TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND ALIGNMENT TO THE ENVIRONMENT: CHANGE MANAGEMENT ISSUES IN NEWSPAPER ORGANIZATIONS

7/29/2019 TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND ALIGNMENT TO THE ENVIRONMENT: CHANGE MANAGEMENT ISSUES IN NEWSPAPER

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The Seventh International Critical ManagementStudies(CMS) ConferenceORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND CRITICAL MANAGEMENT STUDIES

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND ALIGNMENT TO THE ENVIRONMENT:CHANGE MANAGEMENT ISSUES IN NEWSPAPER ORGANIZATIONS.

Adriano Solidoro, Universit Milano BicoccaGianluigi Viscusi, Universit Milano Bicocca

AbstractTo date there are few studies in change and media management studies, which focuson newspapers in order to explore how newspaper companies organize their activitiesto manage the critical developments challenging their organizations throughdigitalization of news distribution. The exploration should provide a deeperunderstanding of (i) how the major national newspapers strategy is linked toorganizational structure as well as information management configurations, and (ii)how they manage the integration between activities related to the print newspaperand at the same time opportunities enabled by ICTs, networks, social media andmobile technologies.

Key words: organizational change, technology innovations, digital media,newspapers, adaptive cycle, integration, organizational conflicts, constraints tochange.

IntroductionNewspaper companies throughout the world have been launching Internet versions of their

print publications since the mid-1990s. Early experiments were timid as online newspapersexplored a variety of business and production models, as well as of management andstaffing approaches without finding the definitive answer to their questions.

About fifteen years later many newspaper companies still struggle with only partiallyanswered questions. Newspaper organizations recognize the use of the Internet and ofmobile technologies as an opportunity, but for many of them it is not quite as clear whetherthey want to take this opportunity and how to use it to develop new business areas.

This is also due to the fact that only a few newspaper companies, and only just now,are beginning to report an increase in online profitability. Up until recent times sustainablegrowth have been scarce and in those cases newspaper sites augmented their revenue,increase often came in lieu of print revenue. Furthermore, average profit margins of online

news sites are far from that of traditional media (Huang, 2007b).As a consequence, after fifteen years of the first appearance of online newspapers,

there is still no successful business model for online news that organizations may emulateor adapt to their own situations. Most of the times there are mixed approaches. Newspapersites throughout the world largely allow free access to content while charging for archives,or some special-interest premium content material (maybe with the only exception ofTheWall Street Journal).

There is, thus, no universal, one-size-fits all model, but, at the contrary, severaltrends and a multitudinous models combining different approaches, involving (at least forlarger newspapers) partnering, identifying core competencies and branding, nichemarketing and technology enhanced marketing.

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Besides, the external environment mutation demands to the organization adaptationand alignment and for this influencing the organizations strategic behavior. The emergentdigital technologies, as well as consume patterns of the early 21st century suggest newways of thinking about news and audiences that cannot go unheard, not anymore. Socialmedia are now key actors of the global network economy and information society andhave implicit consequences for news companies trying to maintain competitiveness. At the

same time readers are not a passive audience, and now demand more flexibility fromcontent, as well as personalization. This conversational paradigm demands newspapersweb sites (and newsrooms) with a mentality different from that of the print industry, andnewspaper marketing departments have to become familiar with relevant technologies anddevelop consistent marketing strategies.

Taking in account that no strategy carries no risk. Hence, the question that arises is:how do organizations adapt to the changes in their environment? How, as well as when?In fact, the element of timing is also relevant: when should a newspaper organizationadopt a new model? Will a sustainable competitive advantage come from being a first-mover or a late-mover able to synthesize competitors experiences?In this context we focus on the following research questions:

How is the adaption to convergence and information growth managed in newspapercompanies undergoing reorganization to embrace technological innovation andalignment to the environment?

How do organizations align adapted strategy to organizational structure, operations,and information management configurations? And in particular to currentinformation technology infrastructure?

How does the organization manage the integration between activities related toprint and at the same time opportunities enabled by ICTs, networks, social media,mobile technologies, thus enhancing or limiting user innovation?

Newsrooms' values, perceived realities and structure may conspire to jeopardize anymove towards convergence by newspapers companies. The difficulty with this process,however, is that it takes time. Most media companies don't have time and should approachintegration between newsrooms and business departments from both ends of thespectrum. How to best create new environments aimed at accepting change remains aquestion that newspaper organizations need to be answered quickly.

Studies are rare in this context of technological change and alignment to theenvironment. Many newspaper managers approaching change try to surmount and outwitresistance to it, creating resistant employees who threaten the organization's performance.Therefore, the approach to change requires careful thought, since, otherwise, manynewsroom's innovation efforts may get categorized simply as managerial control efforts,

rather than exercises in interdependence.In this paper we discuss the case studies of two main Italian newspapers, mainlyinvestigating the conflicts between managers and other stakeholders (i.e. journalists,unions etc.) involved in organizational change; the intercultural dialogue emergingbetween print and online newsrooms, and between newsrooms and business department,in organizational change, as well as isomorphism in newspaper companies organizationalchange projects.

Applying Miles and Snows classic model for the analysis of the strategy, structureand processes of organizations of two Italian newspaper companies, La Repubblica andCorriere della Sera, we want to explore journalists and managers perceptions of thestrategic role of their online newspaper.

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Taking as assumption the internal organizational differentiation betweendepartments in response to a complex and uncertain external environment, we investigatethe different departments attitudes, goals, work orientation and internal structures amongstthose somehow in relation to the activities of the online newsroom. We also investigate thelevel of integration, between different functions and sub-units, as well as the integrationmechanisms that are used. This is because internal differentiation tends to lead to

problems of internal coordination between departments. Consequently, integrationmechanisms are key factors of internal alignment and of coordination betweendepartments.

Through our reasoning and the case studies of two Italian newspaper organizations,Corriere della Sera, and la Repubblica we argue that online activities can also lead to theemergence of common interests among different parts of the same organization; andsuggest that these are tightly connected to changes in the overall organization. Forexample, if the marketing department is able to gather information about audience moreefficiently than the print newsroom, it may influence on how content is proposed to readershelping the newsroom to adjust the product by creating new services in order to fulfill thereaders unsatisfied needs.

Nevertheless, newspaper organizations are, traditionally, outstanding examples ofcompanies intrinsically facing organizational conflicts (Achtenhagen & Raviola, 2009)between editorial and management staff (Underwood, 1993), and the union of journalismand marketing has not been a harmonious marriage for many editors (and journalists),who see a stronger marketing orientation as a loss of editorial control and an affront tojournalistic "professionalism." And more other conflicts may also emerge within thenewsroom, amongst print newsroom and online newsroom.

