Keywords: cluster, academic publishers, path dependence, historical continuity, local embeddedness, Amsterdam, ElsevierWhereas Amsterdam functioned as Europe’s main publishing center in the 17th century, the 18th and 19th centuries seemed to have formed a period of relative decline for Amsterdam’s publishers. After World War II, however, their fortunes have improved. The city has benefited from the steady rise of The Netherlands’ share of the global market for academic and professional information publishing, drawing the headquarters of the world’s largest players in this market into its orbit. And while the number of publishing houses in The Hague, the country’s second publishing center, has decreased over this period, Amsterdam-based publishing houses have not relocated. The renewed success of the publishing sector in Amsterdam has coincided with major international changes in terms of the technologies utilized in publishing, access to foreign markets, and a general rise in demand for academic and professional information literature.This paper focuses on the question of how the local embeddedness and cluster dynamics of the Amsterdam publishing sector have affected its international market position. By comparing developments in Amsterdam to those in other European publishing centers we will show the significance of Amsterdam’s specific institutional heritage and publishing traditions in encouraging and guiding the performance of the city’s publishing houses on an increasingly globalized market. This paper is part of the ongoing research project ‘Places and their Culture. The evolution of Dutch Cultural Industries from an International Perspective, 1600-2000’ (AMIDSt – Universiteit van Amsterdam and OGC – Utrecht Universiteit). The entire project utilizes the perspectives of path dependency and evolutionary socio-economics.

Executive Summary: This master’s thesis researches the Norwegian book publishing industry, and the capabilities of incumbent publishers in ensuring long-term competitiveness and industry health. The impact of digitalization and the disruptive potential it presents to the publishing industry is the phenomenon deeming the thesis relevant. Departing from the resource-based view, the thesis applies dynamic capabilities theory in the creation of an initial framework investigating whether incumbent publishers have the capabilities required in a dynamic context characterized by digitalization. The initial framework emphasize that capabilities related to sensing market changes, seizing opportunities, and managing threats and reconfigurations are needed to succeed in the future publishing industry. However, distinctive aspects of the Norwegian publishing industry are highlighted: the Book Agreement legitimizing retail price maintenance, the level of vertical integration, and a standardization of contracts with authors. The distinctive aspects contribute to incumbents dominating the industry, and are analyzed to constitute sources of inertia. Consequently, dynamic capabilities theory is found insufficient in explaining how incumbent Norwegian publishers are to be relevant in a digital era. Thus, the need for a new framework emerges, resulting in the application of ecosystem and activity system theory. The subsequent analysis shows that thinking of publishing as an ecosystem reveals the potentially detrimental effect of leveraging bottlenecks and extracting, rather than sharing, value. On the same note, incumbent publishers are found to be dominators in the activity system, although they have the capability of coordinating activities in their network. The findings require the need for reframing the publishing industry in order to reveal the potential of thinking of the publishing business model in new terms. The contribution of the thesis is that aspects related to openness and flexibility are what is deemed necessary for incumbent publishers to stay relevant in the digital era. However, important to note is that the contribution is not to be considered definitive, as there are important aspects to the book industry in general, e.g. the promotion of national literature, which is not considered in the thesis. Nevertheless, the thesis aims to be a source of inspiration to incumbent publishers and industry stakeholders alike, as it casts new light on a traditional and important national industry.

