Creative Work Beyond the Creative Industries: An Introduction

Creative occupations exist across the entire economy. The creative worker’s habitus cannot be discovered by looking only in film studios, games companies or artist’s garrets. Work practices, evolved through the traditions of the creative and performing arts, are now deployed to create new services and products across all sectors, to develop process innovations, and to change the distribution thereof. Yet the bulk of academic study of creative work (both functionalist and critical), as well as the content of higher/further professional education programs and everyday understanding of creative workers, focuses on one subset of the Creative Industries: those involved in the production of cultural goods or services (film, television, music etc.) for consumption by the general public. And further, the bulk of existing academic work focuses on those creative workers employed in cultural production industries. However, as recent work has shown, this focus misses both the large (and increasing) number of creative workers embedded in industries beyond the core Creative Industries (for example, manufacturing, banking, mining) and those creative workers and firms that supply services to business as well as to the general public, such as architects, technical writers, and graphic designers (see Cunningham 2013; Potts and Cunningham 2008; Potts, Cunningham, Hartley and Omerod 2008). This book focuses on this subset of very important, and yet under-recognized creative workers: embedded creative workers and providers of creative services into other sectors of the economy, as indicated in the following taxonomy (Figure 1.1), which juxtaposes occupation and industry sector...

International Perspectives on Business Innovation and Disruption in the Creative Industries : Film, Video and Photography

This volume examines how disruptive innovations are reshaping industry boundaries and challenging conventional business models and practices in the industries for film, video and photography. The thirteen chapters provide a rich and diverse account of these processes from a wide range of country contexts. The book fills the gap between the study of disruption by innovation scholars in business schools and the recognition of disruption by academics and practitioners from non-business school disciplines and contexts, including the broader social sciences.

Creative graduate pathways within and beyond the creative industries

This special issue explores the nuances of graduate creative work, the kinds of value that creative graduates add through work of various types, graduate employability issues for creative graduates, emerging and developing creative career identities and the implications for educators who are tasked with developing a capable creative workforce. Extent literature tends to characterise creative careers as either ‘precarious’ and insecure, or as the engine room of the creative economy. However, in actuality, the creative workforce is far more heterogeneous than either of these positions suggest, and creative careers are far more complex and diverse than previously thought. The task of creative educators is also much more challenging than previously supposed. In this introductory article, we commence by providing a brief overview of the creative labour debates, and the evidence for each position. We present the latest literature in this area that starts to speak to how diverse and complex the landscape of creative work actually is. We then introduce each of the articles in this special issue and indicate how they contribute to a more multi-faceted picture of creative activity, and the lives and career trajectories of graduates from creative degrees.

China’s creative industries: Challenges matched by opportunities

Report for the German Chamber of Commerce in China. "China’s growing economic, political, and military capacity is the most geopolitically significant development of the 21st century, which is already being branded ‘the Asian Century.’ Certainly the economic decline of the US and Europe has played directly into the hands of China’s nationalists, who yearn for a return to past glory and who seek symbolic retribution for almost two centuries of foreign oppression and humiliation...."--publisher website

Creative industries and the wider economy

Researchers have argued that the creative industries have significant effects on the wider economy, with early agendas focused on urban regeneration, job creation, and economic value-added. Later work extended to new firm creation, the growth of new markets, and regional clustering and development. This chapter reviews the evolution of thinking on classifying the creative industries as a ‘sector’, or group of sectors, and outlines contributions on economic ‘spillovers’ regarding knowledge, innovation, and graduate talent. Work on creative clusters has highlighted the widespread adoption of forms of organization and contracting developed in such clusters. Later work by the authors has contributed a ‘creative trident’ model, and shifted focus to employment and the position of creative workers in the economy, showing that there are more creatives working outside the creative industries than within them. The chapter reflects on the specific role of design and the relationship between the creative industries and innovation.

Journal of Education and Work: Special Issue: Creative Graduate Pathways Within and Beyond the Creative Industries

This special issue explores the nuances of graduate creative work, the kinds of value that creative graduates add through work of various types, graduate employability issues for creative graduates, emerging and developing creative career identities and the implications for educators who are tasked with developing a capable creative workforce. Extant literature tends to characterise creative careers as either ‘precarious’ and insecure, or as the engine room of the creative economy. However, in actuality, the creative workforce is far more heterogeneous than either of these positions suggest, and creative careers are far more complex and diverse than previously thought. The task of creative educators is also much more challenging than previously supposed.

Jobs for creatives outside the creative industries: A study of creatives working in the Australian manufacturing industry

More creatives work outside the creative industries than inside them. Recent Australian Census data show that 52 per cent of creatives work outside of the core creative industries. These embedded creatives make up 2 per cent of manufacturing industry employees. There is little qualitative research into embedded creatives. This paper aims to address this by exploring the contribution of creative skills to manufacturing in Australia. Through four case studies of designers and marketing staff in lighting and car seat manufacturing companies, this paper demonstrates some of the work that embedded creatives undertake in the manufacturing industry and some of the ways that they contribute to innovation. The paper also considers perspectives embedded creatives bring to manufacturing and challenges involved in being a creative worker in a non-creative industry. This research is important to economic development issues, demonstrating some of the roles of key innovators in an important industry. This work also informs the education of creative industries students who will go on to contribute in a variety of industries. Furthermore, this research exemplifies one industry where employment is available to creatives outside of the creative industries.

