing the best music discovery system, and developing a

dynamic personalized music experience that drives the growth of subscription account

holders.

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Theme 3: Focus on the Niche of Local Music

The third theme identified as a strategy used to generate sustainable profits was to

focus on the niche of local music. As shown in Table 5, the minor themes related to

focusing on the niche of local music were (a) offering direct artist to fan merchandise

sales and (b) directly licensing local music. The theme focusing on local music emerged

from Interview Questions 6 and 7. In this study, four of the five participants (80%)

identified that the firm’s focus on local music was key to the firm’s market success and

profitability. The statements of P2 and P3 confirmed what Christensen et al. (2016)

found, which was that disruptive innovations begin in new or niche markets and offer

customers in those niche markets specialized services and products that niche customers

desire.

We have been good at our growth strategy because that is easier for our company

to control. We know the local Southeastern Asian music market and we know

what kinds of music they want to hear. So we work hard to give the our service

users what they want and to make their experience as personal and convenient as

possible. We focus on quality and consistency and on giving the users the most

local music they want. We do not focus on worldwide dominance. (P2)

The largest expenses for music streaming services are (a) the cost of content

acquisition, which is a variable cost (b) operating costs, like marketing, research

and development, and personnel or administrative staff, and (c) other various

fixed costs, like servers. (P3)

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The interview responses reflected agreement with similar statements regarding

localized content in Spotify’s and Tencent Music’s IPO documentation as well as in the

government and professional reports used for triangulation. According to Copyright and

the Music Marketplace: A Report of The Register of Copyrights:

A streaming service that does not fall under the section 112 and 114 licenses—

i.e., an interactive service—must negotiate a license with a record company in

order to use the label’s sound recordings. Since direct licenses are agreed upon at

the discretion of the copyright owner and the potential licensee, the license terms

can be vastly different from those that apply under the statutory regime. It is

common for a music service seeking a sound recording license from a label to pay

a substantial advance against future royalties, and sometimes an administrative

fee. Other types of consideration may also be involved. (U.S. Copyright Office,

2015, p. 52)

According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Since our inception in April 2006, we have incurred significant operating losses

and as of December 31, 2017, had an accumulated deficit of €(2,427) million. For

the years ended December 31, 2015, 2016, and 2017, our operating losses were

€(235) million, €(349) million, and €(378) million, respectively. We have

incurred significant costs to license content and continue to pay royalties to music

labels, publishers, and other copyright owners for such content. We cannot assure

you that we will generate sufficient revenue from the sale of our Premium Service

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and advertising for our Ad-Supported Service to offset the cost of our content and

these royalty expenses. If we cannot successfully earn revenue at a rate that

exceeds the operational costs, including royalty expenses, associated with our

Service, we will not be able to achieve or sustain profitability or generate positive

cash flow on a sustained basis. (Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 17)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Our ability to attract and retain our users, drive user engagement and deliver a

superior online music entertainment experience depends largely on our ability to

continue to offer attractive content, including songs, playlists, video, lyrics, live

streaming of music performances and karaoke-related content. Music that was

once well-received by our users may become less attractive if user preferences

evolve. The success of our business relies on our ability to anticipate changes in

user preferences and industry dynamics, and respond to such changes in a timely,

appropriate and cost-effective manner. If we fail to cater to the tastes and

preferences of our users, or fail to deliver superior user experiences, we may

suffer from reduced user traffic and engagement, and our business, financial

condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

(Tencent Music Entertainment Group, 2018, p. 25)

According to the Global Music Report 2017: Annual State of the Industry,

Alfonso Perez Soto, VP Business Development LATAM at Warner Music Group,

agrees: We need fans to convert to paying for music subscription services and that

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means digital platforms need to offer a range of ways for people to pay. Digital

services also need to localise their businesses, with people on the ground in

different markets in the same way record companies have. Once they’ve started to

produce more local editorial content and forge local partnerships, then they will

be in an even better position to unlock the huge potential of this vast regional

market. (IFPI, 2017, p. 23)