The aim of the research at two newspaper organizations is to develop a multiplecase study (Yin, 2003) in order to understand how major national newspaper organizationsmanage the integration between activities related to the print newspaper and at the sametime opportunities enabled by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as wellas by networks, Social Media and mobiles technology. Besides how the aim of theresearch is also to provide evidence of why the strategy is linked to organizationalstructure as well as information management configurations.

Motivations and theoretical frameworkIn this paper, we aim to explore how the adaptive cycle Miles and Snow (2003) can bemanaged in newspaper companies undergoing reorganization to embrace technologicalinnovation and alignment to the environment.

In order to analyze the complex and dynamic processes due to companies

alignment to mutated external conditions, Miles and Snow (2003) offered a theoreticalframework composed of a model of the adaptive process (called the adaptive cycle) andfour empirically determined strategic typologies of moving through this process.

According to Miles and Snow (2003), the complexity of the adaptation or alignmentprocess can be penetrated by searching for patterns in the behavior of organizations. Thisin order to be able to describe and even predict the process of organizational adjustment,as an integrated and dynamic whole, a model that takes into account the interrelationshipsamong strategy, structure, and process. Each of these four strategic typologies (orarchetypes) proposed by Miles and Snow (2003) has its own strategy in responding tochanges in the environment, and its typical configuration for technology, structure andprocess consistent with its strategy (i.e. chosen areas of future innovations, consistent

rationalization of structure etc.).

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Three stable strategic typologies are named Defender, Analyzer andProspector. In these strategic typologies the organization is competitive over time iforganized according to its strategic type. The fourth strategic typology is called Reactor.The Reactor organization represents an unstable situation, a form of strategic "failure" inwhich inconsistencies exist among its strategy, technology, structure, and process (Miles &Snow 2003, 29).

Defenders are organizations which seldom apply primary attention to improvingthe efficiency of their existing operations. In the newspaper industry this is the case oforganizations in which the focus is on publishing a newspaper. Top management in thistype of organization is usually highly expert on precisely that, and does not tend to searchoutside its domain for new opportunities. The large investments that have been made todigitalize the production process appear mostly to be about producing the same thing in amore efficient way. Defenders also tend to ignore developments and trends outside of theirdomains, choosing instead to grow some limited product development (i.e. specialbusiness, hyper-specialist or hyper-local content). Top management, in the defenderorganization, is usually composed by production and cost-control specialists. Defendersusually do little or no investigation of the environment for new areas of opportunity, but,

instead, intensive planning oriented toward cost and other efficiency issues. Stableindustries lend themselves to this type of organization more than turbulent industries suchas those of the media market, in which technology and audiences consume patterns, arein constant innovation. The Defender's main risk, thus, is that of ineffectiveness, such asbeing unable to align with changes in its market environment.

Unlike the Defender, whose success comes mainly from efficiently responding to astable domain, the Prospector organizations prime aptitude is that of finding andexploiting new product and market opportunities. Generally speaking, the Prospectoradapts itself to the changes of the environment in a more dynamic way than those of othertypes of organizations within the same industry. Thus, these organizations often are theagents of change to which their competitors must respond. We can suppose The New YorkTimes, in 1999, being a prospector organization, since this newspaper company, as earlyas that, had already separated its online activities into a separate company with theintention, amongst others, to take advantage of the high value estimate and collectexternal capital to finance further growth. Consequently, while others newspaperorganizations were marked by processes of efficiency improvement, the spirit of The NewYork Times entrepreneurship was cultivated in the emergent new media sector (seeKrumsvik, 2006).

Based on Miles and Snows research, the Defender and the Prospector seem toreside at opposite ends of a continuum of adjustment and adaptive strategies. Betweenthese two extremes, a third type of organization is called the Analyzer. The Analyzer is a

unique combination of the Prospector and Defender types and represents a possiblealternative to these other strategies. A true Analyzer is an organization that attempts tominimize risk while maximizing the opportunity for profit. The Analyzer main question is:how to locate and exploit new product and market opportunities while simultaneouslymaintaining the firm core of traditional products and customers? The Analyzer's answeris often that of moving toward product or market innovation through imitation and only aftertheir success has been demonstrated by others (i.e. some Prospector competitor). Basedon historical development and the typology designed by Miles and Snow, a hypothesis ofAnalyzer as the chosen main strategy in the today newspaper industry would seem to bea reasonable supposition, at least for largest newspapers (see Krumsvik, 2006).

A fourth type of organization, the Reactor, exhibits a pattern of adaptation and

alignment to its environment that is both inconsistent and unstable. Reactors are

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organizations in which top managers frequently perceive change and uncertainty occurringin their organizational environments but are not able to respond effectively. This kind oforganization seldom makes adjustments of any sort until forced to do so by environmentalpressures. The Reactor's "adaptive cycle, thus, usually consists of respondinginappropriately or too late to environmental change and uncertainty, performing poorly as aresult, and then being reluctant to act proactively in the future. Many newspapers act,

presumably still now as 15 or 10 years ago), in a way that may fall into the Reactorscategory. This happens, for examples, when top management is only partially at ease withonline activities, and/or the balance between traditional and new activities in an Analyzermodel has not been established in a efficient and effective way.

Any of these four typologies is unlikely to cover every form of organizationalbehavior, being organizations realities far too variable and complex. The "pure" form ofeach of these organization types cannot therefore exist. Nevertheless, according to Milesand Snows research every organization, when compared to other organizations in itsindustry, appears to fit predominantly into one of the four categories, and its behavior isgenerally predictable given its typological classification.

Hence, if one accepts the adaptive cycle as valid, the question becomes: how do

organizations move through their alignment and fine-tuning process? Finding an answer tothis last question is of course crucial for organizations undergoing change. When withinthe adaptive cycle the organization (i.e. its top management) is creating a structure thatachieves a fit with the specific situation the organization is in (e.g., Mintzberg, 1979).

Structural misalignment - As underlined by Lawrence and Lorsch (1986), more complexand uncertain is the external environment (such as todays newspaper industry) thegreater, consequently, will be the internal differentiation between departments. Thishappens as departments develop their own attitudes, goals, work orientation and internalstructures and processes to accommodate the requirements of their specialized sub-environments. Lawrence and Lorschs findings also suggested that this internaldifferentiation tended to lead to problems of internal coordination between departmentsand, consequently, to a greater need for internal integrating mechanisms.

