Creative methodologies for understanding a creative industryInstitute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference Liverpool, November 2009

Ted Fuller

Lorraine Warren

Sally-JaneNorman

1. FrameworkA METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGE: How “entrepreneurship” and innovation are causally connectedHow to research ‘emergence’How to capture multiple observations at multiple levels of analysis over time

Emergence perspective on entrepreneurship and innovation…informed by… entrepreneurship theory (e.g. effectuation, bricolage, opportunity, entrepreneur, network), complexity (emergence, attractors) and critical realism (e.g. morphogenetics, structures, causal mechanisms)…interlinked processes of interactions between agents and structure produce emergence…ontology is as significant as process (by agents) to the production of innovation (changes in structure)Cf. Ephemeral and stable ‘emergents’ (Sawyer 2005)

Individual (Level A)

Intention, agency, personality, cognitive process

Interaction (Level B)

Discourse patterns, symbolic interaction, collaboration, negotiation

Ephemeral Emergents (Level C)

Topic, context, interactional frame, participation structure; relative role and status

Stable Emergents (Level D)

Group sub-cultures, group slang and catchphrases, conversational routines, shared social practices, collective memory)

Social Structure (Level E)

Written texts (procedures, laws, regulations); material systems and infrastructures (architecture, urban design, communication and

transport networks)

The Emergence Paradigm (Sawyer 2005, p211), showing the ‘circle of emergence’ (p220), i.e. that area which is subject to social emergence

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2. Data: Creative industries within EPSRC CREATOR Project

Empirical research: Tracking co-creation in projects between groups of technologists and artists

Proboscis’ Sensory Threads project (people, their health, the local geographic context …)http://socialtapestries.net/sensorythreads/index.html

Gesture and Embodied Interaction workshops at Newcastle and Cambridge http://www.creatorproject.org/partners/129.html

IT-Innovation, a company involved in developing a new business model for a portal in the post-production rendering industries in Soho http://www.it-innovation.soton.ac.uk/

3. Methodology

Gaze on empirical emergent (ontological) properties that have an influential effect on the shape and sustainability of the system we are observing. In practice, this means keeping an eye on the group of actors fore grounded in the study and on the artefacts, discourses and exchanges produced. Our analytical perspective is value creation; how is value created / captured?

This is ongoing research (Cf. ‘future research)

4. Findings: ‘Stable emergents’ in creative ‘value creating systems’ (coarse grained analysis)

Sensory Threads: the ‘Rumbler’ a novel interactive soundscape device

Gesture: a unique combination of skill-sets in the sound/motion capture domain, supported by robust code

IT-Innovation: a potential business model as yet untested

Inter-activity between agents was the way that values associated with creativity or technicality interacted with economic value... (e.g. reputational value)…possible trajectories were identified and tested out, either as thought experiments, shared metal models, or sometimes as rough working prototypes….…‘ephemeral emergents’ were narrowed down to the most promising variant: at this point the transition from ephemeral to stable occurs. …this is the point at which discussions shift from value creation to value capture. (Warren, Fuller et al, 2009)

5. Conclusion (one of many): value creation and value capture…3 types of model..“The first is a model that creates the conditions for creativity and reputation by establishing attractors; typically resources for co-operation. The second is a model that stabilises the emergent properties of the first; typically the creation of codified knowledge.

The third is one that enables the exchange of monetary value for this codified knowledge, and is more recognisable as a business model by investors

(Fuller, Warren et al, 2009)

Question: Where is ‘entrepreneurship’ in these models?

6. Implications: Understanding the emergence (creation) of value

AnalyticalSalient ontological aspects [of] value creating…systems…multiple values… multiple levels.

Empirical Inherent narration of values within system… Artistic, creative, technical, societal, economic…Significance and relative stability of …emergents

Conceptual Conversion of capitals, sequence and interplay over time…anticipation of value gives life…

Practice constantly organise for novelty …cross-over…in anticipation of…value‘EROS’ entrepreneurial processes

(Experiments, Reflexivity, Organising domains, Sensitivity to conditions)

PolicyIdentify causes outside the immediate gaze of … value capture, which are of public and national interest