Kakanien.ac.at, 2004

Der Beitrag widmet sich unterschiedlichen Publikations-, Kommunikations- und Wissenschaftsräumen sowie der hegemonialen westeuropäischen Publikations- und Wissenschaftskulturen. Der Verfasser diskutiert die Möglichkeiten eines akademischen und politischen Diskurses und von Publikationsstrategien, die eine vielstimmiges Europa garantieren, jedoch über bloßen Pluralismus hinausgehen. Europäische Es kann nicht die Aufgabe sein, traditionelle Kulturen als Exotika zu Gunsten ihrer Unterschiedlichkeit am Leben zu halten, vielmehr sollte ein Staat den Raum gewähren, in dem Rechte so verwirklicht werden, dass Zivilgesellschaften und die Öffentlichkeit zu Diskussionen, Dialogen und Diskursen Zutritt haben, welche allen Beteiligten erlaubt, ihre je eigenen Narrative von Identität, Kongruenz und Differenz oder Anderssein zu (re-)präsentieren. "Publikation" ist so verstanden ein Mittel, sicher zu stellen, dass alle Arten von Differenz und Identität in einen beständigen und immer wieder neu zu verhandelnden Kommunikationsrozess gelangen. The article deals with diverse spaces of publishing, science and communication and the hegemony of western European publishing and science cultures. The author discusses the possibilities of academic discourse and publishing strategies that guarantee a European diversity that is more than mere plurality. It cannot be the task to maintain the beauty of traditional lifestyles for the sake of diversity, the state rather may provide spaces for the realisation of rights, in which the civil societies and the public spheres could enter in disputes, dialogues, and discourses enabling all players and participants to (re-)present their narratives of identity, congruency, difference, and diversity on their own. "Publishing" is just a tool to make sure that all kinds of differences and identities come into the process of negotiating the terms of communication.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2022

Ranking of academic institutions and of publications is on everyone's lips these days. The English-language Wikipedia article on "Ranking of Academic Publishers" was accessed no less than 66046 times last year. All too many academics and science policy-makers around the world are still unaware of the market distortions that are unleashed on the world market of ideas by such ranking systems, which are based on purely subjective criteria by a powerful science bureaucracy that manages and distributes scientific resources, as in the case of Norway and its "channel register" of the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills. Similar systems are also used in Denmark, Finland, Flanders, Lithuania, Sweden and South Africa. The advance of such "channel registers" means that the publications of the scientific community are evaluated according to points for the funding allocated by the state to the scientific institutes, but also for the further career opportunities of the scientists. A first and really hard test for such systems as the "channel register" is to ask how those who have done everything right in the social science community that there is to do right, namely the Nobel laureates in economics and the Skytte laureates in political science, would have fared in terms of the evaluation of their publications according to the "channel register". Our sobering finding for the last five years is: in their publishing behaviour, they have demonstrably been most successful in reaching world markets with publishing companies, the majority of which (52%) were not even rated at the best level "2" in the "Channel Register". 10 of the 16 laureates in the social sciences in the past five years published deficiently according to the criteria of the Norwegian "Channel Register"; namely: 1. Joshua D. Angrist 2. Guido W. Imbens 3 Margaret Levi 4 Abhijit Banerjee 5 Esther Duflo 6. Michael Kremer 7 Jane Mansbridge 8. William D. Nordhaus 9. Paul R. Romer 10 Richard H. Thaler Our alternative and empirical analysis of 100 leading publishers in the world is based on the following variables: • Google Scholar presence according to the CERES Institute at Erasmus University Rotterdam • Presence in the Open Syllabus system • OCLC WorldCat presence > 50 libraries (% of total 2010-2023) • OCLC WorldCat presence > 500 libraries (% of total production 2010-2023) Our calculation method for ranking the 100 publishers is based on a so-called non-parametric index modelled on the United Nations Human Development Index. In our ranking, Oxford University Press leads ahead of John Wiley, Cambridge University Press, Quorum Books and MIT Press. Ranked further down is the performance of Palgrave Macmillan, a very popular publishing company especially in the political science community, which is ranked not far ahead of Cambridge Scholars Publishers and Nova Science Publishers. It is strongly emphasised on the part of the author that all the publishing companies surveyed have done an excellent job and that our ranking is merely an indicator of which companies are really leading in the world markets. We also consider some implications for the field of political science, where the 62 major political science publishers we surveyed represented no less than 31% of the total supply. It is clear that Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Peter Lang, Sage Publications, Nova Science Publishers, Princeton University Press, John Wiley and Cornell University Press are the leading publishing companies in the field of political science worldwide. Finally, we also show how benchmarks can be formed for the assessment of publishing companies that have not yet been included in our comparison. For the companies with their corporate headquarters in continental Europe, our comparison shows that - presumably due to the still deficient distribution systems on the North American continent - there is still a certain deficit in the degree of distribution especially in the North American markets. Keywords: Bibliometrics, OCLC Worldcat, CERES, Erasmus University, Open Syllabus, Google Scholar, Ranking of publishing companies JEL Classification: F6, Y8, Z1

