Creative Industries in Greece

An Empirical Analysis from the Region of Epirus

Alina Hyz, Kostas Karamanis

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9783319402970
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319402987
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Imprenditoria
• Index: Business

Analyzing the role of creative industries, this book explores regional development within the economic cycle. Using the Greek region of Epirus as an in-depth case study, the authors identify the main opportunities for the region's development as well as the necessary conditions and constraints to achieve future economic growth. The last decade has seen creative industries receive growing attention from researchers, leading to an increasing body of analysis, studies and statistics. Despite this, they remain to be poorly understood and thus underestimated by many societies and policy makers, including those in the Greek economy. Creative Industries in Greece provides a close study of this sector and disseminates its best practices to examine its strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities. 

© The Author(s) 2016

Alina Hyz and Kostas KaramanisCreative Industries in Greece10.1007/978-3-319-40298-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Theoretical Overview

Alina Hyz¹ and Kostas Karamanis²

(1)

Piraeus University of Applied Sciences, Egaleo, Greece

(2)

Technological Educational Institute of Epirus, Arta, Greece

Abstract

This chapter is the comprehensive analysis of the views presented in the bibliography and provides a framework for substantive research presented in the subsequent chapters. Thus, the chapter tries to answer the following research questions: how are “creative industries” currently being defined, which are the main differences between creative and traditional industries, which are the most important political fields in the creative economy and who are their primary stakeholders. This chapter is also trying to analyse the concept of entrepreneurship in the creative industries and those characteristics of creative entrepreneurs which probably distinguish them from others sectors of activities. Which is the new model of work in the frame of this sector, what is the role of cultural diffusion and which are the main barriers to the future development of the creative and cultural industries’ sector are three other questions for which we will try to find an answer in this chapter.

Keywords

Creative and cultural industriesTheoretical framework

End Abstract

The creative industries represent one of the most important areas of the twenty-first century’s global economy. Since the 1990s, they have been heralded as one of the fastest growing industry sectors and are now seen as central to the success of most developing and advanced economies (Colette 2007). The creative industries have become a priority economic sector for governments worldwide (Bhatiasevi and Dutot 2014; Cunningham 2005; Du Gay and Pryke 2002; Caves 2000). Globalization of economy implies that new and more complex patterns of flows of goods, services, ideas and information are emerging. As the result of these economic changes the new nature of competition in business is not only based on low costs and prices, but is also driven by global quality standard, flexibility, design, ideas and networking. Therefore, the new patterns of competition are marked by knowledge, skills, attitude and technology-based competitive advantages (Agarwal and Thiel 2014; Ketikidis et al. 2013; Filho et al. 2012; Berkhout et al. 2011; Ratten et al. 2007). The reasons for this are as follows (Barra and Colette 2007):

• The sector is central to everyday life, and is “all around us: the shoes and clothes we wear, the buildings we live and work in, the computer software we use for business and pleasure, the music we listen to, the books and TV programmes we enjoy at leisure”.
• The globalization of communications networks and the rapid advance of digital technologies have propelled growth in the creative industries. For example, rapid growth rates have been documented in the UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, among others.
• The variety of industries that make up the creative sector are connected, either directly or indirectly, to the information, communication and entertainment sectors of the economy, and are typically very receptive to foreign collaborations. Hence, there is huge potential for exports, international partnerships and foreign direct investment. Finally, by their nature, the creative industries are constantly absorbing new technologies, processes and management expertise to add value to the content of their outputs. As a result, there is a large business opportunity, regarding sales, knowledge and technology transfer, to be exploited.

Since the mid-1990s, the European Union (EU) has effectively treated the field as one that provides jobs and integration. The discussion on the creative industries in the EU is shaped by the aims of the “Lisbon Strategy”, which are to transform the EU into the “most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”. Knowledge and innovation are considered the driving forces of sustainable growth. The i2010 initiative will contribute to making Europe more attractive for investments and innovation in knowledge-based products and services (Weckerle et al. 2008). The EU Commission is also currently positioning itself with a study (2006) on the economic significance of the creative sector and aims to follow up on prevailing political strategies with specific priorities and profiles. What are the creative industries? What do they contain? Let try to define this term.

