Creative Entrepreneurship - History

History

Although, technically, creative entrepreneurs predate the industrial revolution – artisan jewellery making dates back to 7000 BCE and there were professional poets (scôps) in Pre-Norman Britain – the subject of creative entrepreneurship is a relatively new area.

Since the mid 20th century, commentators have observed the move towards a knowledge economy or information society where the old rules of manufacturing-based business no longer apply, or at very least need to be reconsidered (Machlup 1962; Drucker, 1969; Lyotard, 1984). But the creative sector, an instrinsic part of the knowledge economy, has received relatively little attention.

In recent years, due to significant economic growth in the sector (prior to the 2008/9 downturn), there has been a surge of interest in the creative industries, and the issue of creative entrepreneurship has been pushed to the fore. In parallel with (and no doubt partially motivated by) general enthusiasm from policy makers and support agencies, creative entrepreneurship has grown as an academic discipline, Creative entrepreneurship courses are becoming widely available, and seem increasingly popular with students.

A new body of work has emerged with writers such as Richard E Caves, John Howkins, Richard Florida and Chris Bilton all championing the creative industries and addressing the specific skills needed to succeed in them.

In 2001, the Harvard economist and academic, Richard E Caves, made the following observation:

“The preferences or tastes of creative artists differ in substantial and systematic (if not universal) ways from their counterparts in the rest of the economy where creativity plays a lesser (if seldom negligible) role.”

Caves listed seven basic economic or “bedrock” properties that he believes distinguish creative activities from other sectors of the economy:

(1) Demand is uncertain (2) Creative workers care about their product (3) Some creative products require diverse skills (4) Differentiated products (5) Vertically differentiated skills (6) Time is of the essence (7) Durable products and durable rents

The body of Caves’ work makes a division between “artists” and “gatekeepers” and focuses on the issue of contracts between the two. In his analysis, it is the “gatekeepers” (art dealers, agents, managers, publishers) who “decide whether the prospective value of creative output warrants the cost of humdrum inputs needed to place it before final buyers”.

Today, with the onset of Long Tail economics, Caves’ division of labour might be seen as increasingly irrelevant: the artist can take his/her product direct to market via the Internet and is no longer dependent on a third party to negotiate access; thus his/her entrepreneurial and business abilities are ever more crucial.