Deanna de Zilwa

Purpose
Netflix is the market leader in the streaming entertainment industry. In 2020 and 2021, Netflix’s subscriber numbers and revenue increased. During the first two quarters of 2022, Netflix lost millions of subscribers, revenue and profit declined and its share price and market capitalization deteriorated. The purpose of this study is to investigate how and why a company with such a strong track record as Netflix can experience this crisis and, most importantly, how it overcame the crisis and returned to growth.

Design/methodology/approach
This case study investigates Netflix’s rise, fall and recovery between 2020 and 2023 using qualitative research methods. It examines earnings calls, transcripts and letters to shareholders as well as the views of investment analysts, journalists and academics.

Findings
Netflix turned its fortunes around because its leaders faced the crisis head-on. They acknowledged that previous strategic decisions were no longer working, that no advertisements were on the platform and that there was no account sharing and they reversed these decisions. Netflix also realized that it needed to innovate, so it partnered with Microsoft to execute its go-to-market with advertising. It also launched games, made strategic acquisitions of gaming studios and developed its capabilities with new products.

Originality/value
This is a valuable case study. Investigating how a company as successful as Netflix can encounter a severe decline and how it changed its strategies and tactics to reverse the decline provides important lessons for other companies.

Purpose - Exploring a new conceptual framework for authentic followership (AF) comprised of three components: individual, dyadic and organisational. The purpose of this paper is to explain how the components of AF interact as a positive, non-linear feedback loop. It presents three propositions of positive outcomes arising from AF. First, AF builds follower's strengths and capacities. Second, AF strengthens dyadic relationships between followers and leaders. Third, AF deepens and strengthens positive organisational culture thereby improving organisational performance. It discusses the practical significance of these propositions for followers, leaders and firms. Design/methodology/approach - The paper provides an overview of AF. Then three propositions of positive outcomes arising from AF are presented. It identifies how these propositions could benefit followers, leaders and firms. In conclusion, it offers suggestions for future research directions and notes some limitations of this work. Findings - The key finding of this paper is that AF could potentially strengthen the capacities and performance of followers, leaders and organisations if the propositions presented in this work are correct if the three components of AF interact with each other as a positive feedback loop strengthening and reinforcing each component of AF. To establish the validity of the AF model and the three propositions the paper suggests that investigations in different empirical settings are undertaken: SME's and multinational corporations, in different countries under different market conditions, with followers and leaders of different gender, age, education level, roles and tenure of employment. Originality/value - The paper's core contention that the components of AF interact as a positive feedback loop has significant practical implications - beneficial outcomes for followers, leaders and firms. P1 explains how AF enables followers to gain confidence, maturity and create solid foundations from which to thrive and flourish. P2 explains how dyadic relationships between followers and leaders could be strengthened, deepening trust and respect between each party, thereby enhancing leadership effectiveness. P3 explains how the dynamic processes of AF can strengthen and deepen positive organisational culture and enhance organisational performance.

This book uses case studies of academic units from Australian public universities to explore the reasons why those units respond in different ways to similar contemporary challenges. The 'academic units'-departments, schools and faculties-in the world's public universities may be their own administrative fiefdoms, but the wider environment within which they operate is both complex and dynamic. In fact, today's academic landscape is barely recognizable from what it was like two decades ago. The globalization of higher education markets for students, faculty and research funding has expanded the challenges and opportunities for academic units beyond the boundaries of nation states. However, academic units must also deal with the diverse needs and expectations of national and local stakeholders, as well as operate within government regulatory and policy frameworks. In addition, they are required to adhere to policy and operational directives from institutional executives and consider the often-competing needs and expectations of other stakeholders such as faculty, students, employers, funding bodies and professional associations. As public funding slowly evaporates some university faculties have embraced the imperative to be more business-oriented. Others have shrunk from congress with Mammon. The milieu of tertiary education is having to adapt to fresh trends in this domain, such as the advocacy of marketization, entrepreneurialism and corporatization, the three pillars of so-called 'new public management'. With its case studies from different academic disciplines and types of university, this book asks some key questions: Why do some units adapt to environmental challenges and others resist change? How and why do academic units adopt different modes and processes of adaptation or resistance? Along with its new conceptual framework for the wider context, the text makes an important contribution to scholarship on leading and managing change in universities, while at the same time offering those in academic leadership positions relevant advice and practical suggestions to guide their units through these complex challenges. Where other academic studies have examined the university as an institution in its entirety, this focused study compares the decision-making on a lower rung of the administrative ladder.

Some sociologists and higher education scholars view theory and empiricism as separate worlds, arguing that one has nothing to offer the other. This work proposes that the boundaries between theoretical conceptions and empirical realities have a transilient fluidity, that one domain informs the other. Hence this study explores connections between three theoretical conceptions of the university, Weber's bureaucracy, Ritzer's McUniversity and Clark's Entrepreneurial University and the leadership style of executives in Australian public universities. Information about executives' leadership style was gathered from case study interviews with seventeen executives from four Australian public universities. This work found that at each of the case study universities leaders' views of their university comprised elements of these three conceptions of the university, none of the three conceptions of the university were actualized in a 'pure' form. This work also identifies four different leadership styles used by these executives: entrepreneurial transformers, facilitators, bureaucrats and collegial leaders. It finds some connections between leaders' theoretical conceptions of the university and how they led their universities. However, the connections between theory and empiricism were complex, reflexive ones rather than unidirectional causes and effects.

This study explores connections between the organisational culture and values of academic units in Australian universities and their efforts to adapt to external environmental pressures. It integrates empirical findings from case studies with theories of organisational culture and values and adaptation. It identifies seven dimensions of academic unit's organisational culture and values that influenced how case study academic units adapted. Then patterns of heterogeneity and homogeneity within these dimensions are noted and their associations with different modes of adaptation are discussed.

This study provides a profile of the actions taken by Australian universities to diversify their revenue streams in order to generate more independent (non-government) income. Marginson's taxonomy of Australian universities is used to catergorise universities and contrast levels of independent income (Marginson and Considine 2000). This study finds that some Australian universities have used isomorphic tactics in their attempts to diversify their revenue streams. Unitechs (Universities of Technology) and New Universities are over-reliant upon income earned from overseas student fees, whilst earning comparatively small amounts of revenue from Royalties, Trademarks and Licences, Consultancy, Contract Research and Investments. This work discusses the dangers inherent in over-reliance on a single type of independent income. It argues that if Australian universities seek to enhance their success competing in global research, staff and student markets then they need to augment efforts to diversify revenue streams with structural and cultural changes, transforming themselves from being rigid hierarchical public bureaucracies to become more flexible network enterprises (Castells 2000).