Publishing Research Quarterly, 1989

Thirty years ago, traditional publishing was based on entrepreneurship, quality, and association with colleagues and competitors. How these three elements are faring in an era of consolidation is the subject of Paul Asser’s article.

2020

This article examines the spatial and social evolution of the network of writers in the Jerusalem-based periodical Ha-Me`asef during the years 1896-1914 as a compelling and dynamic example of transnational Jewish networks. The periodical, which was established by Rabbi Ben-Zion Abraham Koenka in 1896, was exceptional since it aspired to reach beyond the Jerusalem social circle, from where it originated, and become the center of a global communication network. At its apex, some of the leading rabbinical figures in Palestine, the Middle-East, Europe and America became active writers. The journal eliminated the borders of the isolated spatial unit, in this case Jerusalem, and suggested in its place a new perception of 'place', which would be part of a relational and trans-local network. By using digital methodologies, such as geographic mapping (GIS) and network mapping (SNA), this article explores the interrelations between global expansion and local networks, and in particula...

Sonnet(s), 2020

The fact that Ulises Carrión often acted as the author, publisher, and distributor of his works does not imply that he operated in isolation. Quite the contrary, his self-published books and magazines (co-authored or not) usually address the interactions and social framework in which Carrión conceived them. Through a close examination of Sonnet(s) and Ephemera #7 --two of his many publications--, this essay argues that far from being incidental, the particular choices of the mimeograph, typewriter, and handwriting used in the publishing process are deeply related to the specific histories and properties of the networks they helped to create. Zooming in on these often neglected technologies1 not only illuminates the specific ways in which, during the 1970s, Carrión redefined what we understand as writing, a work, and authorship, but also sheds light on how he conceived of his publishing practice as a means to forge a community.

Sociologica, 2009

Licenza d'uso L'articoloè messo a disposizione dell'utente in licenza per uso esclusivamente privato e personale, senza scopo di lucro e senza fini direttamente o indirettamente commerciali. Salvo quanto espressamente previsto dalla licenza d'uso Rivisteweb,è fatto divieto di riprodurre, trasmettere, distribuire o altrimenti utilizzare l'articolo, per qualsiasi scopo o fine. Tutti i diritti sono riservati.

Primerjalna književnost 35.1 (2012), 2012

The book as a cultural object of special value co-determines literariness through the linguistic structure of the texts it transmits and the bibliographic codes specific to it as a medium. The book influences the social circulation of discourse and its genre differentiation and systematization. The conceptual and spatial structure of knowledge is materialized in the library (book repository or book series). Libraries are meeting places and crossroads of “bibliomigrancy” (Mani) of works having various geographical and historical origins as well as the places that allow us to establish cognitive and creative interferences between cultural spaces inscribed in the library holdings. Books evoke a variety of imaginary spatial models, including the global, while their own spaces are also physical and meaningful. From its beginnings up to the present expansion of digital textuality, the medium of the book appears in the context of economies, which set the direction and breadth of the spatial reach of the messages it transmits and encodes. Book history is therefore a field that lies within the interest of comparative literature.

