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‘Start Me Up’: The Challenge of Sustainable Cultural Entrepreneurship for Young Cultural Workers

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Cultural Initiatives for Sustainable Development

Part of the book series: Contributions to Management Science ((MANAGEMENT SC.))

Abstract

Cultural entrepreneurship has been seen as a process through which cultural workers organize activities around culture, motivated by their passion and willingness to create cultural value. This chapter provides an account of the actions that cultural entrepreneurs deploy to satisfy the needs related to developing and sustaining their activities. Based on 120 interviews with cultural workers at an early stage of their entrepreneurial activity, the chapter shows that sustainability is a multifaceted concept consisting of three main dimensions: creative, economic, and social. Individuals consider these different dimensions simultaneously while dealing with three main needs: sense of purpose, networking, and professional development. In so doing, they engage in a varied set of actions aimed at figuring out a personal path to sustainability. The chapter contributes to the understanding of how cultural entrepreneurs manage to establish and sustain an entrepreneurial activity, by experiencing the hurdles related to manage the different and often contradictory aspects of it.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We are aware that our sample is composed predominantly by men. However, this reflects the official data of the regional creative industries (64% males, 36% females—ERVET 2018), and is consistent with a skewed distribution in terms of gender, which has been found to characterize the cultural industries (for example see Bennett and Hennekam 2018).

  2. 2.

    The average of graduated people in Italy is 27.8%, as registered by Eurostat, way under the European average that is 40.3% (Eurostat 2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication and Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

    Fabrizio Montanari & Damiano Razzoli

  2. Department of Economics and Business, School of Social Sciences, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Lorenzo Mizzau

Authors
  1. Fabrizio Montanari
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  2. Lorenzo Mizzau
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  3. Damiano Razzoli
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Correspondence to Fabrizio Montanari .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Studies, Roma Tre University, Roma, Italy

    Paola Demartini , Lucia Marchegiani  & Michela Marchiori ,  & 

  2. Department of Mathematics, Computer Sciences and Economics, University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy

    Giovanni Schiuma

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Montanari, F., Mizzau, L., Razzoli, D. (2021). ‘Start Me Up’: The Challenge of Sustainable Cultural Entrepreneurship for Young Cultural Workers. In: Demartini, P., Marchegiani, L., Marchiori, M., Schiuma, G. (eds) Cultural Initiatives for Sustainable Development. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65687-4_7

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