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Despite a large volume of theoretical and empirical research, defining the ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ within the cultural and creative sector, a sector with high heterogeneity in organisational and other aspects across its various segments remains challenging. In this regard, there should be a wide variety of differences in the characteristics and challenges of cultural entrepreneurs across industries, countries and regions. Nonetheless, the key role of the arts and cultural sector has increasingly piqued the interest of policymakers and the private sector, and it has been recognised for its importance within the South African economic landscape; as a result, the government has prioritised arts and culture as a pillar in their development strategies. Furthermore, while there has been some consensus over the past decade on what constitutes a creative industry, many questions about defining arts and cultural entrepreneurship still need to be answered, necessitating further definitional and policy coherence. As a result, some efforts at definitions are required to advance the sector and develop useful knowledge in policy formulation.

This chapter proposes an understanding of arts and cultural entrepreneurship as an exploration of a person, a community or a network's artistic resources (arts, creative and cultural) in value creation. It utilises meta-analysis, a non-empirical method, to review and analyse the existing literature. Further research is needed to investigate and evaluate the efficacy of established arts incubators, and the extent to which perceived entrepreneurial competencies affect organisational performance. Moreover, additional research is required to examine the entrepreneurial factors inhibiting or stimulating the influence on start-up financing (capital acquisition) in the South African arts and cultural industry.

This chapter examines emerging theoretical approaches and thematic aspects of creative and cultural entrepreneurship and the significant societal and economic contributions of creative firms. It reviews the concepts and definitions essential to examining creative industry entrepreneurship. The authors then provide framing for this exceptional collection of chapters in Volume 1 (of 2) and discuss existing research approaches from surveys and small-scale qualitative studies. Then, the chapter’s overview showcases the range of international research included in three sections: conceptual reflections on creative and cultural entrepreneurship, resilience and adaptation of creative and cultural enterprises, and insights into creative subsectors. Finally, the chapter proposes a research agenda for developing the field further, addressing methodological gaps (longitudinal studies and cluster research), emerging thematics (rural creative industries and creative placemaking) and sector studies (game and film industries).

The policies in creative and cultural industries (CCIs) are often based on an implicit assumption that work in the cultural and creative sectors is ‘good work’ and dominant discourses tend to over-celebrate entrepreneurship. The authors argue that enough attention has been paid to the real work in CCIs. The stake is to better address the symptoms observed for a sustainable and inclusive economy in the CCIs. Through the entrepreneurship-as-practice perspective, the authors document the professionalisation difficulties in music sector, with a qualitative study in a French city, with a particular focus on the marginalisation experienced by the young artists. With the identification of their work specificities and the tendencies for the twenty-first century, the authors point out the diversity of the tasks, the multi-activity and collective practices and the need for some innovative support organisational forms to develop training and skilling (both artistic and entrepreneurial).

The pandemic had a huge negative impact globally on small and micro firms, particularly on cultural enterprises, making it imperative for them to create strategic solutions for sustainable business models and customer relationships. This chapter studies the digital interventions employed by the micro cultural enterprises in the Japanese Onsens (Hot baths) sector during the pandemic period in Japan. Using the theoretical lenses of service dominant logic and value creation, the study extracts four prominent value creation processes from the analysis of the employed secondary data. The study underlines the importance of collaboration between a firm's internal and external resources, their creative use of operant resources, and a robust customer orientation leading to creative digitalization. The results of the study show how cultural enterprises can rethink customer service in the cultural and creative sector. It also draws attention to the need for more robust policies and support systems that can encourage global cultural enterprises to develop sustainable business models.

This empirical chapter explores the case of Baltic Creative Community Interest Company (BC CIC), a creative hub that enabled and demonstrated intrapersonal entrepreneurial capitals (Pret et al., 2016) to adapt quickly and develop novel offers for their tenants during an unprecedented period of crisis and change in the wider ecosystem. BCCIC is a community-owned property development company established to regenerate an underused post-industrial area in Liverpool and support the Creative and Digital community. Over the past decade, they have become a creative hub where small, unique micro-businesses thrive alongside more established enterprises.

Using an organisational ethnographic approach, the authors highlight the complexity in the conversion of entrepreneurial capitals and how this has demonstrated resilience and adaptability in the CIC during the global coronavirus pandemic in the 2020s. During the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020, The CIC responded swiftly to tenants by providing a wide variety of business support initiatives. Regular communications on sector-specific COVID-19 operational guidance and a support programme to help tenants apply for Liverpool City Council Small Business Support grants.

The establishment of this hub for creative entrepreneurs prior to the recent disruption proved invaluable. Although they were severely tested, emerging behaviours, such as agility, adaptability, and resilience during periods of crisis, were identified. This chapter offers key insights for scholars and those leading on creative hubs and cluster policy development and economic initiatives for creative sector support regionally, nationally, and internationally.

Increasing evidence from high-income countries has revealed the positive impacts of creative entrepreneurship on the local economy, and these have attracted substantial attention in recent years. Creative industries are considered as the seedbeds for innovation; they are highly innovative and productive and are seen as drivers of economic development and social change. Creative industries are distinctive in that they have several transaction networks and income streams. Although creative industries are generating increasing interest in the minds of researchers and policy-makers in developed countries, the institutional and economic settings in Cameroon and other developing nations may not be so conducive to creative industries. The available evidence is insufficient to understand their performance and sustainability, let alone to estimate their contribution to the rest of the economy. This chapter demonstrates how the creative industries could contribute to the economic and social development of a nation. The chapter further explores the current situation of creative industries in Cameroon, with a focus on the artists of popular and folk music, the challenges they are facing, and provides ways forward.

Inequality in the creative industries often serves as the starting point for public debates over culture in the UK. Academic literature has long recognised the precarious nature of the fashion industry. This chapter offers a critical review of the relationships of power existing in the support offered to ethnic minorities in disadvantaged communities in the fashion and creative sectors in the UK. In addressing these issues, a Foucauldian perspective is adopted. The chapter focuses on Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) fashion entrepreneurs’ challenges in promoting young designers from disadvantaged communities.

Our findings show that the BAME entrepreneurs are active agents who are essential in identifying and shaping new creative and talented young designers. The chapter contributes to the debate through a critical review of the relationships of power existing in the support offered to ethnic minorities in disadvantaged communities in the fashion and creative sectors in the UK.

From Batik cities to woven textile regions, Indonesia possesses several fashion destinations with remarkable textile heritage. The rise of fashion heritage destinations is characterized by avid textile lovers and fashion followers that promote the regions. Several diversifications of tourism alternatives are analyzed, such as rural tourism with experiential textile-making workshops, urban destinations connected to contemporary fashion heritage, architectural works inspired from/to textile heritage, as well as fashion week cities that spark the interests of global fashion designers to visit the country. This chapter evaluates the current state, its rising challenges, and to what extent it may be promoted through digital technologies, based on local practitioners and the governmental perspectives.