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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the paradox inherent in the term “Creative Industry Management”. The challenges of applying creative industry experiences within a managerial context are explored through a careful selection of papers that identify linkages between creative industry practice and management theories.

The paper is a narrative commentary using the Jurassic Park franchise to highlight the potential application of management theory to explain the success or failure of a creative venture. The analogy of filmmaking and the creation of blockbuster movie sequels is useful in determining the tensions between creative production and management of a profitable franchise.

This paper identifies opportunities for theory building at the meso level in the management domain, born of the experiences of those in the creative industries. The papers presented add to the continuing discovery of ways of applying management theory in the creative industries. However, there remain opportunities for a cross-pollination of theory from the creative industry to management domains.

It is not possible to claim more than observation and exploratory inference from the selection of papers presented. The special issue has only uncovered one half of the theoretical perspective, namely management theory that can be applied in the creative industries.

The approach taken to liken the challenge of managing creativity to the production of creative works in moviemaking is novel and highlights the dearth of creative industry experiences that currently influence management theory.

This paper aims to identify and empirically test whether growth preparedness and success perceptions are important, discriminating small business owner (SBO) characteristics that influence strategic direction. The intended outcome was to create a strategic typology that resonates with the realities of small business owners, their advisors and policy makers.

Empirical data were collected online and by postal survey from 340 small businesses from multiple industry sectors across Australia. Analysis is correlational resulting in the development of a 2 × 2 matrix of strategy types.

This paper provides evidence that although a majority of SBOs are not preparing for growth, many still perceive their business as successful. Further, the empirical data demonstrate that growth preparedness and perceived success can be used to classify SBOs into distinct strategic types. While the categories developed show some similarities with the Miles and Snow (1978) typology, they also highlight divergent qualities. Consequently, this paper identifies circumstances where small business strategy must be treated differently from the larger enterprises for which the Miles and Snow typology was developed.

By providing a concise tool for inclusion in surveys, researchers and practitioners can identify varying strategic types within their own targeted business cohorts.

The growth/success matrix is original, the value for policy makers and other professionals assisting and supporting SBOs lies in its simplicity as a tool for identifying strategic types in any small business population. Specifically, the matrix provides a valid and reliable empirical analysis tool where none previously existed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of organisational business acumen and social network structure on the earnings and labour precarity experienced by creative industry workers.

Results from a survey that collected data from a random sample of 289 creative workers are analysed using structural equation modelling. Mediating effects of social network structure are explored.

Results support the qualitative findings of Crombie and Hagoort (2010) who claim that organisational business acumen is a significant enabler for creative workers. Further, social network structure has a partial mediating effect in mitigating labour precarity.

This exploratory study is novel in its use of a quantitative approach to understand the relationship between labour and social network dynamics of the creative industries. For this reason, developed scales, while robust in exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, warrant further application and maturity.

The organisational business acumen of creative workers is found to mitigate labour precarity and increase perceived earnings.

The results from this study call for policy and management shifts, to focus attention on developing business proficiency of creative workers, in an effort to curb labour precarity in the creative industries, and enhance positive spillovers into other sectors.

The paper fills a gap in knowledge regarding the impact of organisational business acumen and social network structure on the pay and working conditions of people working in a sector that is dominated by self-employed and freelance arrangements.

External inputs are critical for organisational creativity. In order to bridge different thought worlds and cross-organisational barriers, managers must initiate and motivate boundary spanning processes. The purpose of this paper is to explore how boundary spanners manage creativity projects across organisational boundaries.

The authors link to previous literature and present findings from a comparative case study of managerial practices for managing creativity projects. Data were collected through interviews, secondary materials, site visits and observation.

Three meta-practices used by managers to manage boundary-spanning creative projects are presented: defining the creative space, making space for creativity and acting in the creative space. These practices are detailed in seven case studies of creative projects.

The analysis focuses on boundary spanning as a management process rather than a capability for organisations to self-organise. It extends the “boundary spanning as practice” literature by focusing on boundary spanning as a managerial practice and brings the problems related to resource mobilisation across both organisational and departmental boundaries to the fore.

Understanding the managerial dilemma faced by creativity managers is a first step to finding solutions. The discussed practices may inspire managers both in resolving creativity management problems and through self-reflection.

The authors contribute to research on boundary spanning practices by linking to creativity research, and bridge to research on management and governance in distributed and less-defined organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons managers of non-Indigenous backgrounds move to, stay in, and leave their positions in Indigenous Art Centres in remote areas of Australia.

This qualitative study used structured in-depth interviews of 21 managers of Indigenous Art Centres to explore their reasons for staying in or leaving their positions.

The study finds that managers are not drawn to remote Art Centres for financial gain, or career advancement. In contrast, a broader range of pull factors beyond the job – in particular, the Indigenous community/environment and personal/family reasons – influence managers to stay or leave the job. However, the reasons for choosing to leave are qualitatively different from reasons given by managers who stay, pulling some managers to stay, whilst pushing other managers to leave. Significantly, shocks, in the form of threatening and frightening situations were also influential in explaining turnover.

