Artistic entrepreneurship and the need for market orientation in the context of rising significance of the Creative Industries

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual background and definitions helpful for further research of growth oriented artistic entrepreneurship. Creative industries are becoming increasingly important to the economy of developed countries. This fact is starting to affect the creative arts sector both as a source of creative and artistic workers, innovation and a potential source of higher economic contributions. A brief macro to micro analysis puts the phenomenon in a wider context. Analogies between academic and artistic work are drawn in order to allow the possibility of exploring what seems to be a similar process that had already happened in the education sector. In several aspects congruence between artistic and knowledge based work is presented. Additionally, the paper presents some initial data collected from a preliminary qualitative study of 4 in-depth, open-ended, semi-structured interviews with growth oriented artistic entrepreneurs and artists. Findings: Literature and initial field studies seem to indicate that artistic and administrative, business-like, activities differ in terms of methods used. They also suggest that this may impact the work of artistic entrepreneurs and their willingness to further develop the venture. This is connected with the fact that many artists seem to operate in very specialized expert markets which can prove to be a challenge in a successful commercialization of their work. Originality/value: The paper contributes to the development of a topic that has not been studied well, but might be of significance in the near future. Initial macro and micro analysis of the phenomenon of artistic entrepreneurship tries to take into account perspectives from several disciplines in order to contribute to the accumulation of, so far, very scarce knowledge on the topi