This is because organization sub-units (for examples the print newsroom and theonline newsroom) and sub-organizations (for example, the marketing department) operatein different environments, mainly having information from their particular sub-environments, and this can lead to a state of conflict at the organizational level.

Organizational conflicts can be linked, thus, to structural misalignment, as well ascultural. In an era in which many newspaper companies are already facing crises due todeclining readership and advertisement revenues, these tensions need to be addressed bytop management since an adjustment process may also lead to the emergence of

common interests among different parts of the same organization. For example, if themarketing department is able to gather information about audience more efficiently thanthe print newsroom and therefore influence on how content is proposed to readers,marketing department may help the newsroom to adjust the product by creating newservices in order to fulfill the readers unsatisfied needs.

Furthermore, newspaper organizations are, traditionally, outstanding examples ofcompanies intrinsically facing organizational conflicts (see Achtenhagen and Raviola2009). These conflicts may even be intensified during change process and are due tomany reasons. First of all, newspapers are not totally commercial entities, but must alsoact in accordance with public interest and cultural imperatives (see Kng, 2007, Caves,2001), as well as forced to appeal to both audiences and advertisers (see Picard, 2005).

As a result, one of the unique features of newspaper companies is their never-ending

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competition between editorial and management staff (Underwood, 1993), between thenewsrooms and the business departments. Other conflicts may also emerge within thenewsroom, amongst print newsroom and online newsroom. Conflicts and misalignmentissues may therefore be related to different perspectives on content orientation versustechnology orientation or product defined by publisher versus entrepreneurial contentdeveloper, traditional human talent versus technological savvy talent, and managers as

positional leaders versus managers as facilitators conflicts (see Achtenhagen and Raviola2009). This duality adds to the complexity of managing change.

The role of integration and integration mechanisms - The reorganization linked to theadaptive cycle that the organization is undergoing may even augment differentiation andthus complicate tensions at the process level due to new workflows. This createsuncertainty in the organization, since the organizational units are not independent incompleting their tasks but are dependent on the actions and decisions made by otherunits. This is why, when the level of differentiation is high, more emphasis is needed onintegration mechanisms (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1986) and on issues related to coordinationand communication needs.

We decided to use the term integration instead of the more fashionableconvergence because the first is more focused and precisely defined in organizationalliterature. Lawrence & Lorsch (1986) define integration as the process of achievingeffective unity of efforts as well as the level of cross-functional interaction, communication,information sharing, coordination, and level of joint involvement. Convergence, instead,describe a multiple variety of processes, trends and developments taking place in societyin general and throughout the media in particular. In the field of journalism studies,convergence as a concept is primarily used to document the emergence of newnewsrooms, the changes in work routines and organizational structures connected tothese new production arrangements, the redevelopment of news formats across all mediaand the impact of these phenomena on journalistic work (cf. Deuze, 2004; Duhe et al.,2005; Singer, 2004; Klinenberg, 2005; Avils and Carvajal, 2008: Vobic, 2009). Convergence, therefore, being a multi-dimensional concept, is too loosely defined for theaim of our research.

MethodologyThe chosen model of analysis is developed to understand companies within an industry,and we propose to use it in analysis of newspaper companies based in Italy (Corriere dellaSera, La Repubblica) in order to understand how a major national newspaper organizationmanages the integration between activities related to the print newspaper and

opportunities enabled by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as well asby networks, Social Media and mobiles technology. The research employed a multicasedesign that supports a replication logic, whereby a set of cases is treated as a series ofexperiments, each serving to confirm or disconfirm a set of observations (Yin, 1994).

Besides howthe aim of the research is also to provide evidence ofwhythe strategyis linked to organizational structure as well as information management configurations.The case study has been carried out following an interpretive research approach to fieldstudies (Klein & Myers, 1999; Geoffrey Walsham, 1993; G. Walsham, 1995), i) aiming atunderstanding of how participants interpret their context and act on the basis of theirinterpretation of institutional constraints (Berger & Luckmann, 1991; Kallinikos, 2006),influencing also the researchers subjective construction of their interpretation of

observations. The interpretive approach has been carried out as action research iterative

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process involving researchers and practitioners acting together in a particular cycle ofactivities, including problem diagnoses, action intervention, and reflective learning(Baskerville & Wood-Harper, 1996; R L Baskerville & A T Wood-Harper, 1998; R. L.Baskerville & A. T. Wood-Harper, 1998; Checkland, 1991). In our case, action research is auseful approach to associate research with practice because of the insights and evaluationcoming from the interaction with practitioners and domain experts.

The primary units of analysis are two online ventures of two newspaperorganizations (Table 1, below; describes the 2 companies and 2 newspapers studied)responding to digital media; the embedded units are the sponsoring newspapers and theircorporate managements. First of all, we want to discover whether managers andjournalists see use of the digital media technology mainly as an opportunity for theirorganization, and in there are online priorities in the companys strategy, structure andprocess, we therefore investigated if there is clear formulation of the strategy and whichmay be the necessary adjustment of structure and processes as well as mechanism ofintegration between different sub-units.

We chose to examine the response of newspaper firms to digital publishing for tworeasons. First, the effect of electronic publishing on the newspaper industry generally

matched the research questions. Online publishing is a discontinuous change in that itpresented external changes that require nonlinear internal adaptations. For example, thefeatures of the Internet that online users valuesaccess to breaking news, searchabledatabases, social media features, videos and multimediadiffer considerably from thefeatures that were available in print and demand different skills and competences, differentinformation systems and tools, as well as workflow and organizational design

The second reason for selecting the newspaper industry is that in newspaper inmedia organizations change are often the product of an alliance of different interest groupsin media organization (Badham and Buchanan, 1999) and the models of change arepolitically engaged (Morgan and Spicer, 2009; Spicer, Alvesson and Karreman, 2009).

Research Setting: the 2 newspaper organizations1) Corriere della SeraPublished in Milan, Corriere della Sera, long one of Italys leading newspapers, in terms ofboth circulation and influence, is Italys best-selling daily. While retaining an institutionalaura, Corriere has maintained its independence throughout periods of political turmoil,contributing to the reliable and traditional image it conveys. It is among the oldest (foundedin 1876) and most reputable Italian newspapers.

Corriere della Sera appeals to both the upper and the middle classes with itsserious and literary style.