This research was limited to Art Centre managers in remote Australia and may lack generalisability in other countries.

The study adds to the few field studies that have investigated issues related to recruitment and retention of managers in the creative arts sector in remote areas. It contributes to the literature by extending push-pull theory to aspects of the entrepreneurial career process, albeit among “accidental entrepreneurs”. In addition, the authors have also incorporated “shocks” as catalysts to understanding career deliberations, and that threatening and frightening situations were especially influential in explaining decisions to stay or go.

The purpose of this paper is to address the paradox that individuals face in seeking to both generate new ideas and be committed to delivering standardised processes in a creative industry. The authors explore this tension in order to better understand how synergistic benefits are reaped at the intersection of these competing demands.

The paper adopts a longitudinal case study approach inside a global media organisation in the creative industries sector. Data derived from participant observations, manager interviews, administered survey instruments, and archival documentation.

The authors find that creative organisations experience explore/exploit paradoxes which are nested at three levels: knowledge, learning and motivation. Further, the authors find that managers are able to respond to competing tensions through organisational processes that allow differentiation/integration simultaneously. These management responses are supported and sustained by both structural and contextual organisational forms.

First, the authors provide a clearer theoretical explanation of paradox in creative organisations by accounting for competing demands to explore and exploit through nested tensions. Second, the authors extend the understanding of management responses to these paradox by showing how managers balance both demands simultaneously rather than cumulatively over time, thereby offering insight into how managers behave over time. Third, the authors outline the supporting role of organisational form in sustaining management responses within creative organisations at the same time in order to reap synergistic benefits.

This paper explores the spatial and material context of a creative production project. Taking the music recording project as an empirical setting, it explores the creation of a pop song and reveals the highly situated character of its management and organization. Making a creative product such as a pop song is a complex endeavor, requiring a large number of decisions involving highly subjective and often contested and contestable judgments. The purpose of this paper is to understand how this is achieved.

The study is based on observation of musicians and a music producer during the creation of a pop song in a mid-sized recording studio. Interviews were also conducted with the participant musicians and 24 music producers based in the UK. The resulting qualitative data were analyzed using a socio-material perspective to trace the spatial relationships and explore the material organization of the project.

Producing musical product is achieved through establishing spatial and material relations in order to regulate tasks and roles and manage the challenge of making decisions within temporarily assembled teams engaged in tasks characterized by high levels of uncertainty.

This paper tackles a neglected aspect of creative management, the physical context in which it is carried out. Other sites within the creative industries such as design and film studios, theatre and other performance spaces can usefully be analyzed using the approach and perspective of this research.

The idea of “creating something from nothing” resonates strongly with the creation process associated with artists. The Levi-Strauss and Baker and Nelson discussions also refer to entrepreneurial bricolage as something that entails a “make do with what is at hand”. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how artists utilise bricolage to create projects and develop their skills. Little is known of their perceptions of entrepreneurial behaviour and bricolage, and how they construct these bricolage networks. The tension between sharing, creating and to maintain a personal brand is negotiated by leveraging these bricolage relationships.

In-depth interviews with artists that actively make a living from their involvement in the creative industries were conducted. This provided insight into their perceptions on networking and bricolage. Since networking is such an individual and interchangeable process the interviews allowed the author to unravel these complexities of the relationships.

The findings produced two themes. The first, demonstrated the entrepreneurial behaviour of these artists and their unique contributions. The second theme involved the bricolage relationships formed to overcome resource constraints. The collaborative nature highlighted the co-creation relationships that are strategically formed to provide long-term opportunities and sustained working relationships.

This study contributes to literature on bricolage, management, creative industries and entrepreneurship in non-traditional settings.

This study contributes to theory on bricolage and entrepreneurial behaviour in small enterprises and creative industries. Artists can benefit from the knowledge to build strategic networks to secure future work.

Educators can use this information to prepare aspiring artists to create more independent and/or interdependent entrepreneurial projects.

This work encourages further cross-disciplinary research on the arts, entrepreneurship, networking and small business studies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges of older self-employed workers in the creative industries and ways of dealing with these challenges. This is important in the light of the aging population and the increase in entrepreneurship among older workers.

In total, 43 older self-employed creatives in the Netherlands were interviewed by telephone. Once the data were transcribed, content analysis was conducted.

The findings reveal that older self-employed creatives are often forced into self-employment, experiencing a vicious circle that pushes them away from the creative industries. They have to deal with multiple identities. Successful older self-employed creatives dealt with these challenges by creating synergies between their identities, focussing on their strengths and using their existing networks. They also stressed the transferability of their skills and knowledge.

Older self-employed creatives have to deal with some specific challenges. Although these challenges are difficult to deal with, some successful strategies emerged.

Older self-employed creatives are an under-researched group of workers. Other industries can learn from the success stories of older entrepreneurs in the creative industries.