'Mental mobility’ in the digital age: entrepreneurs and the online home-based business

Home-based online business ventures are an increasingly pervasive yet under-researched phenomenon. The experiences and mindset of entrepreneurs setting up and running such enterprises require better understanding. Using data from a qualitative study of 23 online home-based business entrepreneurs, we propose the augmented concept of ‘mental mobility’ to encapsulate how they approach their business activities. Drawing on Howard P. Becker's early theorising of mobility, together with Victor Turner's later notion of liminality, we conceptualise mental mobility as the process through which individuals navigate the liminal spaces between the physical and digital spheres of work and the overlapping home/workplace, enabling them to manipulate and partially reconcile the spatial, temporal and emotional tensions that are present in such work environments. Our research also holds important applications for alternative employment contexts and broader social orderings because of the increasingly pervasive and disruptive influence of technology on experiences of remunerated work.

Writers' rooms: theories of contemporary authorship in portraits of creative spaces

This article analyzes two series of photographs and essays on writers’ rooms published in England and Canada in 2007 and 2008. The Guardian’s Writers Rooms series, with photographs by Eamon McCabe, ran in 2007. In the summer of 2008, The Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival began to post its own version of The Guardian column on its website by displaying, each week leading up to the Festival in September, a different writer’s “writing space” and an accompanying paragraph. I argue that these images of writers’ rooms, which suggest a cultural fascination with authors’ private compositional practices and materials, reveal a great deal about theoretical constructions of authorship implicit in contemporary literary culture. Far from possessing the museum quality of dead authors’ spaces, rooms that are still being used, incorporating new forms of writing technology, and having drafts of manuscripts scattered around them, can offer insight into such well-worn and ineffable areas of speculation as inspiration, singular authorial genius, and literary productivity.

Digital technology and creative arts career patterns in the UK creative economy

The creative industries have attracted the attention of academics and policy makers for the complexity surrounding their development, supply-chains and models of production. In particular, many have recognised the difficulty in capturing the role that digital technologies play within the creative industries. Digital technologies are embedded in the production and market structures of the creative industries and are also partially distinct and discernible from it. This paper unfolds the role played by digital technologies focusing on a key aspect of its development: human capital. Using student micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, we investigate the characteristics and location determinants of digital graduates. The paper deals specifically with understanding whether digital skills in the UK are equally embedded across the creative industries, or are concentrated in other sub-sectors. Furthermore, it explores the role that these graduates play in each sub-sector and their financial rewards. Findings suggest that digital technology graduates tend to concentrate in the software and gaming sub-sector of the creative industries but also are likely to be in embedded creative jobs outside of the creative industries. Although they are more likely to be in full-time employment than part-time or self-employment, they also suffer from a higher level of unemployment.

The missing pillar: the creativity theory of knowledge spillover entrepreneurship

Knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship and the prevailing theory of economic growth treat opportunities as endogenous and generally focus on opportunity recognition by entrepreneurs. New knowledge created endogenously results in knowledge spillovers enabling inventors and entrepreneurs to commercialize it. This article discusses that knowledge spillover entrepreneurship depends not only on ordinary human capital, but more importantly also on creativity embodied in creative individuals and diverse urban environments that attract creative classes. This might result in self-selection of creative individuals into entrepreneurship or enable entrepreneurs to recognize creativity and commercialize it. This creativity theory of knowledge spillover entrepreneurship is tested utilizing data on European cities.

Action learning: how learning transfers from entrepreneurs to small firms

The paper presents research with small and medium enterprise (SME) owners who have participated in a leadership development programme. The primary focus of the paper is on learning transfer and factors affecting it, arguing that entrepreneurs must engage in ‘action’ in order to ‘learn’ and that under certain conditions they may transfer learning to their firm. The paper draws on data from 19 focus groups undertaken from 2010 to 2012, involving 51 participants in the LEAD Wales programme. It considers the literatures exploring learning transfer and develops a conceptual framework, outlining four areas of focus for entrepreneurial learning. Utilising thematic analysis, it describes and evaluates what (actual facts and information) and how (techniques, styles of learning) participants transfer and what actions they take to improve the business and develop their people. The paper illustrates the complex mechanisms involved in this process and concludes that action learning is a method of facilitating entrepreneurial learning which is able to help address some of the problems of engagement, relevance and value that have been highlighted previously. The paper concludes that the efficacy of an entrepreneurial learning intervention in SMEs may depend on the effectiveness of learning transfer.

