“our objective is to obtain a better understanding of the diffusion of information and innovations in the creative industries by looking at the micro-dynamics of, and interactions between, creative workers in small-scale creative clusters”

 

PI: Yosha Wijngaarden

Expected end of subproject: winter 2015

 


 

Small talk, strong cooperation

The creative and cultural industries are often hurrahed for their innovative capacities. Yet, it is unclear how innovations come about, and how they diffuse. Traditional measures, such as counting patents or examining R&D, are not able to fully grasp innovative developments in the field of cultural production.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the creative industries is that they often operate on a project-basis (Grabher, 2002). This leads social networking, clustering (Porter, 1998; (Asheim, Coenen, & Vang, 2007) and the development of trust and a shared culture (Lorenzen & Frederiksen, 2008; Pratt, 2000; Storper & Venables, 2004; Turok, 2003). Such a community or milieu is built upon formal and informal interactions between creative workers, audiences and other actors. The exchange of tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1967) is often called ‘buzz’. These interactions, then, are key to understanding innovations and the dissemination of knowledge in the creative industries (Pratt & Jeffcutt, 2009).

Thus, our objective is to obtain a better understanding of the diffusion of information and innovations in the creative industries by looking at the micro-dynamics of, and interactions between, creative workers in small-scale creative clusters. Our methods include participant observation in the ‘public’ spaces of these buildings and in-depth interviews with the creative workers and managers about interactions and knowledge spill overs.