According to the Global Music Report 2018: Annual State of the Industry,

Universal Music’s Dworkin, meanwhile, heralds a wholly encouraging

transformation of the competitive (but connected) landscape. We have hundreds

of singlemarket services providing exceptionally highly localised experiences; we

have massively scaled global pure plays and platforms driving product

innovation; we have social media companies large and small competing around

ad-funded UGC. We have the richest patchwork of partnerships that I can recall in

my 20 years in the industry. (IFPI, 2018, p. 21)

Focusing on the niche of local music positively influences the profitability of a

music streaming service. The responses from P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5 varied on how

focusing on the niche of local music influenced their company’s profitability. The

following two minor themes highlight the different responses of the participants (a) offer

direct artist to fan merchandise and (b) directly license local music.

Offer direct artist to fan merchandise sales. The first minor theme under

focusing on the niche of local music is to offer direct artist to fan merchandise sales. The

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responses of P1 and P5 reaffirmed what Bello et al. (2016) found, which was that unique

service offerings create a competitive advantage for the service provider by increasing the

perceived value of that service to the user. Additionally, Tencent Music Entertainment

Group (2018) confirmed the responses of P1 and P5 by highlighting that the majority of

their profits come from revenues generated through unique value offerings to their users.

To generate additional revenue, we help the music artists market themselves and

their merchandise to their fans. We make commissions for doing this when the

artists make a sale of merchandise. This is not yet a big amount of revenue for

our company but it is growing. (P1)

We continually look to innovate new ways to enhance our music streaming

service platform. Recently, our company has added a special feature to earn

commissions for selling merchandise of music artists on our streaming service

to music fans on two of our B2C subscription packages. (P5)

The interview responses echoed similar statements made regarding the necessity

of alternative revenue in Spotify’s and Tencent Music’s IPO documentation used for

triangulation. According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Cost of revenue consists predominantly of royalty and distribution costs related to

content streaming. We incur royalty costs, which we pay to certain music record

labels, publishers, and other rights holders, for the right to stream music to our

Users. Royalties are typically calculated monthly based on the combination of a

number of different elements. Generally, Premium Service royalties are based on

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the greater of a percentage of revenue and a per User amount, while royalties for

the Ad-Supported Service are based on the greater of a percentage of revenue and

an amount for each time a sound recording and musical composition is streamed.

(Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 65)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

We strive to generate creative ideas for content acquisition and to source high-

quality content, including both popular, mainstream content and long-tail content.

Sourcing attractive content may be challenging, expensive and time consuming.

We have invested and intend to continue to invest substantial resources in content

acquisition. However, we may not be able to successfully source attractive

content or to recover our content acquisition investments. Any deterioration in our

content quality, failure to anticipate user preferences, inability to acquire

attractive content, or any negative feedback of users to our existing content

offerings may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition

and operating results. (Tencent Music Entertainment Group, 2018, p. 25)

Offering direct artist to fan merchandise positively influences a music streaming

service’s profitability. Both P1 and P5 agreed that offering direct artist to fan

merchandise positively influenced the profitability of their firm. However, P5

emphasized that merchandising revenue was growing but downplayed the influence that

direct fan to artist merchandising had on profitability.

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Directly license local music. The second minor theme under focusing on the

niche of local music is to directly license local music. Directly licensing local music

helps to generate sustainable profits by reducing the high costs of content acquisition. In

this study, both P3 and P4 emphasized that directly licensing local music helped generate

sustainable profits because obtaining local music was not only cheaper but was also the

type of music their customers wanted to listen too. According to Spotify Technology

S.A. (2018), for the Spotify business model, the intended cost of content acquisition was

70 percent of total revenue, however, the actual cost of content acquistion for Spotify was

over 80 percent in 2017. By contrast, Tencent Music Entertainment Group (2018)

confirmed the responses of P3 and P4 by emphasizing that lower costs of content

acquisition were a primary reason for their profitability. Thus, by identifying that

directly licensing local music as a profitability enhancement strategy, the statements of

P3 and P4 extend the body of knowledge on music streaming profitability.

