Peripheral vision: detecting the weak signals that will make or break doordarshan as a media organization

Abstract

The interest in peripheral vision in a research topic has grown significantly in the recent years. The rapidly changing business environment has caused greater need for peripheral vision in organization. The managers and researchers around the world are finding the interest to develop the sufficient peripheral vision capability that can meet the growing needs of peripheral vision in organization. Superior peripheral vision can help organization to anticipate risks and see opportunities sooner while gaining a profitable advantage over its blinkered rivals (Day et al, 2006). Commercial satellite television in India has changed the media landscape at national and regional level in the country. In the changed scenario, state broadcaster Doordarshan (DD) is forced to reassess their role in newly competitive markets. DD is struggling to respond the transformation in the media industry environment in the country. The theoretical objective of this study is to examine and establish the peripheral vision as need and capability for Doordarshan with complex and dynamic media industry environments in India. Whether DD?s peripheral vision needs to change depends upon the current capability as well as the present need for peripheral vision in organization. The present study is focussed to find vigilance in Doordarshan to counter the competitive forces from environments. This study also measures the gap between Doordarshan s need for peripheral vision and its ability to sense signals which contains new opportunities and fresh threats from environments. As with human peripheral vision, these signals are difficult to see and interpret but can be vital to long term success or survival of organization. The study also identifies the different factors from environments that influence the organizational need and capability for peripheral vision in Doordarshan. The findings of the study indicate that there is high need for peripheral vision in all functional divisions of Doordarshan. However the necessary capability for peripheral vision that can meet the high needs have found low in all functional divisions covered vi in survey. As a result Doordarshan has found itself in vulnerable position to capture the important weak signals which contains new opportunities and fresh threats from environment. In the vigilance gap analysis, Doordarshan capability for peripheral vision falls short of what they need in given environment. So this suggests the vigilance gap in all functional divisions of Doordarshan. This gap in vigilance in Doordarshan can be covered by developing the capabilities as well as vigilant leadership. It is important to match organizational capability with the need to remain vigilant in given environment. In Doordarshan, higher capability for peripheral vision can be developed as per data analysis, by systematic integration of customer and competitor information into future technology platforms and new product development plans, improving the sharing of information across different functional divisions, and assigning clear accountability to individual or group for sensing and acting on weak signals (about fresh threats and new opportunities) from periphery of business. Several policy recommendations emerge from the study like, the proper peripheral vision capability is significantly important to develop in Doordarshan to meet the complex challenges due to rapid and unstable development of media industry environment in India. From the academic point of view, the study provides confirmatory evidences that process to develop peripheral vision framework can be successfully applied to the public service media organization. Whereas, from the point of view of the policy makers, the study provides an insight as to how to frame the strategy to allocate proper resources in terms of human and financial capital for sharing of information from periphery. It also suggests to develop suitable climate and culture in organization for proper sharing of information across different functional divisions and assigning suitable accountability to sense and act on the signals from periphery.