imagine .. Creative Industries Research
imagine .. Creative Industries and Institutions conducts research and public debate on creativity, cities, communities, creative individuals and industries, and cultural organisations and institutions.
About Us
imagine .. Creative Industries and Institutions explores creativity, cities and communities; creative individuals, businesses and industries; and cultural organisations and institutions. Our work aims to expand the visibility and impact of CBS publications in these areas on an international scale.
We are anchored at the Department of Organization (IOA) and collaborate across CBS with colleagues at the Department of Marketing (MARKTG), Management, Politics and Philosophy (MPP), and Management, Society and Communication (MSC). Our approach is multidisciplinary and spans organisation theory, the sociology of culture, urban governance and cultural economics.
Purpose and profile
Our research examines how cities, creative industries and cultural institutions are organised and how they, in turn, organise others. We aim to understand how these actors sustain civic creativity, democratic societies and thriving local communities, and how they contribute to solving business and societal challenges.
Our work focuses on creativity, cultural economy, creative industries and cities as drivers for addressing environmental problems such as climate change and urban sustainability. We also examine complex social issues that are under-explored in creative-industries contexts, including invisibilities, inequalities and injustice.
We aim to advance methodologies that expand empirical analysis and strengthen theory building within creative industries and institutions in Danish, Nordic and international contexts.
Advisory Board
Dr Howard S. Becker
Emeritus Professor
E-mail: hsbecker@earthlink.net
Can-Seng Ooi
Professor
University of Tasmania
Website
Mukti Khaire
Associate Professor
Entrepreneurial Management, Harvard Business School
Tel.: 001-617-496-4621
E-mail: mkhaire@hbs.edu
Prof Annette Pritchard
Professor of Tourism, Director of Welsh Centre for Tourism Research
Cardiff Metropolitan University
E-mail: apritchard@cardiffmet.ac.uk
Partners
imagine .. aims to cooperate closely with those working in the creative industries. The centre thus develops active relationships with companies and organisations, through f.eks. joint conferences, initiating research projects and providing access to research and knowledge within the creative industries.
Our current research partners are:
Research industry partners:
- Zentropa Production
- Nimbus Film
- Regner Grasten Filmproduktion ApS
- The Danish Film Institute
- Danish Producer's Association
- DR
- Copenhagen Records
- DDC - Dansk Design Center
- The Danish Royal Theater
- Experimentarium
- Scandinavian Branding
- CoffeeMind
- VisitDenmark
- Claus Meyer
- Kitchen Collective
- Sweet Sneak
- Creative Business Cup
- Gramex
Research academic partners:
Degree programmes
Members of the imagine .. Creative Industries Research Centre are involved in the teaching activities listed below.
Bachelor's programme
BSc in Business Administration and Service Management
The BSc in Business Administration and Service Management is an international programme focused on the service industry. It combines business economic disciplines and methods with themes such as the hospitality industry, cultural institutions and attractions, leisure and sports organisations, as well as the travel and transport industry. Three concentrations are offered: tourism and hospitality, arts and culture and service innovation.
Research
Fields of Research (Panel content)
Creativity vs. Commerce
The phrase “creative industries” highlights the connection between culture and economy. A key issue in these industries is how symbolic and material production, creativity and commerce are coordinated. Many creative industries are shaped by the “double consumer” bind: goods and services are produced for targeted consumers but financed by sponsors who often influence the content they support. Creative industries therefore must meet the needs of both groups.
These dynamics bring forces of creativity and constraint into the production of creative goods and services. They also distribute different kinds of power across the industry. We examine the economic and social processes and norms that underpin this organisation, how these shape the final products, and how these products align with consumer demand.
Design in Business
Design practices also influence business areas outside creative industries in a narrow sense. These practices use creative resources systematically to develop objects, artefacts, systems and services. In this way, design becomes a set of tools that companies can use to drive innovation, allowing more industries to become increasingly creative.
This raises questions about how these tools are used, how design is integrated with other business functions and what strategies companies can adopt as part of the knowledge economy.
Creative vs. “Humdrum”
Creative industries rely on complex teams of personnel with different skills, coordinating their work over time to produce goods and services of great variety. They are often structured around a distinction between personnel engaged in “creative effort” and those working in “humdrum commerce”.
Each creative industry forms its own social world, shaped by individual and institutional actors whose collaboration produces the industry’s output. These networks may operate locally or across borders. Industries also vary in scale: some are dominated by multinational corporations, others by small and fragmented firms, while some combine large and small institutions across urban regions.
Global Networks
Global networks are central to our work. These concern both the geographical segmentation of creative industries and the connections between places, industries and people across centres and peripheries linked by global distribution and market research systems.
We focus on flows of knowledge and information, as well as labour and production processes. Each creative industry constitutes a field of organisations, markets and networks, yet industries are often linked through celebrities who bridge separate fields such as film, publishing, fashion, toys and games.
Different creative industries have distinct network geographies, often located in global cities. Fashion design, for example, is centred in Paris, with London, Milan and New York as competing hubs.
Growing Importance of Asia
Large parts of garment manufacturing are centred in East Asia, where business actors from Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan play pivotal intermediary roles. Asian creative industries are also becoming global forces in generating creative products—for example, the Bollywood and Hong Kong film industries, or Japanese electronics, design and anime.
When mapping transnational creative industries, we therefore pay attention to both centres and peripheries.
