Being creative with commerce

This research aims to explore how artists and designers in the Dutch creative industries differ in their attitudes and practices towards the realisation of cultural and financial values. Creative education graduates relatively often become self-employed and at art academies a growing awareness of the importance of entrepreneurship for a career in the creative industries can be observed. In the Dutch creative industries a large number of artists and designers are active as entrepreneurs. Standard definitions of entrepreneurship do not provide sufficient insight into the actual practices of entrepreneurs in the creative industries. The value-based approach to economics, developed by Prof. Dr. Arjo Klamer, is presented as an alternative to standard economic theory. This approach assumes that financial values are instrumental to the realisation of personal, social, societal and cultural values. Furthermore these values are realised in the oikos, social, cultural, governance and market spheres. Seen from this perspective cultural entrepreneurship is defined as the realisation of both cultural and financial values. For the purposes of this research 8 semi-structured interviews with recent art graduates from the Willem de Kooning academy in Rotterdam and 8 semi-structured in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs in the Dutch creative industries were conducted. The expectations that graduates have of an entrepreneurial career in the creative industries are linked to the experiences of the entrepreneurs in the creative industries. All of the respondents are committed to the creative process and see entrepreneurship essentially as an instrument to realise cultural values. This research finds that the practices of entrepreneurs in the creative industries go beyond the market and governance sphere. Their entrepreneurship mainly happens outside of the market sphere and is focussed on the social and cultural sphere. Cultural values are realised in social networks within the social and cultural sphere. The willingness to contribute to social and cultural goods, such as art and design, in the social and cultural sphere seems to be a prerequisite for the realisation of values in the market sphere.