Applying an innovation cluster framework to a creative industry: The case of screen-based media in Ontario
Charles H Davis
Edward S Rogers Sr Research Chair in Media Management and Entrepreneurship, School of Radio and Television Arts, Rogers Communications Centre, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario Canada
Tijs Creutzberg
HAL Corporation, Ottawa, Ontario Canada
David Arthurs
HAL Corporation, Ottawa, Ontario Canada
PP: 201 - 214
Abstract
The extension of the innovation cluster approach to creative industries is relatively recent.
In this article we discuss the application of a formal cluster benchmarking model to a creative industry, the Ontario screen-based media industry (here defined as the film, television, and interactive digital media [IDM] sectors), the results of which shed insight into the ways that creative and technology- based clusters differ from one another. We discuss five challenges of approaching a creative industry in terms of an innovation cluster:
- Accurately understanding the nature and significance of innovation processes in cultural industries
- Facilitating the linkages, spillovers, and externalities that are believed to be of strategic significance
- Factoring in the cluster's numerous trans-local external linkages
- Innovation policy measures for labor, entrepreneurs, and small firms in media industries
- Identifying cluster-specific implications of actual or potential policy measures for innovation in an industry in which policy influences are widespread.
Keywords
cluster, innovation policy, screen-based media, creative industry, Canada
Article Text
Industry 'clusters' (and analogous concepts referring to geographical concentrations of groups of firms and supporting institutions) represent a key area of interest among innovation and economic development policymakers, and over the past two decades they have come to figure prominently in innovation policies. In most industrialized countries, governments at all levels have implemented programs and policies to strengthen the development and improve the performance of industry clusters. Several factors explain this expansion of cluster approaches. They are an improvement over older sectoral approaches to economic development, but remain sensitive to a jurisdiction's industrial characteristics. Cluster approaches are also attractive to policymakers in local and regional jurisdictions because they address vital local economic interests, providing visibility and saliency in the eyes of local political constituencies. Furthermore, they are attractive to national policymakers because they serve to regionalize national policies, avoiding problems of 'one size fits all' programs. The OECD, a leading advocate of cluster approaches to innovation policy, notes that clusters 'represent a manageable system for governments to implement the NIS [National Innovation System] Framework by complementing horizontal policies with more targeted and customised policies' (OECD 1999, 2002). Despite the many unresolved questions concerning the accurate definition of clusters and the most effective ways to design and execute cluster approaches to innovation policy, cluster-based policies remain very popular (OECD 2008).
Indeed, while cluster policies were originally theorized and popularized in the context of technology-based development, they are now beginning to be applied in non-technology sectors, underscoring their attractiveness to policymakers in a variety of industries. By extending the cluster approach to creative industries, as has the Ontario government, important questions related to innovation, economic growth, and cluster dynamics come to the fore.
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