Creative industries as hubs of new organizational and business practices

Firms and governments increasingly see creative industries as hubs of managerial innovation and experimentation. The opening essay to this special issue examines the role of creative industries as pioneers and highly visible adopters of new organizational and business practices. The paper next focuses on four themes that are especially salient to this process. The first theme looks at creative industries as celebrity industries that popularize and legitimize organizational and business practices. The second theme examines the lessons that relatively low levels of value chain integration have for other industries that are in the process of value chain transformation. The third theme looks at the creative industries and the rise of the experience economy. The fourth theme argues that historical patterns of employment and self-employment in the creative industries foreshadow many of the issues that are experienced by the wider economy. A discussion of the seven papers appearing this special section concludes this introduction.