Its national coverage is substantial; it has some 600 correspondents throughoutItaly and bureaus in 20 foreign cities.Corriere della Sera is published by RCS Quotidiani, company of the RCS

MediaGroup (which also publishes the well-known Gazzetta dello Sport and holds a 45%stake in Spanish daily El Mundo), an international multimedia publishing group thatoperates in daily newspapers as well as magazines and books, radio broadcasting, newmedia and digital and satellite TV.In the digital media sector, Corriere della Sera web site, Corriere.it, is operated throughRCS Digital, company of the group which manages and develops digital media publishingactivities, as well as coordinate marketing and advertisement.

RCS Digital SpA is a company dedicated to managing and developing the activities

of RCS on digital media:Corriere della Sera.it and thematic channels, (in addtion to

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corriere.it, Corriere TV Classified Ads, Mobile, Tablet services) Corriere.it, in addition toonline news service includes TV / Video with news, special, image galleries and videocontent created especially by the in-depth editorial, as well as real and its online newsservice. The broad diffusions of new smartphones (iPhone, BlackBerry) allowed for furtherdevelopment, with a new range of products and services, so did the arrival on the marketfor tablet (IPAD, Samsung Galaxy).

The online newsroom of Corriere.it is composed of 17 people divided in three mainareas, namely desk, editors, and art direction (while print newsroom is composed of about65 people, divided into specialist areas).

2) la RepubblicaLa Repubblica is the second largest circulation Italian daily general-interest newspaper,behind the Corriere della Sera. It was founded in 1976 in Rome.La Repubblica is published by the parent company Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso SpA, amultimedia branded company which operates in the media sector in Italy (publishing - dailynewspapers and magazines, radio, television, collection of advertising, digital media)

Edited and published in Rome and transmitted for printing to seven additionalprinting facilities located in Italy and three facilities located abroad. The paper has nationalnews contents for all editions, with an additional local edition for nine cities (Rome, Milan,Turin, Bologna, Genoa, Florence, Naples, Palermo and Bari). It is the only one in Italy(Corriere delle Sera is mainly read in the Northern area of the country) that has a balancedcirculation in all the regions of the country.-

The newspaper could be regarded as close to the moderate left wing of the politicalspectrum.

On April 1996 a la Repubblica website was launched as a collaborative effort withDigital and Interbusiness (a unit of Telecom Italia), as an on-line trial version of thenewspaper, created for election of the April 21. Later on the same year the projectRepubblica - work in progress started with the objective of testing the organization for therealization of an on-line edition.

In 1997 la Repubblica was Italys first daily newspaper to have its own Web-basednewsroom. Since then repubblica.it has been Italys number-one digital information site. Inthe last 14 years, it has consolidated its success through total coverage of the country,which is ensured by its local editions and by the contribution of the Groups local onlinedailies. Repubblica.it newsroom is composed of 30 people divided in 4 main areas, namelydesk, editors, local news and web design (while print newsroom is composed of about 50people, divided into specialist areas).

With over 1.7 million unique users every day (Source: AWDB, November 2010),

Repubblica.it has posted constant growth consolidating its supremacy with a lead that, inthe second half of 2010, put it +27% ahead of its closest competitor corriere.it - (source:Awdb, average past 12 months).

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TABLE 1

Description of the 2 Newspapers Studied

Newspaper Parentorganizatio

n

Daily PrintCirculation

(paid)

Circulation Range

OnlineLaunch

Date

Number ofonline

employees

Daily website unique

visitors

Corrieredella Sera

RCS 453815 National 1999 16 1.326.601

Repubblica GruppoEspresso

416026 National 1996 30 1.592.283

Data SourcesData were collected from three main sources: open-ended interviews, archival documents,and direct observations. We also collected over 50 public documents, including pressreleases, annual reports, analyst reports, and industry articles.

Interviews. 30 in-depth, about 45 minutes in-person interviewswith the senior executives at the corporate, newspaper, and online venture levels of thetwo newspaper organizations, IT managers, and human resources managers. We usedsemi-structured interview templates concerning what motivated a manager to commit toonline venture, how that commitment evolved over time, the relation between print andonline efforts, and so forth.

We attempted to triangulate by using multiple informants and cross-checkinginformation against archival and public documents to avoid retrospective bias in theinterviews. Interviews were transcribed and entered into a case study database.

About direct observations: we observed story creation for the newspapers and theWeb sites, and visited planning meetings.Data have been collected in the period between February 2010 and May 2011.

The two cases

1) Corriere della SeraStrategy at Corriere della Sera is characterized by a general vision and mission but at thesame time with some indecision about the sustainable business opportunities of digitalmedia:

We want to be a leader of the market of the digital news, for this reason welook around for best practices in USA but also in Spain, at El Mundo, butnobody yet knows about the future scenarios and the right business model[manager, corporate]

Furthermore, top management may not have clearly articulated the organization's strategy.As an online newsroom editor states :

We need to be online as the others do and because the others do, especiallyour main competitor. [online editor].

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Corriere.it was created in 1999 and a dedicated newsroom in 2001 by a small group ofeditorial managers, prospectors of immense personal skills, but to the effort of this smallcoalition have not followed a shape of the organization's structure and processes to fit astrategy clearly chosen by the top management.

the online strategy is still not clear, this because the organizations maybe

does not believe in the online business, and our readers do not go online, theyare traditionalists and read Corriere della Sera for its reputation and brand,and for some well-known journalists, whereas maybe online news are stillperceived by our readers are low quality journalism, or as news marketizationif not as infotainment for youngsters and computer geeks. [online editor].

Therefore some misalignment amongst units can be perceived. Both managers and printjournalists reported that still some print staff members think that online staff has lesserstatus, and most online staff members think the print staff has greater status, supporting,still in 2010, Singer et al.s (1999) assertions of perceived cultural differences.

They can specialize in a subject or two, this means quality; I do know, but Ithink they have better conditions and more benefits, [online editor].

Maybe some older colleague still thinks print has a more valuable status thanonline, [print editor].

Asked the degree to which the newspaper utilizes the online service to scoop news,respondents reported hardly ever this happens, this because scoops are preferred to beleft to the print. And also this witnesses still a difference of status.

Workflow and content issues

About workflow and content issues, the organisation appears to be comfortable with usingonline operations as the distribution platform for breaking news and unique content. Webnewsroom deals mainly with publishing of information without internal time limits from 7a.m. to 23 p.m.; being not bounded by the time constraints of rotary and distributionprocesses. Questions about workflow procedures and the production of news contentrevealed, however, that print-side staffs remain relatively uninvolved in the online side ofthe business.

