PRACTICAL TOOLS FOR BALANCING CREATIVE WORKERS’ DILEMMAS

Creative industries (CI) such as architecture, (graphic) design, film, media, multimedia or advertising are important motors of employment, in particular in metropolitan areas. A high proportion of workers in these sectors is self- employed, many of them working under difficult income and working conditions. The expansion of self-employed forms of work is on the one hand due to the need for autonomy and on the other hand owing to the lack of direct- employment opportunities. Modest incomes are often the other side of artistic ambitions or alternative working and life styles. Our own research and comparable analyses come to diagnoses of ambivalent working patterns in the CI "between privilege and precarisation". Owing to the great pressure of people joining the occupations, little in the structural labour-market situation is likely to change in the near future. Micro-businesses in the CI are above all called on to improve their situation themselves. Expectations at the macro level are subdued, as interest-group representation in the CI is fragmented. Promising routes to "more sustainable" work in the CI are therefore division-of-labour forms of organisation at the meso level, which for the self-employed are primarily in flexible forms of cooperation and (project) networks. But standard economic advice can hardly offer suitable support for the very heterogeneous enterprises that are often anchored in sub-cultures, and consultancy oriented on company growth is often insufficient, because expansion and taking on staff is only rarely aimed for. In contrast to this, (informal) networks and cooperation are of central importance for those who are otherwise "solo self-employed". What specific advantages and disadvantages are involved in what network constellations, on the other hand, is often unclear. Based on the findings that the proportionally large group of self-employed and micro-enterprises is confronted with difficult working conditions, what is now to be investigated in a more differentiated way is how problems can be dealt with productively by those concerned themselves, in order subsequently to develop suitable support instruments. Both academic and the practical output of this project make a contribution to filling this gap; the focus is on enterprise strategy in general and network and cooperation models in particular. The project builds on our own basic research findings. Through in-depth, qualitative investigations of the target group of self-employed / micro- enterprises in CI, material will be compiled and pilot applications developed in order to support players in decisions relating to conflicts of aims: How can the balancing of contradictory demands (dilemmas) be achieved? What networks are advantageous and when? The empirical findings are the basis for the derivation of praxis- relevant action and solution scenarios for the target groups. Using freely accessible internet-based tools such as "Collection of Good Practice Models", "Self-Assessment Tool" and a "Dilemma Management" handbook, the research findings will be transferred to the concerned and studied groups in order to produce learning effects there. The cooperation with a Vienna enterprise network of the creative industries as a "test bed" ensures the integration of the requirements of the practitioners as well as improves the transfer of the research findings to those affected.