However, we cannot reduce the major expense of content acquisition and that is

the most major expense we have. This is normal for other music streaming

companies too. The cost of content acquisition is a necessity but it is always far

too much money. I wish we could reduce that cost because it would be easier to

make more money that way. But we have to have access for our users to the

famous music of major record labels and they have the most power during the

negotiations to license copyright content. So our ability to affect and control

expenses is limited to the smaller costs not the bigger costs. Getting copyrights

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directly from local music artists is less expensive than getting the famous music

and our users like local music. And we control the negotiations with local music

artists more. (P3)

The most expensive cost for a music streaming company is the cost of content

acquisition. All music streaming companies try to find ways to reduce this cost

because it is so high and makes profiting for music streaming services very

difficult. Our company also uses strategies to try to lower the cost of content.

More important is that we focus on trying to find local music that our customers

want to listen too. Having the most local music makes us unique. (P4)

Table 5

Focus on Niche of Local Music

Minor Themes Frequency of Occurrence

Offer direct artist to fan merchandise sales 7

Directly license local music 13

The interview responses aligned with similar statements about the high cost of

content acquisition in Spotify’s and Tencent Music’s IPO documentation as well as in the

IFPI Global Music Report used for triangulation. According to Spotify’s Form F-1

Registration Statement:

We rely on music rights holders, over whom we have no control, for the content

we make available on our Service. We cannot guarantee that these parties will

always choose to license to us. The music industry has a high level of

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concentration, which means that one or a small number of entities may, on their

own, take actions that adversely affect our business. For example, with respect to

sound recordings, the music licensed to us under our agreements with Universal

Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Merlin,

makes up the majority of music consumed on our Service. For the year ended

December 31, 2017, this content accounted for approximately 87% of streams.

(Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 15-16)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Significant portions of our music offerings are licensed from our music content

partners, which include music publishers and labels, such as Sony Music

Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Emperor

Entertainment Group and China Record Group Co., Ltd. with whom we have

entered into master distribution and licensing agreements. There is no assurance

that the licenses currently available to us will continue to be available in the future

at rates and on terms that are favorable, commercially reasonable or at all.

The royalty rates and other terms of these licenses may change as a result of

various reasons beyond our control, such as changes in our bargaining power,

changes in the industry, or changes in the law or regulatory environment. If our

music content partners are no longer willing or able to license content to us on

terms acceptable to us, the breadth or quality of our content offerings may be

adversely affected or our content acquisition costs may increase. Likewise,

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increases in royalty rates or changes to other terms of our licenses may materially

and adversely affect the breadth and quality of our music content offerings and

may, in turn, materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and

results of operations. (Tencent Music Entertainment Group, 2018, p. 25)

According to the Global Music Report 2018: Annual State of the Industry,

Another effect of the rise of streaming is the simultaneous extension of global

reach and the localisation of repertoire. Artists from outside those territories (and

genres) traditionally dominant in the music industry can now reach fans all over

the world in an unprecedented number of ways. At the same time, local scenes are

also being discovered and nurtured, creating homegrown stars who are able to

build their careers to previously unimagined levels…. The globalisation process

has opened up the worldwide market for a more diverse mix of artists and genres,

but, at the same time, the democratisation and transparency of streaming has

allowed culturally specific music to flourish on home turf rather than shrink in the

shadow of US and UK superstars. (IFPI, 2018, p. 23)

According to Christensen (1997), disruptive innovations focus on providing

products and services for niche customers that have been neglected by the mainstream

incumbents. As disruptors, music streaming services gain a competitive advantage over

incumbents by understanding the demands of local music consumers and by providing

unique content and experiences that meet those demands. The interviewed participants

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highlighted that their company’s success resulted primarily from their local music market

focus.

Focusing on local music is an important driver for a music streaming service to

generate sustainable profits. By focusing on local music, leaders (a) create services and

products for underserved niche customers, (b) increase the perceived value and

uniqueness of their music streaming service, and (c) lower the cost of content acquisition,

which influences the profitability of the firm. Key strategic activities that help leaders

focus on local music include, offering direct artist to fan merchandise sales and directly

licensing local music.

