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Innovation and Creative Services

The chapter appears in an International handbook edited by two of the world’s leading innovation academics. The handbook contains contributions from outstanding scholars in the field of innovation and services. Chapters were peer reviewed and evaluated prior to selection for inclusion in a volume that was designed to present the state-of-the-art in its field.

The chapter foregrounds the important and growing contribution of the creative industries to economic output, the services-industrial innovation environment, and broader quality of life for citizens in developed economies. The creative industries are unpacked via the application of services theory and innovation lenses, and the analysis focuses inter alia on the extent to which the creative industries resemble or differ from other sectors of the services industries. The three key contributions of the chapter reside in: first, classifying the different forms of innovation that are underway in the creative industries, and excavating the management and broader organisation of innovation here; second, highlighting the extent and implications of co-creation and co-production (involving both network partners and users); and third, establishing requirements for policies and initiatives that are more adequately configured to support innovation (in its many forms) in the creative sector.

The chapter constitutes an early attempt to understand the nature of innovation in the creative industries, and to undertake formal analysis via the application of theory derived in relation to services activities more broadly. Combining qualitative and quantitative evidence, it sets-out a novel reconceptualization of innovation that maps the latter across a range of (fifteen) business processes undertaken by a spectrum of creative firms. The chapter also presents a detailed agenda for further research, one that is already shaping creative economy studies and the design of improved metrics for the creative industries activities.