Kulturindustrien in den Niederlanden-pfadabhängige Muster und institutionelle Kontexte: Das Beispiel der Architektur in Rotterdam Zusammenfassung: Die niederländische Architektur ist von internationaler Bedeutung. Kulturindustrien, d. h. wirtschaftliche Aktivitäten, bei denen die ästhetische Komponente des Produkts konstitutiv ist, bilden sich heute als vielversprechende Quelle von Wohlstand und Beschäftigung in den postindustriellen Städten heraus. Die kulturindustriellen Unternehmen sind eher relativ klein, beschäftigen hochqualifi zierte und spezialisierte Arbeitskräfte und sind zum größten Teil hoch konzentriert in räumlichen Clustern verteilt. Eine solche räumliche Ballung ermöglicht besser funktionierende Arbeitsabläufe, den Austausch von nichtkodifi zierbarem Wissen und darüber hinaus die Entwicklung von darauf bezogenen Institutionen (hinsichtlich Ausbildung, Information, Infrastruktur und im so ziokulturellen Bereich), die zu unterstützenden Innovationen beitragen.-Im niederländischen Kontext dominiert Amsterdam in hohem Maße die kulturelle Szene in Bezug auf Anzahl von Unternehmen und Beschäftigten. Da die Stadt diese Funktionen schon seit Jahrhunderten besitzt, ergibt sich das besondere Gewicht von Pfadabhängigkeit. Als deutliche Ausnahme von diesem Muster können die Architekturbüros gelten, die in Rotterdam sehr prominent vertreten sind. In diesem Beitrag zeigen wir, wie sich dieser spezialisierte Teilsektor der Kulturindustrien außerhalb der kulturellen Hauptstadt der Niederlande entwickeln konnte. Un sere These ist, dass es sich hier um die Schaffung eines kulturindustriellen Pfades in Rotterdam handelt. Es wird aufgezeigt, wie diese Herausbildung in einem komplexen Zusammenspiel zwischen institutionellen Entwicklungen und der Rolle eines genialen Individuums, nämlich von REM KOOLHAAS, begründet ist.

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 2006

AI

Journal of Economic Geography, 2011

This paper investigates the spatial clustering of the book publishing industry. By means of a hazard model, we examine the effect of agglomeration economies and pre-entry entrepreneurial experience on the survival chances of publishing firms. Whereas such survival analyses have been conducted for manufacturing industries, they are still scarce for cultural and service industries. Based on a unique dataset of all book publishers founded between 1880 and 2008 in the Netherlands, the paper demonstrates that the clustering of book publishers in the Amsterdam region did not increase the survival of Amsterdam firms. Instead, prior experience in publishing and related industries had a positive effect on firm survival. The Amsterdam cluster was characterized by high entry and exit levels mainly. Interestingly, the Amsterdam cluster did not function as an attractor for publishing firms from other regions, but rather acted as an incubator for firms that relocated to other regions.

Enterprise and Society, 2008

The internationalization of business is the subject of an extensive theoretical literature as well as a growing number of historical studies. Historians have paid relatively little attention to the development of multinationals in the service sector, and studies about international publishing are especially scarce. This article discusses the early internationalization of two Dutch publishing firms, Kluwer (nowWolters Kluwer) and Elsevier (now Reed Elsevier) and confronts these case histories with the evolutionary theory of internationalization. The Dutch cases underline the important role of experience, knowledge and learning as well as of the national context in which companies develop. They also show that these factors allow for very different trajectories of internationalization within the same branch of business and the same country.

Publishing Research Quarterly, 2013

This study first reviews the writing of the management theorist Kenichi Ohmae, before assessing the potential application of his theory of global commercial maturation to the strategies adopted by the academic publishing company, Routledge, and its precursor imprints between 1960 and 2013. Based on the analysis of interviews carried out between 2011 and 2013 and supporting document analysis, the paper concludes that, with some caveats, the stages of globalization identified by Ohmae are of considerable explanatory value for students and analysts of global publishing as well as offering strategic insights to managers of academic publishing houses.