Integration amongst newsrooms is far from being part of the strategy. Corriere dellaSera is characterized by two major hubs producing a set of information products in form ofnews, letters, photos, comics: the online and print newsrooms work in a separate way

carrying out two different chains of activity.Most managers and journalists reported that only few online staff members attendroutine news planning meetings, where they answer questions and make occasionalcontent suggestions, but are not really joint participants. The online staff role duringspecial-planning meetings, such as planning election coverage, is far more participatory,which suggests that news managers appreciate the unique offerings of the online mediumduring projects that go beyond day-to-day news coverage.

In some exceptional situations, print editors come up here and have a look,they are like kids in front of a video game, they are surprised and excited aboutthe potentialities of online tools, and sometimes they realize we, also, do work

seriously here. [online editor].

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Online staff develops content for the exclusive use of the online service, whereas print staffmembers rarely edit content specifically for the online service, and when it happens, it isonly because some younger journalist of the print newsroom decides by him/herself to doso, on volunteer basis. This was due also to the fact that journalists' union stated that printjournalists should have edited only for the print and print and online editors should have

shared the same equipment (a new accordance has been reached only in spring 2011,allowing multimedia activities). This, therefore, had also impact on the technology and onits use for the main editorial activities.

For example, both print and online newsroom editors have in use Mthode, anediting and pagination digital environment for the design of newspapers and magazines.Mthode is based on Web technologies and has print functions completely integrated withonline publishing in a multichannel fashion. Editors can work directly on the page or in aseparate editing window, exploiting a range of advanced graphic design functions fullyintegrated with standard software. Although Mthode offers several advanced and Web2.0 oriented functionalities, at the newsroom of Corriere.it these are bounded andconstrained by the adoption of Windows 2000 as desktop operating system related and of

not up-to-dated and lower performance hardware desktop for the newsroom.This configuration was dictated by the fact that Journalists' Union established that

online newsroom and print newsroom should have shared the same equipment. Auniformity that is a de facto duplication of the newspaper editorial activities in twoindependent newsrooms producing content in parallel without no room for a realintegration.

For what concerns information reuse and aggregation of multiple external sources,the exploitation of user generated content (mainly comments on news and editorial blogs)although encouraged by marketing department, is limited by the little availability of(human) resources needed for activities of selection and editing of the huge amount ofinformation on hand. User generated content is checked for reuse if coming from externalsources or is moderated when generated in Corriere.it web services (comments at forum,blogs etc.) with the help of outsourcing editorial services.

Strategy and culture orientation have also an impact on information management interms of lack of a strong Information Technology (IT) department influence exemplified bythe existence of three different IT units, namely IT rotary, IT infrastructure, and ICTapplication with no central CIO authority defining IT investments and designing services forthe newspaper together with marketing, the top management, and the editorial director ofthe online newsroom.

The IT department is a mere support to daily routines and activities of thenewsroom with no strategic value. It is important to note the distribution of functions, where

i) marketing and ICT application organizational units are close to the web newsroom, ii) ITfunction for rotary are mainly associated to print newsroom, and iii) IT infrastructuresupport both the newsrooms.

Constraints to changeConstraining forces allow the enforcement rules preserving the interests andorganizational relevance of the print newspaper newsroom. These forces are a strongbrand perceived as traditionalistic, difference of perceived status amongst newsrooms,strategy not clearly stated, journalists' activities limited by the union, the adoption of anobsolete IT portfolio, also to the online newsroom, which, consequently, results "penalizedbecause of the lack of up-to-dated IT and complementary IT resources (Melville, Kraemer,

& Gurbaxani, 2004). Besides these issues, there is no close integration between the three

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existing IT/ICT units with no CIO participating to the board of the newspaper: IT isconsidered as a mere support to the newsrooms at a different but definitely operationallevel in a not integrated nor coordinated approach.

2) La Repubblica

According to the official website, the mission of the Espresso group emphasizes thecentrality of the citizen-reader and the commitment to providing information, culture,entertainment, with independence, freedom and respect for people, having a greatresponsibility in influencing of ethical and moral values of their audience1. Furthermore,the Group claims the need for quality and sustainable publishing products.

The claimed mission is transposed onto repubblica.it web site with a great attentiontowards political issues and civic movements. For example, in 2010, repubblica.it launcheda web site section, named Pubblico, dedicated to the exchange of ideas, and discussionsabout values, politics and society. In this section readers can find all the indiscretionsgathered from the various centres of power by our reporters and journalists (source:www.repubblica.it), all the political videos of Repubblica TV and all polls readers can

participate about politics and society.Also technology innovation is part of the mission, and it is viewed as the answer to a

demanding, higher educated and techno-confident reader. In 2010, therefore, Repubblicawas the first Italian newspaper to appear on tablets, exporting news and multimediafeatures onto this new form of screen, and in December 2010 the Espresso Group was thefirst in Italy to launch a specially created publishing project for this device, R7, a Sundaymagazine designed solely for tablets, offering readers the best of the daily paper, butredesigned with a new layout for the multimedia format, with video analyses, andinteractive photographic and infographic reportages.

Convergence of print with other forms of communication (such as internet,mobile/smart phones, and tablets) and the need of integration of print and online contentare perceived by journalists, editors, technical specialists and IT staff as a matter of fact.

What really matters it is the quality of the writing, technology innovation hasalways happened and always will [Online newsroom manager]

Managers, editors, technical specialists share a common view as they see change as anongoing process guided by the market and technology evolution and by new user needsand habits, a process enabled by the diffusion of new devices and technologies such associal networks and social media.

Working in an organization which is market oriented does not change my workand my mission as a journalist; and technology, especially Internet technologygive us the opportunity of a closer relationship with readers, I want to hear whatthey have to say, I want to fell that I have a mission in giving them what they need[online editor]

Amongst online newsroom editors, in particular, change is perceived as some kind ofhistorical inevitability, presenting a continuity of issues, and at the same time a rupture,with respect to the change related to the advent of television. As noticed by one of theinterviewees:

1 See the Group website: http://www.gruppoespresso.it/en/the-group/mission-and-values.htm

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When television came, newspapers' people had to wonder about how to relate totelevision, but they have done virtually nothing, because print and TV were twocompletely different media. Nevertheless, they wondered about a new and differentway of thinking and telling stories and this is what is happening again now, it'shappening to us. [Online newsroom manager]

Change is perceived as impacting more on the organization of journalistic work rather thanon journalism itself. Nevertheless, although Its always journalism no matter the medium,there is a conflict between print and online newsrooms about working schedule and habit,impacting on future projects of integration.

In 2011, repubblica.it launched a 24/7 news service and it is now the first all-newspublication to have constant updates, even in the dead of night. A similar schedule for theprint newsroom is still difficult to imagine.

