What is an Entrepreneur? What is a Cultural Entrepreneur? Am I an Entrepreneur or could I be considered a Cultural Entrepreneur? Well let’s start with just the entrepreneur as oppose to the cultural entrepreneur. The dictionary definition of an entrepreneur is a person who organises and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. So then what is a cultural entrepreneur, what makes a cultural entrepreneur different from a ‘normal’ entrepreneur?

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 In order to look at what defines a cultural entrepreneur we need to first take a look at what we might consider are the attributes of entrepreneurs in the business world.  

It is difficult to be definitive of the particular characteristics that mark out an entrepreneur. Obvious examples of entrepreneurs will spring to mind; Richard Branson, James Dyson, Anita Roddick. They have a well-defined PR and self-promotion skills that make them very visible. But what makes them, and other less well-known individuals, achieve the high levels of success and wealth. We will see that they do have certain traits and all entrepreneurs will possess some of these to a greater or lesser degree. One of their traits is that they recognise their strengths and have considerable self-confidence but also are aware of the skills that they may be short of and ensure that they acquire those skills from elsewhere. They are driven people, having clear goals and the ability to plan to achieve. They may have a brilliant idea themselves, find one or have one presented to them. Their talent is then to act as the catalyst in turning the idea into a successful venture.  

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An introduction to “Entrepreneurship” 

In business there is a difference between someone that manages the business and someone that can lead it (Lee, 2006:81), and a leader with a visionary outlook is seen to encompass an “Entrepreneurial flair.”

So what exactly is the meaning of the word “entrepreneur” and what can be described as “entrepreneurship?”

Like many definitions there is not one fixed term; David Rae (2007) describes an entrepreneur as a person who acts in an enterprising way, identifying and creating opportunities through business ventures (3-5). Viewing entrepreneurship as the “subject” of entrepreneurs, “encompassing both the academic knowledge and practical skills used to be an entrepreneur. John Legge and Kevin Hindle (2004), discuss an entrepreneur as one who is an enterprise creator and agent of change, a builder of teams and organisations providing leadership (15). While David Kirby (2003) author of “Entrepreneurship,” describes the term as those who are visionaries seeing opportunities and taking action.

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Entrepreneurial Characteristics
There are many characteristics of an entrepreneur that bring together common factors helping to make them successful but there are no hard and fast rules to describe who an entrepreneur may be.

They come in many different shapes and sizes. No two entrepreneurs seem to be the same so that it is very difficult to pin down exactly who is an entrepreneur. Some are extroverts and some are introverts, some have a family history of entrepreneurs whilst others do not, some start with poverty when others begin with wealth, some are young and some are old, some are men and some are women. (Bolton & Thompson)

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Cultural Entrepreneurship Introduction

‘Cultural entrepreneurs’ have made significant contributions to not only the creative and cultural sector but in the main also to the current vitality and health of the
UK’s economic growth, thus gaining an increased amount of recognition in recent years (Wilson and Stokes 2002:37). Not only do ‘cultural entrepreneurs’  according to Leadbeater and Oakley assist in new job creation and the promotion of  social cohesion they provide a new model of creative production which has been made possible through advances in technology mainly concerning the internet and the use of I.T. (Wilson  and Stokes 2002:37). This sounds great but we need to grasp the concept of a cultural entrepreneur, therefore we must first understand the term entrepreneurship. 

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What makes a cultural entrepreneur? First, we should clarify the characteristics of entrepreneurship. The popular press and television programmes such as Dragon’s Den usually define it as starting new business ventures. Fillis and Rentschler portray it as “creating value…by bringing together unique combinations of public and private resources to exploit economic, social or cultural opportunities”¹ According to them, the essential capabilities of entrepreneurship are:

• innovation
• risk-taking
• pro-activeness

Cultural entrepreneurs are people who work in the creative and cultural industries and establish an enterprise focusing on media, design, music, film, fashion or other related sectors. But what distinguishes cultural entrepreneurs from the classic entrepreneurial model?
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1. Fillis, I. and Rentschler, R. (2006) Creative Marketing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. p10 [↩]

Over the next weeks this blog will have multiple authors from the MA Media Enterprise Course¹. Students on the Cultural Entrepreneurship module² have to write a profile about an entrepreneur.

 Their posts should start appearing here very soon.

1. at Birmingham City University [↩]
2. there are about 20 of them [↩]

You’ll find plenty of blogs listed throughout this site but a colleague of mine at Birmingham City University has a particularly useful one charting her progress as she goes about her job researching in this area.

Her ‘main’ blog, Creative Enterprise is worth a read as is her ‘personal’ blog.