The creative business: Enterprise development in the arts-based creative industries

The Creative Industries (CI) is a major growth sector populated by an increasing number of entrepreneurs and small enterprises. Despite its recent success, relatively little is known about how such entities practice as businesses, research too often focused upon a narrow set of sub-sectors. With expectations to contribute toward both economic and cultural ecosystems, such enterprises are expected to balance the rigours of business management with highly esoteric practices founded upon creative intensity and temporary systems.
This paper explores how creative firms balance business and creative practice. Focusing on the under researched Arts-based Creative Industries (ABCI), it uses a novel SME diagnostic to explore enterprise practices, dependencies and exposures in an environment of reduced funding and pressure for commercialisation. It proposes ABCI supplement resource limitations and demands for creative intensity through networks; techniques used by ABCI could be of value more widely to small businesses in an increasingly network-based economy. Similarly, these networks risk locking firms into unrealistic dependence on external sources of knowledge and funding with significant influence on business development.