Many journalists worked the same way for 30 years, so telling people of printnewsroom that from now on the time schedule will be 24/7, as it is in the

online newsroom, could be a problem. In order to convince print newsroomeditors to move to a different work shifts, closer to the one of the onlinenewsroom, we already needed ten meetings with the union [Onlinenewsroom manager]

The resistance to change is therefore perceived as a part of the conflict between peoplewho realizes the evolution of journalism as part of wider socio-economic process enabledby information and communication technology, and people who do not realize this. Asnoticed by an interviewee of the online newsroom this conflict is not matter of (or not only)a generational conflict:

Who makes a distinction of relevance between print and online content, not onlyhe/she does not understand anything about whats going on, but he/shes alsowrong about journalistic profession itself, [online editor]

There are too many people who still live in another era, these are not able tounderstand what content is to be put on paper and what online...and indeed, this iscurrently the challenge. [online editor]

Workflow and content issuesSkill and competences required for the print and the online newsroom are different. Online

journalism/editing demands for multitasking, flexibility in terms of shifts and roles, and aworking knowledge of multimedia communication.Print and online newsrooms are spatially close, although integration mechanisms

between them are mainly informal. Some print journalists, who already work for both theprint and online newspaper, see the online newspaper as an opportunity to publish news,often relevant, which have difficulties or no chance at all to be published on print.

Therefore, the only constraints to change and convergence are mainly related to theofficial perspective, which still consider print newspaper as the main product. This isshowed, for example, by the fact that the online newspaper is very rarely utilized to scoopnews. Scoop news are to be published first on the print newspaper, whereas on-line isdevoted to insights on the same news.

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if I get the scoop on something I won't tell anybody before putting it intoprint, if I talk about it to the colleagues of the online newsroom beforeputting it into print, my boss would beat me up. [print editor]

A typical day in the print newsroom kicks off with a morning meeting. Also the chief editorand some editors of the online newsroom is involved, and, sometimes, managers of the of

the Group Digital division (in case a special content project or a marketing initiative is to becarried out). During the meeting the online newsroom editors take notes about news thatpresent a promising potential development. At the end of the meeting, the desks of the twonewsrooms will have coordinate the work and define priorities about topics/issues.Priorities are relevant to the online newsroom workflow because this may be subjectto modification due to events. As said above, most of the journalists provide differentarticles for print and online versions, but there is still an informal approach to themultimedia work.

Ha! Integration! if I had to say what integration is, it's definition would beenclosed in the following formula: every time the print newsroom opens

a project or deals with content, print editors also ask themselves 'what shallwe do to for the site? and vice versa when the online newsroom opensa project or deals with content, the online editors would ask themselves'what shall we do to for the print newspaper ? [Online editor]

Continuous coverage of front-page events is made possible by the constant production ofarticles, as well as photographic documentation consisting of almost 500 photos per dayand increasing use of video, 28,6 million video clips (source: repubblica.it) were seen inMarch 2011, with users up more than 90% over the previous year. Some of these videonews are scoop news which consequently become news headlines for the printnewspaper. Online newsroom invites also readers to submit still images and videos ofsome breaking news event or something else that might be of interest to the newspaper.

In order to manage the great quantity of visual content a visual desk has beencreated next to the online newsroom desk. This new born visual desk promote visualjournalism where show, dont tell is the norm, and it is composed by 9 people, 6 editorsand 3 web designers who provide their service to all the newsrooms of the parentEspresso Group (dailies, periodicals, radio and TV).

The online newsroom (especially editors at the local editions) and the visual desktake also in great account user generated content and user participation. This is becausethey tend to view user generated content as providing content relevant to their readers,both online and potentially offline. The inclusion of some user generated content, instead

of content produced by professional editors, have been tested. Nevertheless features for aparticipative audience require more than just the provision of the technology and tools.They also require moderation, and coordination. Activities that can be, therefore, resourceintensive due to the necessary editorial intervention.

While pictures and videos created by the readers are encouraged, other types ofcontent are limited to comments (moderated by two people working at the archive) andpoll. About pools, repubblica.it is experimenting the use of users social networks profiles(mainly with the use of Facebook Connect) in order to remove the barrier of requiringusers to register in order to be able to use the newspaper site.

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Management of IT resourcesAlso the management of IT resources reflect the degree and the type of alignmentbetween the two newsrooms and other business units. The Group Digital divisionpromotes integrated initiatives to both external users (i.e. service for readers) and internaluser (i.e. information and systems for the newsrooms). It is worth noting that from theonline editors and journalist interviews it emerges the idea of information systems design

as a participatory activity; this perspective is confirmed by the presence of an ITpresidium in the newsroom (2 specialists with technical and web design capabilities).

if I need a special page or a tool for the visualization, let's say, for an election pollresults, I explain my needs to the web designer or the IT guy, and they will tell mewhat they can do or suggest other solutions [online editor]

The IT department of the Digital division has a presidium of two specialists in the onlinenewsroom and a formal commitment to i) promote integration of the databases of thedifferent contents provided and ii) standardization of the editorial platform. The mediaconvergence being enabled by integrated editorial and information systems is considered

an opportunity by both the online and print newsroom editors.

With a click I can see what my colleagues at the print newsroom are working to,and this is very useful [print editor]

In 2009 the IT department changed its role from a service oriented and demandmanagement unit, to a formal business unit with its own budget. The change ofperspective is evident from the proposition of moving from a in-house built editorialsystems customized on the needs of the repubblica.it newsroom to a standard one whichguarantees interoperability with other systems and infrastructure. This configurationemerges as the background for integration mechanisms and for further insights on thelevel of integration and in general for the informal vision shared at editorial and operationallevels.

Discussion: the adaptive cycleBoth newspapers, Corriere della Sera and la Repubblica, present characteristics of anAnalyser organization. In fact, the online venture can be seen as a shift towards thecategory Analyzer, with operations in one relatively stable part of the market (print) andone rather unstable (online).

In the traditional line of operations (print) the focus is on routine and efficiency,

whereas in the new line of business (online), both Corriere della Sera and la Repubblicaseeks to adopt good ideas already tested by competitors. The majority of bothorganizations' revenue is, in fact, generated by a fairly stable set of products and customeror client groups (a Defender characteristic) linked to the print newspaper. At the sametime, the most successful product or market innovations developed by prominentProspectors are adopted both at Corriere della Sera and Repubblica: for example, mobileservices or real time video-content as well as social media features.

