How do creative industries innovate? A model proposal

ABSTRACT

Creative Industries have been considered as highly innovative sectors. Nevertheless, the research about their innovation process is dispersed and incomplete. In this paper, the existing innovation process literature in the creative sector is reviewed, and a theoretical model for the entire innovation process is proposed. This model is based on themes of ideation, development, diffusion and the impact of external factors. In essence, it explains how innovation occurs and what managerial practices are commonly used. This is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first study exploring proposing a model for the entire process. Based on the proposal, an agenda for future research is presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative industries
• exploration-exploitation
• innovation process
• model proposal
• research agenda

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to the editors, as well as the anonymous reviewer, for the comments on previous drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cristian Granados

Cristian Granados is a PhD student at the University of Barcelona. Before starting his postgraduate studies, he was the Head of Innovation in a Mexican company. His research interests are innovation in creative industries, innovation management and creative cities.

Merce Bernardo

Merce Bernardo is tenured assistant professor at the Department of Business at the University of Barcelona. Her research interests are innovations, management systems and related topics. She is also the author of several papers published in national and international academic journals.

Montserrat Pareja

Montserrat Pareja (PhD in economics) is an associate professor of the Department of Economic Theory at the University of Barcelona. She has coordinated the research projects “Creativity and Knowledge: New Basis for Urban Competitiveness” and “Innovation, Creativity and Culture: Defining the Foundations for a Post-crisis Spain”, both sponsored by the Spanish government. Also, she is a co-leader of the International Summer School in Management of Creativity in an Innovation Society, organised by HEC – Montreal and the University of Barcelona.