Academic Profile (Panel content)
Research carried out in imagine .. is:
- Cross-disciplinary, bringing together researchers from economics, sociology, economic geography, gender studies, linguistics, social anthropology and strategic design
- Multi-theoretical, drawing on critical analyses within organisation, management, aesthetics, cultural studies, design, globalisation, history of ideas, marketing, media, psychology, semiotics and regional or urban development
- Pluralistic in methodology, using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, including statistical and textual analysis, in-depth interviews, long-term participant observation and consumer surveys
- Cross-country comparative, spanning Scandinavia, Europe and global contexts, with ongoing projects comparing Asian countries (particularly China, Hong Kong and Japan), Europe, India and the US
imagine .. brings together scholars based in different departments at Copenhagen Business School. This creates a broad range of disciplinary interests that inform the analysis and understanding of creative industries.
Some researchers examine how creative industries resemble or diverge from other industries in organisational form, and how notions of “creativity” influence interaction and output within organisations.
Others focus on the role of design in product marketing. Their work explores how design is incorporated into production processes and which tensions arise between design functions and other areas of an organisation.
Further research investigates the commodity chains formed around creative products. This includes studying how production processes connect to the distribution, marketing and consumption of fashion, art or film, and how such products link people across the world through global networks.
Strategic Objectives (Panel content)
- imagine .. members study creative industries at firm and inter-firm levels, as well as national and international levels, with attention to transnational connections and global networks.
- The centre supports both conceptual and applied research, coordinates ongoing projects and stimulates new research initiatives.
- imagine .. members explore, develop, confront and combine different methods when addressing shared research questions outlined in the centre’s working plan. In doing so, they contribute to building a framework for analysing the scope and comparing the explanatory merits of different methodological approaches.
- imagine .. members engage with national and international business communities, as well as with policymakers.
- The centre aims to train future researchers for careers in universities, corporations and the public sector.
- The centre provides high-level guidance and supervision for local and visiting doctoral students, and contributes to doctoral courses and training activities within its academic field.
- The centre prioritises an international study environment by encouraging the continuous presence of foreign research students and senior researchers, and by maintaining strong interaction with leading international research training programmes in the field.
- The centre aims to create a forum for knowledge sharing and to encourage publication of research activities in internationally refereed journals and books.
- The centre is developing a special relationship with global creative industries and networks to strengthen related activities at Copenhagen Business School.
Publications (Panel content)
The list below consists of publications that are relevant to imagine .. For further information on the researchers' publications, please visit their individual websites at ‘Staff’ or search Research@CBS.
Books and contributions to books 2005–2019 (PDF)
Papers and reports 2005–2019 (PDF)
Journals 2005–2019 (PDF)
Past Projects (Panel content)
Cre8tv.eu (2013–2016)
Cre8tv.eu was supported by a grant from the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission (Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities). The project was multi-partner and multi-disciplinary, aiming to uncover the significance of creativity and cultural and creative industries in Europe and beyond.
The Danish Copyright Industries: A Mapping and Discussion (2008–2010)
Creative Encounters (2007–2011)
Creative Encounters examined the socio-economic organisation of creative industries in a global context. The project focused on three sectors of particular relevance in Denmark:
(a) fashion and luxury,
(b) film and media, and
(c) place branding, art and culture.
The aim was to understand the complex interplay between economic and cultural forces shaping work practices, professions, organisations and industries. The project engaged in knowledge-producing partnerships with business and educational organisations in Denmark and abroad.
The Socioeconomic Profile of the Creative Class (2007)
Rammebetingelser for Københavns Kreative Erhverv (2006)
Kortlægning af den Danske Ophavsretøkonomi (2006)
Kunst, kompetence og konkurrenceevne i den danske oplevelsesøkonomi (2005–2010)
As part of the Tuborg Foundation’s 75th anniversary, the Foundation and Copenhagen Business School initiated research on art, competence and competitiveness in the Danish experience economy. The Foundation granted DKK 6.2 million for the project, which included a survey of the experience economy, an analysis of growth barriers and the development of future management tools.
The project was carried out in close cooperation with industry and conducted by CBS research center Imagine .. Creative Industries Research.
CINEMA Project (2005–2008)
“CINEMA – Organising and Managing Creative Enterprises” examined the film industry and the organisation of filmmaking, focusing on how filmmakers combine creativity with commercial interests. The project involved Jesper Strandgaard, Per Darmer, Chris Mathieu, Sara Malou Strandvad (PhD student) and Jesper Thomas Schlamovitz (PhD student).
Partners included: Det Danske Filminstitut, Danske Filmskole, Dansk Instruktør Forening, Nordisk Film, Zentropa, Nimbus Film and Reiner Grasten Film.
Capital Meets Creativity (2005–2006)
This collaboration involved the Center for Intellectual Property Studies (CIP), Film i Väst, Lillehammer Kunnskapspark, Lillehammer University College, Copenhagen Business School (CBS), IceTec and Cimfunds.
The project developed an educational tool as part of the broader “Capital Meets Creativity” initiative, which addressed challenges in capitalising on creative work and attracting investment to creative industries.
Research partners included all participating institutions.
Technology, Talent and Tolerance in European Cities (2005–2007)
This project examined how regions across the UK and Europe perform within the knowledge-based economy. It analysed how quality of place—amenities, lifestyle and environmental quality—affects a region’s ability to attract talent and support knowledge-based industries.
The project explored relationships between talent, technology, creativity and diversity in city-regions across the UK, Europe and North America. It provided new insights into location decisions, the role of higher education and the importance of immigration, settlement, arts and creativity.
Hovedstadens Kreative Kapital / Den Kreative Klasse kortlægges i Danmark (2005–2006)
This project examined the relevance and applicability of the “Creative Class” concept in Denmark. It explored how to map the Creative Class and assessed whether the concept is meaningful in a Danish context.
Research partners included: Momsfondet; University of Lund (Sweden); University of Oslo (Norway); University of Toronto (Canada); STEP group (Oslo, Norway); University of Cardiff (Wales); University of Bonn (Germany); University of Utrecht (The Netherlands); and Professor Markku Sotarauta (University of Tampere, Finland).