Rethinking creative industries research: Synthesizing the Creative Class thesis, clustering, and global production network approaches

Abstract

AbstractIdentifying three prevalent approaches—Richard Florida's consumption‐related Creative Class thesis, clustering of the creative industries, and global production networks of these industries—to understand the geography and development of the creative industries in existing literature, this paper reviews the significance and limitations of these approaches. It argues that existing literature treat these approaches “stand alone” from each another, without acknowledging the importance of other actors and forces. Instead, these three dynamics do not function separately, but are interdependent and complementary. It points to a critical agenda for future research, arguing that it is the intersection and synergy between these three dynamics that together shapes the development of the creative industries. This paper calls for further research, first, to examine the interrelationship between the local and the global scales of the creative industries by adopting the Global Production Networks (GPN) approach and, second, to study the association between the consumption‐related urban amenities and the production of the creative industries.