Dr Roberta Comunian and Denderah Rickmers
The creative economy is dead – long live the creative-social economies
CMCI staff are involved in the launch of a new special issue of the Social Enterprise Journal on the creative-social economies. Dr Roberta Comunian and PhD Denderah Rickermers have curated the special issue and written the editorial (with Dr Andrea Nanetti). CMCI staff Dr Lauren England has also contributed with an article. The special issue was developed after a workshop took place in Singapore in November 2018, funded through King’s College London (UK) and Nanyang Technological University Singapore international global partnership funds. The focus of the event was “Social enterprise, social innovation & the creative economy: current knowledge and shared research”, the aim of the convening was to explore the intersection of the creative economy and social innovation by bringing together academics and practitioners from different disciplines and fields working in varied geographic and socio-economic settings. The event details and a list of all panellists, presenters, and papers are available HERE.
Building on the discussions and papers that were presented during the event we are now pleased to share the publication of a special issue on the creative-social economies in the Social Enterprise Journal.
In their editorial “The creative economy is dead – long live the creative-social economies”, guest editors Dr Roberta Comunian, Denderah Rickmers and Dr Andrea Nanetti present and discuss a systemic literature review (SLR) that investigates the creative-social research field by connecting the two respective areas of literature. The findings highlight developing trends of literary convergence and point towards a need to consider the creative-social economies as an emerging independent area of research.
The special issue then comprises of five articles. In the first article, McQuilten et al. (2020) explore the literature on social enterprises and their specific policy context in Australia. She specifically considers Arts-Based Social Enterprises working with disadvantaged youth. In the second article, Carter and Carter (2020) discuss the Creative Business Model Canvas, a reinterpretation of Osterwalder and Pigneur’s Business Model Canvas and reimagines it for visual artists and Art-based Social Enterprise organisations. In the third article, England (2020) considers how Creative Social Enterprises manage to balance creative, social and economic goals. In the fourth paper Toscher et al. (2020) present an empirical comparative study of the motivations for engaging in business by focusing on three diverse cohorts of entrepreneurs active in three fields technology, youth and arts. In the final paper, Cockshut et al. (2020) articulate the role higher education institutions can play in supporting and engaging creative MSME (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises) towards a social innovation agenda.
In essence, each of the five articles emphasizes one common denominator, that there inevitably are socio-cultural as well as socio-economic dimensions to any and every activity in the realm of the creative industries. The question moving forward, therefore, needs to be, how do we capture and channel the social value of the sector beyond its economic contribution?
Culture Media and Creative Industries @ Kings 