In order to be successful, the Analyzer organisation should be able to respondquickly when following the lead of key Prospectors while at the same time maintainingoperating efficiency in its stable product and market areas. As Analyzers, Corriere dellaSera and Repubblica presents therefore a dual technological core reflecting solutions of

both the Prospector and the Defender. The aim of the two newspaper organizations is in

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fact to enlarge their product line (online, mobile, archive search, user generated contentetc.) without incurring the Prospector's extensive research and development expenses.Hence, from the organisational point of view, the challenge is how to differentiate theorganization's structure and processes to accommodate both stable and dynamic areas ofoperation.

The Analyzer typically solves this problem with some version of a matrix

organization structure. The structure and processes of the organization are differentiatedin order to account for both stable and dynamic spheres of activity. Consequently, heads ofkey functional units, editorial, technology and marketing, are unite to form a balanceddominant coalition, which is typical of an Analyser organization. This can be observed inRepubblica, and in some extension also in Corriere della Sera although, in the latter, themarketing manager's influence seems to be greater on the online newsroom than on theprint newsroom since his task is to identify promising product-market innovations.

Nevertheless, Corriere della Sera presents also characteristic of the Reactororganisation. First of all because it is still not clearly stated what may the exact answer tofollowing question: What kind of strategic role do the online newspaper play?.

The more common answer amongst both managers and journalists interviewed has

been that exploring new opportunities in new media is the primary function of the onlinenewsroom at Corriere della Sera. It seems as both managers and journalists at Corrieredella Sera find it hard to respond efficiently to the uncertainty created as a result ofchanges in the environment. It nevertheless seems that a state of exploration may bestsummarize the situation of many players (Repubblica included), since fear, uncertainty anddoubt are still part of the newspaper industry, also in 2011.

Nevertheless Repubblica appears to be more at ease in this explorative activity. Theinnovation brought to the newsrooms by the new born Visual desk it is the result of thisexploration for new kind of products (visual journalism) and its consequent organizationalrestructuring and design. Also the recently introduced night-time coverage will allowrepubblica.it to provide a greater focus on Italian communities around the world. Aboutthree million users access repubblica.it each month from outside of Italy and from now onthese readers will have direct contact with the editorial staff, making their own reports andtestimony known. This will give Repubblica the possibility to intensify niche marketingtowards readers who have had limited access to the printed edition. There readersrepresents a niche market of those living far away from where they were born, who want tokeep in touch with the news from home. Recent research exposing the large numbers oflong-distance online newspaper readers (Sylvie and Chyi, 2007) underlines that althoughthey do not spend as much time on the newspapers site as local readers, long- distancereaders total as many or more than local readers at most online newspapers and thusconstitute a largely ignored repository of value; and Repubblica is already experimenting

solutions.Corriere della Sera has not yet succeeded in finding a balanced focus betweentraditional and new activities and in this climate of uncertainty, the Analyzer areas cannotbe supported by intensive planning between the IT group and the marketing managers forthe development of new products. In this situation, therefore, the key characteristic of theAnalyzer's system of balancing between the stable and dynamic areas of operation isdifficult to achieve.

Repubblica, as a younger company (both because founded in 1976 and alsoconsidering the average age of the editors) seems to be more comfortable with innovation.Change is not perceived as a threat to the status quo. At the contrary, innovation goes wellin accordance with the brand of a innovative and progressive newspaper (both

ideologically and towards to the market). For example, in 2004, through a gradual process,

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the newspaper introduced colour in every page. This decision shifted the whole Italiannewspaper market, forcing the competition to adopt similar measures.

While Repubblica appears firm in its role of Analyser organization, Corriere dellaSera, instead, presents also some Reactor characteristics.

Although there are undoubtedly many reasons why organizations become Reactors,Miles and Snow (2003) have identified three. First, top management may not have clearly

articulated the organization's strategy. For example, Corriere.it was created by a smallgroup of editorial managers, prospectors of immense personal skills, but to the effort ofthis small coalition have not followed a shape of the organization's structure andprocesses to fit a strategy clearly chosen by the top management (and this unclearnessis the second reason identified by Miles and Snow why organizations become Reactors).Furthermore, unless all the different domains, cultural, technological, structural andprocedural, are properly aligned, strategy is a mere statement, not an effective guide tobehaviour. And this seems to be the current situation at Corriere della Sera.

However, the present goal of the organisation does not appear to be integrationbetween print and online newsrooms, as well as different units. And, as noted above, theabsence of IT in the dominant coalition is to represent an underutilisation of technology,

which is usually a trait of the Reactor organisation. The result is that dual technologicalcore (newsrooms technology, routine information management systems versus web andmobile solutions) are not integrated in a flexible way. Organization's existing technologicalcapabilities are not, thus, well matched with the new products desired by the IT andmarketing departments, not even in front of the evidence of the (commercial) performanceof the online newspaper, with much over 1 million readers each day and most of therevenues coming from advertising and events promotion.

In areas where Corriere della Sera wish to "prospect" (online newsroom andmarketing department), these present a functional structure, as well as share the sametechnology with other units and with print newsroom, thereby making it difficult for theorganization to respond to market opportunities quickly. Accordingly, Corriere della Seraexhibits a weak link between its strategy (of being an Analyser organisation, although notclearly stated) and its structure-process characteristics.

At Repubblica, instead, the Group Digital division leads the integration andstandardization process at a infrastructural and information systems level, and this aimingto provide an integrated and multichannel newspaper underlines the strategy of alignmentwith the external environment.

The third cause of instability defined by Miles and Snow is a tendency formanagement to maintain the organization's current strategy-structure relationship despiteoverwhelming changes in environmental conditions. And this is also the case of Corrieredella Sera, afraid of loosing the status quo of its influent brand.

Misalignment, though, is not only toward external environment but also, to someextent, also within organisation. At Corriere della Sera the achieving of integration seemsto be perceived as a cost that might outweigh the benefits or at least significantly reducethe value of integration itself. This because reciprocal interdependence requires forexample timely information sharing, whereas team interdependence requires joint problemsolving and direct observation. And these are costly.

Furthermore, the achieved integration at Corriere della Sera seems uncertain, at theit seems there is no tensions or very low conflict, the misalignment between the twonewsrooms or between functions is showed by the lack of accurate information regardingother units as well as the feeling that different functions or/and different units do notbehave as a unified whole. Also the rare utilization of online service to scoop news might

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indicate a low level of integration between the print and online units. The need ofintegration mechanism is therefore perceived.

