Managing Creativity and Competitive Advantage in Smes : Examining Creative, New Media Firms

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) maymaximize their competitive advantage by managing their creative resourcesaccording to the model offered by resource-based theorists.Data from tworesearch projects is presented to identify the issues for small businessmanagers operating in the creative sector of the northwest ofEngland.Twenty-three semi-structured interviews with owner-managers wereconducted, and twenty SMEs interested in "new media" wereobserved.Firms were drawn from a range of sub-sectors including fashion,popular music, and publishing. The study reveals that SMEs in the new media sub-sector varied widely intheir definitions of creativity and that most managerial approaches sought toorganize and control creativity. Rather than giving employees creative freedomin completing projects, managers and creative directors kept all creativeefforts task-oriented and carefully scheduled.Creativity became lesscentral and tended to manifest managerial control as firmsexpanded.Creativity, then, is best conceptualized, not as a resourcefreely available in the marketplace, but as an integral, internal humanresource.In order to tap that resource, firms must move beyond the notionthat creativity is easy to define and capable of being "brought in"when necessary. (SAA)