A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Elissaveta Gourova, Ivan Draganov and Kostadinka Toteva
television. Free-lancers and independent businesses persist at the heart of CCI, and represent a
significant part of its overall employment growth.
Many creative industries operate individually as SMEs, but others cooperate in small groups. Some of
them are characterised by small-scale production and direct contacts with clients, while by others the
production takes place in networks of intermediaries with reproducible, mass products. Grabher
(2001) considers that CCI are organised in two types of networks - within the global corporation and
within localities. A mapping of CCI undertaken in the UK shows that some sub-sectors (e.g. music,
performance, visual art, TV, etc.) are highly networked at local level and are centred on the larger
metropolitan areas (Cunningham et al., 2008). These networks (clusters) are considered as an
important mode of operation, helping smaller businesses to obtain higher levels of growth. Networking
provide several economic benefits to the enterprises involved – pools of common knowledge and
skills, flexible human resources, relations of trust and a sense of common goals. In many places,
SMEs within CCI are embedded in local economy and take advantage of the shared local tacit
knowledge (O’Connor, 2010).
With the uptake of the digital economy, and especially the web opportunities, the traditional
production chain has changed, and many CCI enterprises bypass intermediaries and establish direct
user-producer linkages (HKU, 2010). They need a direct contact to consumers in order to better
monitor market trends, demand, and consumers’ feedback, as well as to react faster to changing
needs and market volatility.
In most CCI many authors are engaged in the development of the final product. For example, the film
industry has a number of entities within the value chain – production, distribution, promotion and filmshow,
including also the storage for future use. The very complex products of the film industry, and
the involvement in the consumption process of other industries such as theatre, TV, advertisement,
music industry, etc. require heavy investments and a number of creative resources (Tomova et al.,
2011).
The models of realising exchange value in CCI comprise (O’Connor, 2010):
� Selling to individuals cultural content– books, records, videos, games, etc.
� broadcasting television and radio programmes to mass audiences – free of charge, or under
some taxes, but generally using advertising and sponsorship as main funding sources
� Restricted viewing at public performances (music, theatre, cinema) - depended on admission
fees.
2.2 Entrepreneurship and innovation in CCI
The concepts of cultural entrepreneurship and innovation have gained attention in last decade.
Creativity has been promoted recently as a tool for innovation and economic growth, thus, some
researchers doubt if entrepreneurship means in CCI ‘to have creative ideas and pursue them in a
commercial way in order to make profit’ and if ‘the human capital is the defining factor in the growth of
the creative sector’ (HKU, 2010, KEA, 2009, O’Connor, 2010). Actually, the main productivity factors
in CCI are the individual creativity, skills and talent, in the context of possible reproduction and IP
protection of the unique cultural contribution. There are evidences that in addition to creativity, human
capital in CCI requires entrepreneurial attitude, ingenuity and motivation (UNIDO, 2010). In order to
be successful, a creative entrepreneur must not only understand and apply the arts, but also possess
technology and business skills as CCI operate like normal businesses - planning, organizing,
operating, and assuming the risk of a business venture.
The entrepreneurship dimension could be seen also in CCI growth trends. Many CCI started as small
business and have been growing into large and successful businesses. Similarly to other enterprises,
CCI aim at profits, explore market opportunities, undertake risk, face the uncertainties of the market
and the users’ demand. However, they have a specific public and cultural mission. CCI need to
balance between creative and management values, and often this is behind a tension between
individual creators aiming at cultural value and entrepreneurs aiming at economic exploitation of
creativity outputs (HKU, 2010). Actually, high-quality cultural products often are not well understood
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