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process in creative
entrepreneurship?
David Rae
* * *
How to transform ideas into enterprises is a distinctive
challenge for entrepreneurs in the creative and cultural
industries. This article explores the role of cultural
diffusion in creative entrepreneurship. The concept of
cultural production and consumption is an established
position in the literature on creative enterprise (Du Gay,
1997). However, the phenomenon of creative entrepreneurship is more complex than is suggested by this
industrial metaphor, and a conceptual understanding of
cultural diffusion, which may be applied in education
and by practitioners, is proposed.
The article first outlines the historical development of
the creative economy and the emergence of enterprise in
the creative industries. The need to move from talking
in terms of cultural production and consumption to a
conceptualization of how the creative enterprise works
through social interaction is then proposed. The concept
of cultural diffusion in creative enterprises and its five
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Cultural diffusion
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Cultural diffusion
Methodology
The approach used in this study was social
constructionist, interpretive and narrative (Gergen, 1999;
Hjorth and Steyaert, 2004). Four creative enterprises
were followed over a two-year period by contact with
their lead entrepreneurs. These were identified through
exploratory fieldwork and networking within the
creative industries, and four criteria were developed for
their selection:
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Cultural diffusion
observation of meetings and other interactions, conversations with business partners, managers, employees
and customers, and sampling the creative and commercial output of each enterprise, such as advertising and
promotional material, publications, programming,
Websites and premises.
Figure 1.
Sawari Culture
Shires FM
Indian film, music and Local news and pop music Design and identity for
books, personal and
radio with advertising
organizations and
family gifts
products
Fantasy war-games,
books and magazines
3. Business process
generates and captures
commercial value
Mail-order catalogue
with basic Website,
fulfilment by
wholesaler
4. Innovative use of
technology to
communicate with
customers
Failed to innovate;
CRM and Website
not developed
effectively
Website, online
community, war-gaming;
computer games
project terminated
5. Distinctive business
culture, management
and work style
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Cultural diffusion
189
Cultural diffusion
radio and who give it a try. Radio works because of repetition,
our audience is changing all the time, so youve got to put
sufficient money behind it to work. We need advertisers who
become committed to us, year-round.
You have to get the listeners first. A small standalone radio
station would book zero national revenue. We sell it as part of a
group to national advertisers who buy for the audited audience
figures and pay per 1,000 audience hours, so this is a style of
radio service with the same approach and programming to
produce similar audience profiles.
How will the business generate and capture financial value from interacting with the customer?
What is the business process or model? Can you
draw a simple diagram of this?
What factors lead to risk, uncertainty or volatility in
the business? (eg competition, customer taste,
variable demand, seasonality, technological change)
How can these risks be reduced, managed or
prevented?
What gross and net profit margins and break-even
sales figures need to be achieved?
What are the key success measures for the business?
(eg sales per customer, sales and profit per month)
How can performance be measured and improved?
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Cultural diffusion
Conclusion
The cases illustrate the intuitive nature of cultural
diffusion in a creative enterprise, in which what works
is a combination of the enacted values of innovation,
emotional engagement and responsibility to people,
together with the feel and approach that have been
learned through experience. In Shires FM, the success of
cultural diffusion depends on the outcome of the
continuous processes of negotiation between the Radio
Authority, the advertisers who provide revenue in return
for listeners, and the community of listeners who
provide the audience. Only by producing a cultural
product that meets the perceived needs of each of these
groups can the radio station be established and continue
to operate.
This harmonization between individual creative effort,
the management of creative activity within the business,
and channelling this into a commercial application, is
necessary for success in the creative enterprise; it is, as
Bjrkegren (1996) observed, a fusion of creative and
commercial strategies. For creative production alone has
no intrinsic value, and finding opportunities to exploit it
is essential. There may be tensions between creative
activity and commercial exploitation. None of the cases
pretends to be creating pure or high culture. Rather,
they apply a repertoire of creative ideas and discourse to
commercial needs and opportunities. The ability to do
this successfully, whilst retaining the attention of the
chosen audience, is a vital aspect of entrepreneurial
activity. These negotiated meanings, practices and
culture, enacted within the businesses, are socially
learned ways of entrepreneurial working that enable
creative and commercial activity to occur (Wenger,
1998).
There is often a quality of shared emotional engagement and energy in creative businesses which goes
beyond rationality, expressed in such words as buzz,
excitement, fun and passion. This is produced in the
language, practices and repertoire of creative enterprises, as people express their identities, channelling
their emotional energy and their creative abilities
through their work. This distinctive quality of creative
businesses is culturally diffused and shared with the
audience. The radio disc jockey, the copywriter, the
games designer, each share their creative production and
emotional engagement with the audience. Their performance needs to be consistent and consonant with the
ongoing expectations and values of the audience, aiming
to gain attention, to entertain, and in a marketing sense
to result in a decision to buy.
Cultural diffusion requires the customer to engage as
an active participant, not simply as a passive consumer.
Cultural diffusion offers the audience a narrative
conversation of ideas and language through creative
media, requiring new ideas to attract and maintain their
interest. Innovating working in new, distinctive ways
is a negotiated process that meets cultural needs in a
different way, drawing customers with it, and distinguishing the enterprise from others. Cultural value is
generated in the symbolic exchange between producer
and consumer, and just as the producer is giving something of him/herself, so the customer identifies with the
enterprise. The cultural identity of the enterprise is
formed and enacted through the interactions between it
and the groups with which it engages. Participating in
selected networks, influencing opinion-formers and
being talked about in the right way are significant and
learned aspects of entrepreneurial working in the
creative economy (Leadbeater and Oakley, 1999).
Although every creative enterprise is unique in some
aspects, they face similar challenges in forging a
business from cultural tastes and discretionary spending.
This transformation of creative discourse into economic
and social activity is more complex than simple production and consumption. Cultural diffusion provides a
practical and conceptual means of understanding the
negotiated, interactive, informal and relational aspects
through which the creative enterprise is enacted. Enterprises that are able to enact the processes of cultural
diffusion effectively are more likely to succeed, by
working in dynamic and socially connected ways in a
rapidly evolving environment, than those that persist
with static notions of production and consumption:
People give me ideas about what the business could offer them,
and they want it to work they tell their friends! I think my
business will meet their social need (Val).
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