by Subhanjan Sengupta | Posted on 12th November 2018

The notion of creative economy emerged with the shift happening from economies based on production of goods to the economies based on the provision of services; somewhat similar to the shift from agrarian to industrial economies back in the 1700s. It is similar to the concept of the post-industrial knowledge economy, where we talk about businesses developing and growing on platforms and solutions created to generate, manage, and disseminate information and knowledge that fuels the economy. ‘Creativity’ becomes a force in economic and social life. This creative orientation across the value chain enables businesses in the creative economy to foster social inclusion, cultural diversity, and human flourishing. This nourishes a climate of innovation and development.

The creativity in solutions – be it products and services – can be in arts, sciences, as well as technologies. Creativity plays an important role in strengthening opportunity search and recognition in an entrepreneurship process. Enterprises in the context of a creative economy may be social as well as commercial enterprises. We are talking about creativity at different points in the value chain for competitiveness, for increasing capabilities, for creating value through social and environmental impact, and for capturing value through market-oriented activities. Economy is perceived as talent-led, and the creative industry as a source of growth at individual-level and firm-level. This creates space for young people to emerge as ‘entrepreneurs of the self’.

While the creative industry has emerged as a viable alternative for livelihood generation by unleashing the creative potential of social actors through their interactions with entrepreneurial processes and venturing, it has also emerged as exemplary of management innovation and transformation of value chain. Having said that, it is harder to gain legitimacy for new ventures in the creative industries, compared to other industries, due to the very nature of this industry being aesthetically valued by the subjectivities and interpretations of the associated stakeholders.

The pretext of this paradox lies in the findings from prior research that creative industries, usually, lack creativity in the development of business models. This is often due to a combination of cognitive lock-ins and exhaustion of creative instincts while coping with immediate or unprecedented problems within and outside the enterprise. Thus, seeking legitimacy is a problematic area in the creative industries where a lot of efforts are going on, opening up opportunities for research.