Supporting creative business: the Cultural Enterprise Office and its clients

The Cultural Enterprise Office (CEO) was established in 2002. It is supported by Creative Scotland, Aberdeen City Council, Dundee City Council, The City of Edinburgh Council and Glasgow City Council and its services are delivered in partnership with the Business Gateway network. The CEO undertakes a wide range of activities in support of cultural micro-businesses. In line with the EU's definition, 'Micro enterprises are defined as enterprises which employ fewer than 10 people and whose annual turnover or annual balance sheet total does not exceed 2 million euro'. The areas it covers - using specialist advisers - are: digital development, equalities, finance, taxation, human resources, legal affairs, press and publicity, property, marketing and retail. These services are provided for the following creative sectors: community arts, dance, design, fashion and textiles, film, games and apps, literature, music, performance, product design and photography, screen industries and animation, TV and digital media and visual arts.

In recognition of the value that this project will contribute, the CEO's chair and director have offered unrestricted access for research. The organisation wishes to reflect on a decade's work and to make its exceptionally rich database of relations with a wide range of clients across a gamut of cultural practices available for analysis with a view to increasing the CEO's effectiveness and its understanding of the tacit and implicit knowledge that is used in dealing with clients. The research team will offer real time analysis of interactions between clients and the CEO's executive and advisory teams to assess areas of success and those that might be improved. The research will therefore constitute an unprecedented analysis of the workings of a cultural support body and how it engages in knowledge exchange in the creative economy. At the same time, because the research will add very significant new analysis to the CEO's knowledge base, it also exemplifies how academics can engage in highly constructive KE with a cultural support body.

Through the methods outlined below, this study will aim to understand the funding and policy environment in which the CEO operates and how this is translated into its internal imperatives and how these in turn shape relations with clients. The research team will also seek to understand how clients approach the CEO for advice, how this relates to other sources of advice that they might pursue, and how - through case studies - that advice shapes (or does not shape) the development of cultural enterprises. This project constitutes an exceptional and timely opportunity to undertake a full-scale case study that scrutinises how contemporary policy is understood and implemented institutionally and organisationally by a publicly funded cultural agency.

The research will examine the objectives pursued by the CEO; how it fulfils its objectives; and ask what strategic lessons may be drawn from its overall experience. The principal data-gathering techniques include the assessment of documents and texts, analyses of a rich holding of data on clients, archival research, and interviews with board members, staff, advisers, clients and other key policy actors, to all of whom the project team are confident of achieving excellent access. The PI (Schlesinger) and Co-I (Selfe) bring multi-disciplinary expertise in sociological, historical, archival, creative economy and policy analysis.

Who will benefit?
Non-academic beneficiaries will include the Scottish and UK Governments, policy-makers, and agencies and other support bodies concerned with culture broadly understood at devolved, UK and international levels. In addition, the project is intended to benefit creative micro-businesses.

How will they benefit?
By improving knowledge exchange, the proposed study will increase the effectiveness of public policy and thus help foster an improved economic performance on the part of cultural enterprises. While there is considerable awareness of the problems facing SMEs, the lack of sustainability of cultural micro-businesses has not to date been a pressing concern for policy-makers and support bodies in the UK. The CEO has now raised this as a new policy issue in Scotland. The research will track the impact of the ensuing debate and produce relevant evidence.

More generally, knowledge generated about the experience and performance of the CEO will contribute towards a more informed understanding of how public agendas for support of creative industries can best be implemented.

Policy-makers will benefit from enhanced knowledge about the efficacy of organisational cultures and practices within public bodies dedicated to cultural enterprise, the effectiveness of specific support initiatives, as well as the strategic role that frameworks of public support can play. Improved knowledge in these areas is expected to contribute to a more informed, evidence-based approach to the design of strategies intended to support cultural enterprises at regional, national and international level. By contributing to improved knowledge exchange, the project aims to foster a strengthened policy environment, and thus to improve the ability of cultural businesses to achieve creative and commercial success.

How will engagement and benefit be ensured?
The project team will work in partnership with the CEO to establish contact and forge new links with the wide range of cultural businesses that come within its orbit. Along with the policy-making and advisory bodies to which the CEO relates (the Scottish Government, Creative Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and others) the project aims to create a network of stakeholders. Regular communication and exchange will be conducted. The project team will foster dialogue with target users via participation in consultations and public debate during the research period. Seminars held at the University of Glasgow's Centre for Cultural Policy Research and at the new AHRC-funded Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy (CREATe), which is headquartered at Glasgow University, will be used to ensure productive engagement with target users. Engagement will also be fostered through targeted attendance at conferences and industry meetings, and an End of Project symposium. This event will bring together policy makers, support agencies, creatives and academics and also have an international dimension. Further benefit will result from the publication of the project's findings for the range of interested audiences following its conclusion.