The Academic Publishing Industry: El Dorado for Elsevier & Co?

The case starts with introducing the outstanding profitability of academic journal publishers such as Elsevier and then dives into describing the research process from an idea to conducting research and to publishing the results in academic journals. Subsequently, demand and supply for scientific journals and papers are discussed including drivers and involved parties. Furthermore, the case describes competition between suppliers, customers, and publishers. In sum, the case study features a rich description of the industry’s many unusual attributes which allows for discussing the benefits and limitations of industrial organisation frameworks for strategic management.