Theme 4: Optimize the Freemium Business Model

The fourth theme identified as a strategy used to generate sustainable profits was

to optimize the freemium business model. The minor themes related to optimizing the

freemium business model were (a) improving the conversion to subscription rate and (b)

increasing advertisement revenue. The theme optimizing the freemium business model

originated from Interview Questions 2, 3, 4, and 5. Four of the five participants (80%)

agreed that the optimization of the freemium business model influenced the profits of the

firm. The responses of P1, P2, P3, and P4 confirmed what Holm and Gunzel-Jensen

(2017) found, which was that firms with successful freemium business models focus

continuously on growth and innovation. Additionally, Koch and Benlian (2016)

supported the statements of P1, P2, P3, and P4 by explaining that freemium services

struggle to profit from freemium business models when the marginal costs necessary to

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maintain freemium users include royalties and when advertisements do not generate

enough supporting revenue.

Our company’s revenue model has two parts. One part is a free service that is

supported by revenue from advertisements. Another part is a subscription service

for people who pay a small amount each month. For the free service, our company

works to acquire more users. To acquire more users, our company must market

the benefits of the our service to as many people as possible. The free service

works as a funnel for music consumers who first become freemium users of our

service and then eventually become subscription service users. (P1)

Our company grows profits by marketing our music service to the Southeastern

Asian music market. We first try to attract and acquire new free users and then

we work to convert those freemium users to the premium subscription service.

The subscription users generate much more revenue than the ad-supported users

do. That is why we prioritize the conversion of the freemium users to

subscription users. Our primary conversion strategy is to make better and more

personalized products and services that the subscription holders can enjoy. If the

our music streaming service has all the music that the users want to listen to and

has a way for them to find new music to listen to that is easy to find then we will

keep the subscription users we have and we will grow. (P3)

We have implemented different strategies overtime to develop more business and

gain revenue. Phase one was to acquire users. Five years ago, we aimed to

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acquire users and increase our brand awareness. Users could enjoy music 24/7

ubiquitously and it was free of charge. The revenue mainly came from

advertisements, accounted for 90% and from investors. Phase two was to convert

free users to paid users. During phase two, the main goal in these recent years has

been to convert the huge number of free users that we have acquired over last 10

years to subscription account holders. Subscription account holders now account

for 20% of our total revenue. (P5)

The interview responses aligned with similar statements about the optimization of

the freemium business model in the documents used for triangulation. According to

Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Our ability to grow our business and generate revenue depends on retaining and

expanding our total User base, increasing advertising revenue by effectively

monetizing our Ad-Supported User base, and increasing the number of Premium

Subscribers. We must convince prospective Users of the benefits of our Service

and our existing Users of the continuing value of our Service. (Spotify

Technology S.A., 2018, p. 14)

According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

We rely on advertising revenue from our Ad-SupportedService, and any failure to

convince advertisers of the benefits of our Ad-Supported Service in the future

could harm our business, operating results, and financial condition…

We may not

succeed in capturing a greater share of our advertisers’ core marketing budgets,

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particularly if we are unable to achieve the scale, reach, products, and market

penetration necessary to demonstrate the effectiveness of our advertising

solutions, or if our advertising model proves ineffective or not competitive when

compared to other alternatives and platforms through which advertisers choose to

invest their budgets. (Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 32)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

We continue to implement new technologies, introduce new features and tools, as

well as improve user experience in order to encourage users to access our

platform more frequently and for longer periods of time, and ultimately to

increase their spending on our platform. We also use direct marketing tools

deployed through our platform interfaces to convert our users into paying users.

(Tencent Music Entertainment Group, 2018, p. 150)

Generating sustainable profits requires optimizing a music streaming service’s

freemium business model. The responses from P1, P2, P3, and P4 reflected a general

agreement that the optimization of the freemium business model positively influenced

their company’s profitability. However, the participants’s also gave reponses that

revealed nuances on what type of freemium business model optimization influenced their

company’s profitability the most. The following two minor themes highlight the

participants’ varied responses on optimizing the freemium business model: (a) improving

the conversion to subscription rate and (b) increasing advertisement revenue (Table 6).

