Chapter 9: Ownership Advantage in Digital Cultural Industries and Its Cross-border Transfer

This chapter explores the distinctive characteristics of value underlying assets of firms in digital cultural industries and their transfer across the borders. The research argues that due to the idiosyncratic nature of digital cultural products associated with their authentic and symbolic value and digital form, the characteristics of their ownership advantages differ from those defined in the current research and thus, require further conceptualization. The study is conducted as explorative case research in the Finnish digital cultural industries to achieve this goal. The findings allow to delineate characteristics of ownership advantage of digital cultural products, labelled as Odc such as creative appeal, cultural connectedness, digital novelty and technological proficiency. Research shows that it is these characteristics that earn firms possibility for gaining competitive positions in international markets. The study also distinguishes between market creation and market differentiation digital cultural products and discusses the mechanisms for the cross-border transfer of their Odc. Thus, this research advances theoretical development about types of ownership advantages. Furthermore, it extends the knowledge about digital internationalization by showing the role and the extent of the use of non-digital mechanisms in the cross-border transfer of value of digital products.