At Corriere della Sera, at the moment, inter-units integration and mutual adjustmentand feedback rely on mainly horizontal mechanisms, such as informal communicationacross print and online newsrooms or across functions (mainly IT and/or marketing) ormanagerial meetings. The role of small numbers of influent testimonials (chief editors of

the recent organizational past or influential journalists) and champions (younger journalistsof the online and print newsrooms as well as technology experts working in the ITdepartment) are also important because they represent potential agents of change.

Integration mechanisms appear, therefore, to be relevant to the Analyser parts ofthe Corriere della Sera because they increase the amount of information processed in theorganization, as well as the richness of that information, providing the organisations withinformal devices of coordination, overcoming the organizational members limitationsregarding perceptions and understanding in the ability to achieve the common goals.Together with achieved integration and integration mechanism, the third dimension ofintegration is requisite integration or required interdependence, (Lorsch and Lawrence,1972), which is the felt need for joint decision making.

At Corriere della Sera this is highly felt by online staff. This varies across situationsbut the common feeling is that of a desired continual collaboration with print staff, in orderof being able of taking common decisions before act. This is mainly to overcomeuncertainty but also for the wish of a more significant participation in decision-making. Atthe moment, though, only the already mentioned informal lateral integration mechanismsprovide some sort of casual integration. The online newsroom managers and themarketing managers are the most ones committed to integration at Corriere della Sera, butthey said it had been modestly successful, which suggests that further evolution may berequired to meet these news managers objectives.

At Repubblica, although the integration between the two newsrooms is still mostlyinformal, with the morning meeting as the only formal integration mechanism, numerousjournalists already work for both newsrooms and a full integration between the twonewsrooms is seen as an historic inevitability of the next future. Furthermore, theintegration between the online newsroom and the Group Digital division is de factoformalized with an IT presidium, and the practice of participatory design (with theparticipation of both journalists and technicians) for ad hoc web site features represents animportant opportunity to put in practice an integrated approach of requiredinterdependence for a shared decision-making process.

Conclusion and future work

The study of organizational integration strives to understand how the boundaries andstructures of organizations are shifting. Organizational development and the innovationthat integration is expected to nurture often occurs along these shifting boundaries, whereideas and their advocates compete for organizational influence (Bergquist, 9).

Newspapers have traditionally been structured around the notion of silos. Thispractice has produced a distinction between the traditional newsroom and the more recentonline newsroom. Nevertheless, the increasing acceptance of the Internet for consumingnews, its development as an advertising platform, and the need to restructure costs,prompt newspaper managers to reconsider the separation between online and printnewsrooms.

Both Corriere della Sera and la Repubblica have had these newsrooms operating as

different entities, with each vying for resources, scoops and readers. In this study,

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indications are that a much higher level of integration can be beneficial sinceorganizational integration creates structural opportunities for influence to flow in multipledirections. At both organizations, inter-units integration and mutual adjustment andfeedback still rely on mainly horizontal mechanisms, such as informal communication.

A more highly integrated newspaper could bring to production efficiencies in theform of the online staffs greater empowerment and involvement in the organizations

activities and the print staffs more frequent contributions to the online operations.Especially at Corriere della Sera, a higher level of integration may also bring an internalpersonnel relationships characterized by equalized perceptions of status between printand online employees, as well as having online staff actively participate in planningmeetings, which in turn may help the institution of explicit policies for cross-promotion ofcontent.

Nevertheless, Corriere della Sera and la Repubblica are becoming more integrated,and news managers are increasingly working with non-news departments to strategize,plan, and market. Integration within the newspaper seems to be a favorable organizationalchange. This result should not be a surprise since the changes in technology and also inconsumption patterns of media users require that media organizations are able to respond

quickly to shifting demands.A high level of awareness by individuals of their organization's operation and how

each individual or unit fits into that organization is essential. Where awareness is low, theorganizational climate is often reflected in a constrained atmosphere, the result ofuncertainty by organizational members. Factors of change and organizational climate areintrinsically linked. This is because organizational conflicts are linked, to structuralmisalignment, as well as cultural. If Corriere della Sera and its journalists and managersare to integrate and work well in the interdependent environment, some level ofunderstanding between the groups is needed.

This because ongoing communication is essential for everyone working in the crossplatform environments, and managers embarking on integration activities should work tocreate an organizational value shift among the participants of the changing enterprise. Thishappens at Repubblica, less at Corriere della Sera where strategy about onlineopportunities is still not clearly stated and online newsroom primary function is still that ofan explorative role. The climate is still of uncertainty, and there is no intensive planningbetween the IT group and the marketing managers for the development of new products.Value and attitude discrepancies will pose serious risks to the undertaking ifcommunications are not complete, accurate and forthcoming. Corporate myths regardingthe competing units or newsroom should be discovered and either exorcised from thelexicon or marginalized by consistent and frequent information to all employee groups.

The overall problem is how to establish collaborative intergroup relations in those

situations where task interdependence or the need for unity makes collaboration anecessary prerequisite for organizational effectiveness. Nevertheless, online activities canalso lead to the emergence of common interests among different parts of the sameorganization and suggest that these are tightly connected to changes in the overallorganization.

For example, in both newspapers organizations taken in analysis the marketingdepartment is able to gather information about audience more efficiently than the printnewsroom, and it is able to influence on how content is proposed to readers helping thenewsroom to adjust the product by creating new services in order to fulfill the readersunsatisfied needs.

The down periods for newspaper companies, particularly economic recessions,

request the different functions of the organization to align their goals in a way that allows

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the firm to improve its performance while hopefully taking care of not hurting the journalistsethical principles. The overall goal of integration is usually to offer a better service toreaders and advertisers. For this reason cooperation is becoming a widespread activity,and the wall between journalists and managers located in different compartments of theorganization is crumbling.

Therefore, scholars agree that a key to development is organizational integration.

Integration breaks down organizational barriers, creating opportunities for exchanges ofknowledge throughout the organization. Inter-departmental teams are examples oforganizational integration. These teams are expected to contribute to innovation becausethey create structural mechanisms for fresh thinking (Kanter, 2001). Nevertheless thispractice is still rarely applied in both organizations taken in analysis.

Additional research is needed to determine if integration may help meeting specificstrategic as well as adaptive cycle goals. Newspaper organizations may also have greatbenefit from quantitative data that would be predictive of success to avoid instituting costlyand time-consuming policies and procedures that do little to achieve the desired outcome.

In future work, we will replicate the case study to others large and middle-sizeEuropean newspaper organizations.

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TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND ALIGNMENT TO THE ENVIRONMENT: CHANGE MANAGEMENT ISSUES IN NEWSPAPER ORGANIZATIONS