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Improve the conversion to subscription rate. The first minor theme under

optimizing the freemium business model is to improve the conversion to subscription

rate. According to Spotify Technology S.A. (2018), for the Spotify business model, the

average revenue per user (ARPU) is more than 14 times higher from subscription holders

than freemium users. The statements of P1 and P3 confirmed what Wlomert and Papies

(2016) found, which was that the usefulness of the freemium business model is to

facilitate the acquisition of new service users. Additionally, Wlomert and Papies

supported the statements of P1 and P3 by empasizing that advertisement revenues do not

often support the freemium business model expenses.

Once our service has a freemium user, then we work to convert that freemium

user to a subscription holder because the subscription holders are more profitable

to our service than the freemium users. The reason for this profit margin

difference is because the advertisements that support the freemium service do not

amount to fully support the high number of freemium users like the premium

subscription monthly fee does. (P1)

Our company grows profits by acquiring new users for the music service from the

Southeastern Asia music market. We first try to attract and acquire new free users

and then we work to convert those freemium users to the premium subscription

service. The subscription holders generate much more revenue than the ad-

supported users do. That is why we prioritize the conversion of the freemium

users to subscription holders. (P3)

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This cost of marketing free users to convert over to subscription holders is the

most important because the profit margin for subscription holders is more than for

free users. Too many free users lowers our overall revenues because

advertisements do not pay as much as subscriptions. (P4)

The interview responses aligned with similar statements about the conversion of

freemium users to premium users in the documents used for triangulation. For example,

Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement stated that “Our results of operations depend

largely on our ability to convert our vast user base into paying users.” (Tencent Music

Entertainment Group, 2018, p. 96). Additionally, similar statements on user conversion

were found in Spotify’s IPO documentation as well as in the IFPI Global Music Reports

used for triangulation. According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

We must convince prospective Users of the benefits of our Service and our

existing Users of the continuing value of our Service. Our ability to attract new

Users, retain existing Users, and convert Ad-Supported Users to Premium

Subscribers depends in large part on our ability to continue to offer leading

technologies and products, compelling content, superior functionality, and an

engaging User experience. (Spotify Technology S.A., 2018, p. 14)

According to the Global Music Report 2017: Annual State of the Industry,

Sony Music’s President, Global Digital Business & US Sales, Dennis Kooker,

says: When we look back, 2016 may have been a tipping point for streaming and,

most importantly, for paid subscription streaming. A year ago we listed driving

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paid subscription as the number one priority, so that has been a positive

development

and a lot of hard work went into that. (IFPI, 2017, p. 16)

According to the Global Music Report 2018: Annual State of the Industry,

Sony Music’s CEO of China and Taiwan, Samuel Chou, also picks up on the

importance of switching to paid audio subscriptions: The demand for music here

has always been huge, but what we are seeing now, and what needs to continue, is

digital music platforms encouraging people towards payment models. The key to

that process is providing reasons and incentives to switch, possibly through

exclusive new content, more choice and higher quality of audio and service.

(IFPI, 2018, p. 34)

Improving the conversion to subscription rate positively influences a music

streaming service’s profitability. P1, P3, and P4 all agreed that improving the conversion

of freemium users to subscription holders influenced their firm’s ability to generate

profits the most. The responses of P1, P3, and P4 each emphasized the insufficiency of

advertisement revenues to cover the costs of freemium users as the primary reason for the

importance of improving the conversion of freemium users to subscription account

holders. By comparison, P1, P3, and P4 each emphasized the profit margin sufficiency of

subscription account holder fees compared to the costs attributed to providing the music

streaming service to account holders.

Increase advertisement revenue. The second minor theme under optimizing the

freemium business model is to increase advertisement revenue. As shown in Table 6, the

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second minor theme occurred during coding 19 times. The statement of P2 confirmed

what Wlomert and Papies (2016) found by highlighting that the profitability of the

freemium business model depends on the firm’s achievement of charging higer

advertisement rates and obtaining more advertisement sales.