Journal of Informetrics, 2014

This paper introduces a novel application in bibliometrics of the barycenter method. Using places of publication barycenters, we measure internationalization of book publishing in the Social Sciences and Humanities. Based on 2002-2011 data for Flanders, Belgium, we demonstrate how the geographic center of weight of book publishing is different for the Social Sciences than for the Humanities. Whereas the latter still rely predominantly on domestic Flemish and continental European publishers, the former are firmly Anglo-Saxon oriented. The Humanities, however, show a more pronounced evolution towards further internationalization. For the already largely internationally oriented Social Sciences, in most recent years, the share of British publishers has grown. The barycenter method proves to be a valuable tool in the representation of research internationalization of book publications. This is especially the case when applied non-Anglophone countries.

2012

This thesis makes clear that city-specific institutional set-ups, practices and competitive advantages in cultural industries are very resilient over time. It is unlikely that generalized policy recipes can create such dedicated supply-side structures and specializations, and boost the competitive potential of local cultural industries, in the short-term. Sustained local investments in training institutions in particular, and in high-quality public commissions for cultural producers, do however yield results in the long run, particularly in capital-intensive cultural industries such as broadcasting and architecture, although these do not necessarily lead to international competitiveness or innovativeness. Such qualities are the product of intricate interplays between local industry-specific traditions and market conditioning, as well as a cluster’s historical position in national and international industry structures. The competitive position of Dutch cultural producers in general o...

Reprint from "Doing Double Dutch" -ISBN 978 94 6270 097 0 -

Knygotyra

Trade publishing houses in small nations operate in a challenging market environment: digitisation and the spread of the internet have lowered the market entry barriers and increased the international competition. This is especially prevalent in English-language markets and increasingly so in the markets with a high English language proficiency amongst second language speakers due to the amount of English content readily available online. Moreover, traditional audiences are eroding, and global players push for multi-platform publishing for a global audience. However, the impact of digitisation on small nation publishers operating in large lan­guage markets lacks scientific exploration. Hence, the impact on small trade publishing houses in Austria and Scotland is explored through qualitative case study research. An overview of the state of the publishing industry in those nations is presented, followed by an analysis of the opportunities and challenges of publishing in an online worl...

The Oxford Handbook of Publishing, 2019

How has book publishing shaped and reshaped the modern world? Since the advent of moveable type, books have moved into position as the signal element that defines culture. While this chapter places an emphasis on English-language publishing, it also draws on original discussions with international publishers and editors, providing a brief overview of the history of book publishing in a variety of countries. Starting with the Venetian printers, the chapter moves through the Inquisition to the pre-modern age, briefly discussing the consistent entanglement of book publishing and authority, which perceives books and their publishers as potentially devastating threats or powerful allies.

Northern Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook, 2015

This article aims to analyse current transformations in the Danish book publishing industry in light of the convergence between the book and the broader media culture. We focus on changing relationships between actors (publishing houses, bookstores, etc.) in the trade book's circuit of production, distribution and consumption. The development of the e-book challenges established routines of publishers, which must cope with new groups of actors in both the production and distribution of their products as well as new ways for readers to access and consume books. Methodologically, the study is based on qualitative interviews with key organizational actors in the Danish publishing industry and document studies of available industry information and statistics. On a theoretical level, the project combines organizational theory and institutional perspectives of mediatization in order to address the question of how the introduction of new media reconfigures old media industries. In particular, we focus on the interplay between book business actors' perceptions of digital technology, the changing market conditions, and the possibilities this entails for them. The convergence between the book and other media is enabled by 'institutional entrepreneurs', who import perceptions and practices from other media industries into book publishing. These changes at the organizational level also affect the balance between 'market' and 'cathedral' in the book publishing industry as a whole. The distinction between 'brownfield' and 'greenfield' development allows us to understand why existing players in the book market generally try to adapt to digital technologies in ways that do not put their existing businesses at risk, while newcomers may face fewer barriers to pursuing new technological opportunities.

American Journal of Sociology, 2011

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