Collective financing among Chinese entrepreneurs and department store retailing in China

Chinese entrepreneurship in department store retailing differed from that seen in other emerging economies before 1940. Rather than the leading examples of the format being owned by advanced economy firms, in China a small group of Cantonese entrepreneurs established what became known as the ‘Big Four’ department stores in Shanghai. By 1940 the ‘Big Four’ department stores were among the most famous stores in China, and among the biggest businesses in China. None of these Chinese entrepreneurs had any prior experience in department store retailing. Rather this article explains how their success in department store retailing was dependent on a business model that enabled these Chinese entrepreneurs to act as informal investment bankers (or ‘shadow’ banks) for the thousands of overseas Chinese wanting to invest surplus savings in mainland China, so creating large indigenous business groups.

Internationalizing the MFA in Creative Writing

is article explores the prospects for internationalizing the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing, a degree that has gained considerable popularity in the United States in the past half century but has yet to gain much of a foothold in other countries. As part of this exploration, we describe the experiences of estab- lishing the first low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Asia at City University of Hong Kong, explaining the justification for setting up such a program with reference to the history of teaching creative writing and the current conditions for literary writing in English in Asia and globally. We also reflect upon the processes of planning, curriculum design, and administrative negotiation and that went into setting up the program and report on feedback from the first cohort of students. e experience of setting up this program is used as the basis for raising a number of more general issues regarding the teaching of creative writing in English in interna- tional contexts.

Creative English and public relations in Hong Kong

This paper investigates employer perceptions of the nature and importance of the English language in public relations agencies in Hong Kong. Based on in-depth interviews with senior managers from eight Hong Kong-based public relations companies, it examines how the linguistic currency ofEnglish is used collaboratively in creative organizations. Findings suggest that English is used as the common language among transnational public relations work teams and the clients that they service. Itis also used as a creative resource for facilitating collaboration, staff development and socialization into corporate and professional cultures.

Talent on the move: creative human capital migration patterns in UK

The last decade has seen an increasing number of contributions, from both academics and policy makers, focusing on the role of higher education in developing human capital (Charles, 2003; Cramphorn & Woodlhouse, 1999; Preston & Hammond, 2006) and hence contributing to local and regional growth (Faggian & McCann, 2006; Mathur, 1999; Moretti, 2004). Within this broader literature, the role played by more ‘scientific’ types of human capital, such as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduates and science parks (Bozeman, Dietz, & Gaughan, 2001; Linderlöf & Löfsten, 2004; Löfsten & Lindelöf, 2005), has also been explored. Little attention has been paid so far, to the role played by more ‘creative’ types of human capital. This chapter aims at filling this gap, in light of the central role that the term ‘creative’ took in policy and academic discourses in the UK (Comunian & Faggian, 2011; Comunian & Gilmore, 2015; DCMS, 2006; Powell, 2007; Universities UK, 2010).

Geography, skills and careers patterns at the boundary of creativity & innovation: digital technology and creative arts graduates in the UK

In the last decades, research on knowledge economies has taken central stage. Within this broader research field, research on the role of digital technologies and the creative industries has become increasingly important for researchers, academics and policy makers with particular focus on their development, supply-chains and models of production. Furthermore, many have recognised that, despite the important role played by digital technologies and innovation in the development of the creative industries, these dynamics are hard to capture and quantify. Digital technologies are embedded in the production and market structures of the creative industries and are also partially distinct and discernible from it. They also seem to play a key role in innovation of access and delivery of creative content. This chapter tries to assess the role played by digital technologies focusing on a key element of their implementation and application: human capital. Using student micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, we explore the characteristics and location patterns of graduates who entered the creative industries, specifically comparing graduates in the creative arts and graduates from digital technology subjects. We highlight patterns of geographical specialisation but also how different context are able to better integrate creativity and innovation in their workforce. The chapter deals specifically with understanding whether these skills are uniformly embedded across the creative sector or are concentrated in specific sub-sectors of the creative industries. Furthermore, it explores the role that these graduates play in different sub-sector of the creative economy, their economic rewards and their geographical determinants.