A primary focus of ours is to increase the ad revenue by charging more for ads

and by selling more ads on our streaming app because we need to both sell more

ads and to sell more expensive ads to help the freemium service pay for the free

users. Otherwise it is difficult to make a profit from the freemium service. (P2)

Table 6

Optimize the Freemium Business Model

Minor Themes Frequency of Occurrence

Improve the conversion to subscription rate 30

Increase advertisement revenue 19

The interview responses aligned with similar statements regarding advertisement

revenues in Spotify’s and Tencent Music’s IPO documentation used for triangulation.

According to Spotify’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

In addition, in order to increase our advertising revenue, we also seek to increase

the listening time that our Ad-Supported Users spend on our Ad-

Supported Service. The more content we stream under the Ad-Supported Service,

the more advertising inventory we have to sell. Further, growth in our Ad-

Supported User base increases the size and scope of user pools targeted by

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advertisers, which improves our ability to deliver relevant advertising to those

Users in a manner that maximizes our advertising customers’ return on

investment and, ultimately, demonstrates the effectiveness of our advertising

solutions and justifies a pricing structure that is advantageous for us. If we fail to

grow our Ad-Supported User base, the amount of content streamed, and the

listening time spent by our Ad-Supported Users, we may be unable to grow Ad-

Supported revenue. Moreover, given that Premium Subscribers primarily are

sourced from the conversion of our Ad-Supported Users to Premium Subscribers,

any failure to grow our Ad-Supported User base or convert Ad-Supported Users

to Premium Subscribers may negatively impact our revenue. (Spotify Technology

S.A., 2018, p. 14)

According to Tencent’s Form F-1 Registration Statement:

Our advertising revenues depend on the overall growth of the online advertising

industry in China and advertisers’ continued willingness to deploy online

advertising as part of the advertised spend. In addition, advertisers may choose

more established Chinese internet portals or search engines over on our platform.

If the online advertising market does not continue to grow, or if we are unable to

capture and retain a sufficient share of that market, our ability to grow our

advertising revenues may be materially and adversely affected. (Tencent Music

Entertainment Group, 2018, p. 39)

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According to Christensen (1997), disruptive innovations evolve over time to meet

the needs of niche customers with more technological sophistication. Music streaming

services evolve in technological sophistication for both the freemium users as well as the

advertising customers. The increased technological sophistication efforts of the

participant company focused on increasing the conversion rate and increasing the

advertisement revenue.

Optimizing the freemium business model is important because the freemium

business model is less profitable than the subscription business model. However, the

freemium business model is essential to profitability and growth in the Southeastern

Asian music market where the popularity of music streaming subscription services is

much lower than in the Western music markets. By optimizing the freemium business

model, leaders allow potential subscribers to try the music streaming service before they

buy the music streaming service, which influences the profitability of the firm.

Consequently, when a freemium business model is necessary for growth in the local

market, leaders should prioritize improving the conversion to subscription rate and

increasing the advertisement revenue to generate sustainable revenues for the firm.

Applications to Professional Practice

The findings of this study have many applications to both business strategy

scholars and music streaming practitioners. Specifically, music streaming leaders should

balance growing the user base of their music streaming platforms alongside the difficult

task of generating sustainable revenues. The lack of profitability of the music streaming

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business model despite the rapid growth of the music streaming industry has been a

recurrent theme in music streaming strategy literature (Aguiar & Waldfogel, 2017; Butz,

Stifel, Schultz, & O’Neill, 2017; IFPI, 2017). The findings of this study extend the body

of knowledge on the topic of business model profitability as it is represented within the

conceptual framework of disruptive innovation by providing many proven and practical

strategies from music streaming leaders who have generated sustainable profits from their

business models.

