The curious case of the embedded creative: creative cultural occupations outside the creative industries

Abstract

Few managers would dispute that creativity and innovation are important. However, what they mean by those terms would vary widely, and indeed, a survey of researchers and research studies examining creativity and innovation would confirm this diversity. For instance, proponents of the value of innovation laud creativity, but have tended to be biased towards scientific and technical invention and how this can be leveraged in new services and products. On the other hand, artistsí works are seen as evidence of creativity that comes through different forms of cultural expression, but here there has been less concern with translation into commercial outcomes (e.g., Smith-Bingham 2006). Over the last 15 years, the term ëcreative industriesí has gained currency as a descriptor of sectors that involve the deployment of specialised cultural creativity in industrialised form.