Spill the Beans

As the economy progresses, the creative industries are emerging as ever more important for the economy of a nation, due to their resilience for employment in the face of automation. Among other governments, The Netherlands’ government are spending resources on the creative industries for the benefit of employment. However, many companies in the creative industries remain small. Previous research has concluded that spillovers in the creative industries can contribute to the competiveness of companies within the industries. However, how knowledge in these industries spills over and how SMEs can capture and facilitate these knowledge spillovers is a surprisingly understudied field. This thesis therefore seeks to fill that gap in academic research and does so by developing an own research framework based on prior research conducted on knowledge bases, networks and knowledge diffusion within the creative industries. The research takes a case study approach and focuses on a Dutch digital media company, Elastique, which is active in the Dutch creative industries while also being situated in the media cluster of Hilversum. The thesis seeks to answer the main research question, which asks, "How can a digital technology SME within the media sphere of the Dutch creative industries utilize their respective networks in order to facilitate and capture knowledge that spills over?" by answering the sub-questions which explore the dynamics of the Dutch creative industries, knowledge essential for the media sphere as well as networks and interaction which facilitate knowledge spillovers. The method is carried out mixing qualitative and quantitative data, although the emphasis is on qualitative analysis. The qualitative data consists of a document analysis and four expert interviews. Additionally, a survey interview, which provided both quantitative and qualitative data, was conducted with 18 respondents. The thesis finds that there is a potential for knowledge spillovers in the Dutch creative industries, but to what extent that knowledge is exploited for commercial benefits is still unclear. Furthermore, the results provide insights into what types of knowledge are essential in for digital technology companies. Such knowledge mainly revealed to be synthetic, meaning for example technical knowledge and knowledge that gained through experience.