The findings of this study highlighted four important strategies that influence the

profitability of music streaming services. The four strategies are (a) to optimize the

dynamic capabilities of the firm, (b) to optimize the subscription business model, (c) to

focus on the niche of local music, and (d) to optimize the freemium business model. By

optimizing the firm’s dynamic capabilities, business leaders will more readily sense and

seize the opportunities that emerge in the market and influence profitability. Similarly,

by optimizing the subscription and freemium business models, business leaders will

increase the perceived monetary value of their subscription service and improve the

conversion rate of freemium users. At the same time, business leaders can focus the

strategic efforts of their company on the underserved niche of local music, which will

influence the firm’s profitability by generating nontraditional revenues and by reducing

the cost of content acquisition.

The results of this study could provide music streaming leaders insights regarding

how to differentiate the value and uniqueness of their product and service offering to

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positively influence profitability. In emergent markets, music streaming leaders should

overcome user mindsets that have grown used to consuming pirated music by creating

personalized music experiences worth paying for. The findings of this study suggest that

music streaming leaders can attract a larger volume of potential users by focusing on the

underserved niche of local music and by deliberately creating new platform features that

cater to the needs and desires of the local music audience.

Implications for Social Change

The music streaming industry is the most rapidly changing and impactful area of

the music business. Music streaming leaders who can sense and seize the opportunities

that emerge in the market will have more success at achieving profitability for their firm.

The findings of this study could be valuable to music streaming service leaders who need

to generate sustainable revenues and lack the strategies to do so on their own.

The findings of this study might promote social change by generating awareness

of proven strategies leading to sustainable profits for music streaming services and job

security for artists who contribute to sustaining or increasing local economies cashflows

and taxable incomes. Specifically, this study could be useful to music streaming leaders

who want to differentiate their music streaming service from other competitors in the

local market. This study could also be beneficial to music streaming leaders who want

their service to implement a disruptive innovation strategy.

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Recommendations for Action

The path of disruption is very specific and not something that can be followed

haphazardly. Disruptive innovations succeed when innovative companies offer new

features to customers in new markets at a low cost (Christensen et al., 2015; King &

Baatartogtokh, 2015). Teece (2018) emphasized that the combination of a firm’s

strategies, dynamic capabilities, and business models directly relate to the firm’s ability

to generate profits. To successfully generate profits, leaders should understand how to

adjust and innovate the business models in use at their firm according to their business

strategies and the firm’s dynamic capabilities.

The target audience for the results of this study is threefold. The first target

audience for this study is music streaming leaders who want to monetize their position as

a disruptive innovator in the global music industry. The findings of this study identified

three specific choices that positively influence the profitability of a music streaming

service, such as (a) optimizing the firm’s dynamic capabilities, (b) optimizing the

subscription and the freemium business models, and (c) focusing on the niche of local

music. The community of music streaming research and development professionals is

the second target audience for the results of this study. The findings of this study

emphasized the importance of developing music streaming service features capable of

delivering a high level of personalization and discovery to music streaming users.

The third target audience for this study is the community of music streaming-

interested academics and professionals who want to effect social change through either

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their research or through their entrepreneurship. The findings of this study not only

explain the lack of profitability problem that persists in the music streaming industry but

also highlight proven strategies to reduce costs and enhance revenues that influence the

profitability of the firm. The dissemination of the findings of this study could be done

through music streaming industry conferences, music technology conferences, and peer-

reviewed journals that cover the topics related to music streaming, business model

innovation, and disruptive business model innovation.

Recommendations for Further Research

The purpose of this descriptive single case study was to explore strategies some

global music streaming leaders use to generate sustainable profits through their business

models. Additionally, the participants for this study included leaders of a successful

Southeastern Asian music streaming service. Future research could explore the

profitability strategies used by music streaming leaders whose firm is headquartered in a

different part of the world. A list of potential questions for a future qualitative study on

the profitability strategies used by music streaming leaders could include the following:

1. What business model adjustments have you made that have influenced the

profitability of your company the most and least?

2. What is the relationship between the growth of your subscription service user

base and the copyright acquisition cost negotiations with the major record

labels?

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3. What strategic partnerships has your company made with other businesses that

have influenced the profitability of your firm?

