To read this content please select one of the options below:

Financial and Nonfinancial Performance Measures for Managing Revenue Streams of Intellectual Property Products: The Case of Motion Pictures

Advances in Management Accounting

ISBN: 978-1-78560-972-5, eISBN: 978-1-78560-971-8

Publication date: 23 November 2016

Abstract

Purpose

We examine the role of financial and nonfinancial performance measures in managing revenues derived from life cycles of a type of intellectual property products − motion pictures.

Design/approach

Our study focuses on the first two markets in which audiences can watch a motion picture – the upstream theatrical market and the downstream home video market. We combine data collected from numerous public and proprietary sources and form a final sample of 654 motion pictures. Then we perform regression analysis on the data.

Findings

First, three measures of a movie’s performance in the theatrical market, opening box office revenue, peak rank, and weeks at the peak rank, have positive effects on subsequent revenues in the home video market. Second, the same set of performance measures also predicts the motion picture’s life span in the theatrical market. Third, when the actual life span of a motion picture in the theatrical market deviates from its predicted value, the total return on investment in the motion picture decreases.

Research limitations

We do not have data on other downstream markets related to motion pictures, such as pay-per-view and online video streaming.

Practical implications

This study suggests that the public and proprietary data can be used to inform managerial decisions regarding intellectual property product life cycles.

Originality/value

This is the first accounting study that directly examines life cycle revenues of intellectual property products. We also extend literature on revenue driver and revenue management research to the product level.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

We thank Mary Malina (the editor) and two anonymous referees for many valuable suggestions that greatly improved the paper. We also thank Wim Van der Stede for his constructive discussions with us. We are also grateful for helpful comments and suggestions from seminar participants at University of Illinois at Chicago, California State University at Fullerton, and Southern California Accounting Research Forum (SCARF). We also appreciate the time and insights that some motion picture industry executives share with us.

Citation

Gong, J.J. and Young, S.M. (2016), "Financial and Nonfinancial Performance Measures for Managing Revenue Streams of Intellectual Property Products: The Case of Motion Pictures", Advances in Management Accounting (Advances in Management Accounting, Vol. 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-37. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-787120160000027001

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Group Publishing Limited