1.1 Defining the Creative Industries

There are some different definitions of the “creative industries” in use around the world. Thus, a generally and widely accepted definition is unavailable, and studies on creative industries make use of several different approaches towards the topic. Which approach is used depends on the historical context, the object of investigation or the specific questions to be answered. Eventually, the borders set by the availability of data and measurability, in general, might play a role as well. The scientific and non-scientific literature most frequently use the following terms (Puchta et al. 2010):

• Creative Economy
• Creative Sector
• Creative Industries
• Creative Class
• Creative Capital/Creative Capital Theory
• Copyright Industries
• ICT-Economy (ICT: information and communications technology)
• Content-Economy, Media-Economy
• Cultural Industries
• Cultural Industries Cluster
• Cultural Goods

A characteristic of the Continental-European approach is the basic division of the cultural and creative sector into three areas of a 3-sector model, which dates back to the first bulletin in 2003 on the cultural economies in Switzerland (Puchta et al. 2010):

• Private sector, targeted on making profits (for example music business, art market, literature market, film industries, media, information industry, etc.)
• Public sector (for example museums, theatre, opera, etc.)
• Intermediate, charitable sector (for example charitable organizations, unions and associations, foundations, etc.)

Du Gay and Pryke (2002) have usefully broken down the question of whether there has been a culturalization of economic life into three component elements:

• Arguments that the management of culture has become the key to improving organizational performance, particularly when it can align organizational goals to feelings of self-realization among those working within the organization.
• The observation that economic processes inevitably possess a cultural dimension, particularly with the growth of the services sector, where economic transactions are often more directly related to interpersonal relations and communicative practice.
• The rise of the creative industries as employers of labour and sources of new wealth, and the adoption of practices throughout the economy that have their genesis in these industries.

Often referred to as the “creative economy”, the creative industries represent a set of interlocking, knowledge-intensive industry sectors focusing on the creation and exploitation of intellectual property (DCMS 2001). Such industries include, but not exclusively so, the following sectors: arts and crafts; designer fashion; film, theatre and the performing arts; advertising; architecture and design; publishing; broadcast media and recorded music. Interestingly, software development, computer services, digital media, communications and a range of activities within the heritage sector also feature strongly within the creative industries, resulting in an extremely broad economic spectrum which potentially overlaps with the culture, lifestyle and non-profit sectors (Colette 2007; British Council 2003; Flew 2002).

According to the study of Rae (2007), the creative industries, a term which gained prominence from the work of the UK’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) (DCMS 1998), are defined much more broadly than the limited connotations of highbrow culture formerly embodied in “the arts”. The creative industries are classified by the DCMS to include subsectors, from fine and applied art, design, dance and entertainment, to advertising, publishing, media, architecture, leisure software and fashion design. The creative economy embraces the entire process from creating the artefact to its marketing, retailing and consumption, as the DCMS “production chain” concept recognized (DCMS 2004). This creative economy is synergistic, requiring the involvement of many agents, some large and capital-intensive, some small and skill-expert in its productive processes. Individual creative workers have been self-employed independents, for whom staying in work is a major concern (Baines and Robson 2001). Any cultural production, be it music or video recording, computer game or theatrical play, requires the involvement of a group of independent enterprises acting interdependently in complex and specialized ways. The self-employed person selling their ideas, talent and skills has to join forces with production and distribution companies in a shared enterprise. The existence of these complex and tightly wrought networks of workers and enterprises in the cultural economy is essential, giving rise to the pervasive concept of the cultural cluster (Scott 1999).

For many, the creative industries represent a variegated notion for describing a rising economic sector, the dynamics of industrial collaboration as well as the changing landscape of the employment market. The rise of the creative sector concurrently underscores the deep-seated transformation of the economic domain from a manufacturing-bas...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Theoretical Overview
• 2. Benchmarking of Sectors and the Environment
• 3. Epirus: Introducing the Region
• 4. Presentation of Cultural and Creative Industries in the Region of Epirus
• 5. Critical Assessment of the Cultural and Creative Industries in the Region of Epirus
• 6. Conclusions and Recommendations for Developing the Cultural and Creative Industries in the Region of Epirus
• Backmatter