4. Do you see any new areas in the music streaming industry ripe for another

disruptive innovation?

Five primary limitations pertained to this study. Differences in spoken native

language, geopolitical culture, and research communication norms formed the basis for

three out of five of the limitations. Future researchers who change any or all of the basic

limitations of my study may even be able to ask the same questions as I did and end up

with completely different responses. Additionally, future researchers could enhance their

research by conducting a mixed method study that could explore qualitative and

quantitative aspects of the profitability strategies used by music streaming leaders.

Reflections

My experience of the DBA Doctoral Study process was often comparable to

riding a roller coaster. Satisfying my curiosity was the original reason I chose to explore

the profitability strategies used by music streaming leaders through the conceptual

framework of disruptive innovation for this study. Then, shortly after my prospectus for

this study was approved, I experienced much more difficulty than I expected. Every

music streaming service I asked to participate in my research said no and indicated that

their protection of trade secrets prohibited their employees from participating in a study.

At the same time, I realized that I could not easily change the topic I had gotten approved

in my prospectus without experiencing significant delays. That was when I realized I had

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to finish what I had started despite the anxiety induced by the slow and arduous climb up

the first mountain; finding willing participants.

My anxiety returned to joy at the top of the first mountain when a friend of my

family helped me identify a music streaming service willing to participate in my study.

Maybe it was my naivete as a new academic researcher that convinced me I had nothing

more to fear about the remainder of the DBA Doctoral Study process ahead of me. On

the other hand, maybe it was my unfamiliarity with academic bureaucracy at the doctoral

level that gave me unrealistic expectations about what it would take for me to finish my

study and graduate. Suffice to say, I experienced many more ups and downs between

finding willing participants and articulating these reflections of mine. However, I have

learned to enjoy the process and to focus on one task at a time. Additionally, I have come

to know that my doctoral study committee members are good people who value

education and research as much as I do. I am lucky to have the support of a helpful

doctoral study committee.

My preconceived ideas about the strategies that could positively influence the

profitability of a music streaming service were mostly confirmed by the data and the

responses of the participants. I was happily surprised that the participants in my study

were as easy to work with as I had hoped they would be. Conducting participant

interviews from the opposite side of the world took quite a bit of scheduling coordination.

However, the Skype interviews went over as well as if I had conducted face to face

interviews. The biggest change in thought for me was that I now believe the path to

135

financial profitability for music streaming services depends on a local music focus.

Previously, I assumed that achieving scale through worldwide growth would eventually

result in profitability. I held that assumption because, before I conducted this study, the

majority of my understanding came from reading articles that discussed Spotify only.

However, Spotify has never generated a penny of profit in over a decade of doing

business. To the contrary, Spotify has only generated billions in both debt and losses.

Consequently, doing this study has revealed to me the errors of my original assumption

that I learned from Spotify, which was that eventually achieving worldwide scale would

solve the music streaming service business model profitability woes. I now know that

assumption argued by Spotify is nothing more than marketing hype used to raise

investment dollars by distracting investors from seeing the obvious problem about

investing in Spotify, which is that Spotify’s business model is inherently unprofitable.

Going through the DBA Doctoral Study process, has been for me the experience I

hoped it would be. For me, the process was interesting, difficult, meaningful, and

educational. Dozens of times I felt like quitting but instead stayed the course. My final

thought is that accomplishing great things in life, like finishing this doctoral study, should

take a lot of hard work, endurance, and persistence because that is what a scholar needs to

positively influence social change.

Conclusion

Since I began the research for this study, the global music market grew another

8.1%, which was 2.2% faster than the growth rate of the previous year, and generated

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total revenues of $17.3 billion (IFPI, 2018). Further, the IFPI (2018) reported $6.6

billion in total music streaming revenue, which was a 41.1% growth from 2017. As a

result, music streaming revenue accounts for 38.4% of the total global music industry

revenue. However, leaders in the music streaming industry have still not achieved a

sustainable music streaming business model (IFPI, 2018). Thus, the relevance and

timeliness of the findings of this study are more apropos now than when this study began.

137

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