Erik Hitters

‘Innovation is a dirty word’: contesting innovation in the creative industries

Abstract Innovation is a term that is used and defined in many different ways. This holds for innovation in general, but particularly for innovation in the creative industries. In cultural policy and in academic literature, the creative industries are often addressed in the relation to their innovative capacities, yet a shared conceptualisation of innovation in this sector is lacking. This paper seeks to develop a conceptualisation of innovation in the creative industries based on 43 interviews with creative workers about their views and practices. Results indicate that creative workers articulate numerous views on innovation, with three main approaches: innovation as something completely new, innovation as a contribution to society and innovation as a continuous recombination of new and existing elements, with the latter being most prevalent in the creative industries and considered a central (by-product of the) process of creative production that is highly contextual to specific localities and fields.

Passion Inspires: Motivations of Creative Entrepreneurs in Creative Business Centres in the Netherlands

This study focused on the context in which entrepreneurship in the cultural and creative industries (CCI) takes place. We investigated entrepreneurs’ inspiration, which refers to a specific type of motivation that allows the transformation of creative ideas into creative products. To explain this, we operationalised ‘passion for work’, which measures how passionately engaged entrepreneurs are with their work, as well as ‘localised passion’, which measures the passion others in one’s proximity have for their work. Ten locations throughout the Netherlands composed of creative entrepreneurs made up the setting of this study. Our results show that localised passion has two components (passion atmosphere and passion in others), which have a positive effect on inspiration. Moreover, there is a mediating role of passion for work in this relationship.