The dynamics of global visual effects and games development industries: lessons for Australia’s creative industries development policy

The paper critiques the focus of creative industries policy on capability development of small and medium sized firms and the provision of regional incentives. It analyses factors affecting the competitiveness and sustainability of the games development industry and visual effects suppliers to feature films. Interviews with participants in these industries highlight the need for policy instruments to take into consideration the structure and organization of global markets and the power of lead multinational corporations. We show that although forms of economic governance in these industries may allow sustainable value capture, they are interrupted by bottlenecks in which ferocious competition among suppliers is confronted by comparatively little competition among the lead firms. We argue that current approaches to creative industries policy aimed at building self-sustaining creative industries are unlikely to be sufficient because of the globalized nature of the industries. Rather, we argue that a more profitable approach is likely to require supporting diversification of the industries as ‘feeders’ into other areas of the economy.

Copyright and creativity: An ongoing debate in the creative industries

This paper critically analyzes the divergent perspectives on how copyright and intellectual property laws impact creativity, innovation, and the creative industries. One perspective defines the creative industries based on copyright as the means by which revenues are generated from innovation and the dissemination of new ideas. At the same time, it has been argued that copyright and intellectual property regimes fetter creativity and innovation, and that this has become even more marked in the context of digital media convergence and the networked global creative economy. These issues have resonated in debates around the creative industries, particularly since the initial DCMS mapping study in the UK in 1998 defined creative industries as combining individual creativity and exploitable forms of intellectual property. The issue of competing claims for the relationship between copyright and the creative industries has also arisen in Australia, with a report by the Australian Law Reform Commission entitled Copyright and the Digital Economy. This paper will consider the competing claims surrounding copyright and the creative industries, and the implications for policy-makers internationally.

Public Policy for the Creative Industries

The cultural and creative industries are closely intertwined with government. This chapter reviews key economic rationales for public policy interventions for the arts, cultural and creative industries. Market failure justifications depend on the status of arts and culture as non-rival public goods, as ‘merit goods’, or the need to moderate the effects of up-front investment costs or monopoly, and the inherent uncertainty of creative production. ‘Systems failure’ too is a regular rationale for policy intervention. Using the United Kingdom as an example, the chapter shows how emphasis on these rationales has shifted over the last three decades, first in the context of industrial policies for traditional aims such as exports and job growth, which have been joined in recent years by the need for investment in intangibles, knowledge exchange, and spillover effects in the wider economy.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Copyright Law, the Creative Industries, and Internet Freedom

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a highly secretive trade agreement being negotiated between the US and eleven Pacific Rim countries, including Australia. Having obtained a fast-track authority from the United States Congress, US President Barack Obama is keen to finalise the deal. However, he was unable to achieve a resolution of the deal at recent talks in Hawaii on the TPP. A number of chapters of the TPP will affect the creative artists, cultural industries and internet freedom — including the intellectual property chapter, the investment chapter, and the electronic commerce chapter. Legacy copyright industries have pushed for longer and stronger copyright protection throughout the Pacific Rim. In the wake of the Hawaii talks, Knowledge Ecology International leaked the latest version of the intellectual property chapter of the TPP. Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International commented upon the leaked text about copyright law: ‘In many sections of the text, the TPP would change global norms, restrict access to knowledge, create significant financial risks for persons using and sharing information, and, in some cases, impose new costs on persons producing new knowledge goods.’ The recent leaked text reveals a philosophical debate about the nature of intellectual property law. There are mixed messages in respect of the treatment of the public domain under copyright law. In one part of the agreement on internet service providers, there is text that says that the parties recognise the need for ‘promoting innovation and creativity,’ ‘facilitating the diffusion of information, knowledge, technology, culture, and the arts’, and ‘foster competition and open and efficient markets.’ A number of countries suggested ‘acknowledging the importance of the public domain.’ The United States and Japan opposed the recognition of the public domain in this text.

Introduction to "International Perspectives on Business Innovation and Disruption in the Creative Industries Film, Video and Photography"

The creative industries are particularly fecund empirical fields for investigating the processes of business innovation and disruption. The creative industries are some of the fastest growing sectors in many economies (European Commission, 2001; OECD, 2006; United States Census Bureau, 2010) and thus are worthy of study in their own right. Additionally, the study of the creative industries affords insights into how we understand the current economic transformation towards knowledge- based economies more broadly. The transformation toward knowledge- based economies has been foreshadowed by the transformation of creative industries such as publishing, film, video, photography, music and so on...

Narrative as a tool for critical reflective practice in the creative industries

This paper explores the efficacy of narrative in reflective practice across a range of creative disciplines. As practitioners within the creative industries the authors internalise experience and re-contextualise it as stories, designs, music videos, fiction and non-fiction films and dance. They are uniquely placed to examine narrative in critical reflection through the prism of their creative practice and in so doing offer insights into reconceptualising professional practice. The authors demonstrate how engagement with and reflection on and in their stories enables wider reflection. Their purpose in reflection is not just to learn from mistakes but to develop an epistemology of practice that enables them to apply rigorous academic inquiry to articulate their tacit professional knowledge and establish new methods for dealing with uncertainty in creative practice research.

You're hot, then you're cold: Creative industries policy making in Australia

Much compelling evidence has emerged over the last two decades demonstrating the importance of Australia’s creative industries. In 2014, the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirmed that culture is ‘big business’ in this country. Yet despite this, interest by policy makers at all levels of government has been intermittent, at best. This chapter gives a brief history of policy development, and offers a number of reasons for why policy and politics have not focussed more resolutely on Australia’s creative economy. It finishes with a discussion of Australia’s ‘unfinished agenda’, one which demands attention not only by government, but also industry and higher education, if we are to properly meet both the challenges and opportunities before us.